Developing the Behavioral Competences of the Project Managers, Experiences in Europe

When projects become more complex and also effected by globalization, diversity in project teams becomes more and more influencing, with project team members coming from different speciality fields and different cultural backgrounds. It is a challenge for the project managers to lead and manage the diversity of the people in project teams. Now when professional project management approach is growing continuously, there is an increasing need for the development of project managers' leadership and social abilities, the behavioural competences. In the past few decades, the definitions and assessments concerning project managers' technical PM competences-time, cost, resources management etc.-have been well developed and widely used. The rising awareness of the importance of soft skills and soft facts e.g. behavioral competences for project success has been the reason of developing this paper. Now when IPMA's Competence Baseline Version 3.0 (ICB 3.0) provides the definitions of the behavioural com-petence elements of project managers, it is important for the managers to have a tool to measure and develop their behavioural abilities([1]). This paper will introduce two development tools: Peili Behavioural Profile and Peili Behavioural/Leadership Assessment. These tools as part of training have been successfully used in Europe to develop the behavioural competences of project managers.