Competency Assessment for State Highway Agency Project Managers
Abstract
Project Managers (PMs) play a key role in the successful completion and smooth delivery
of construction projects. PM competencies have been studied thoroughly over the past few decades
to identify the skills, traits, and knowledge areas that are essential for PMs. This research often
focused on two types of skills; “hard” and “soft” where hard skills include technical knowledge
and skills while soft skills often include leadership style and personal traits.
This extensive body of knowledge, however, was lacking the focus on PMs of
transportation construction and of PMs that worked in the public sector, such as State Highway
Agency (SHA) PMs. Therefore, this research aimed on identifying the competencies that are
essential for SHA PMs generally and for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT)
specifically. It also aimed to relate this research, through a practical application, to the industry
professional to ensure its usability.
Many organizations have used this body of knowledge to create assessments that would
allow industry professionals to reap the benefits of the research. Similarly, the researcher wanted
to create an assessment that was tailored to SHA PMs, is easy to use and provides outputs that are
relevant and useful for SHA PMs.
To achieve these goals the researcher collaborated with six WisDOT professionals and two
academic professionals from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) who gave
regular feedback and suggestions to the researcher. The following eight steps were followed to
reach the research objectives:
1. Clearly defining the job description of PMs
2. Compiling a comprehensive list of competencies needed for SHA PMs: 55 essential
competencies were identified based on previous literature as well as expert opinion
3. Classifying the competencies into relevant categories: the competencies were classified
into five categories: Project Management Knowledge and Experience, Leadership, DOT
Operational Knowledge and Experience, Industry Knowledge and Experience, and
Cognitive/Personal Effectiveness
4. Defining each of the categories and competencies that eliminates the room for
interpretation by people filling in the assessment
5. Creating a set of questions for each competency to make the assessment quantitative and
objective: 145 questions were created to ensure that the assessment is quantitative and
objective (Combine these two sentences. Redundant.)
6. Collecting data point to calculate the relative weights of the competencies in the assessment
and to identify benchmarks: 90 data points were collected from 12 states
7. Performing weights calculations and identifying benchmarks for overall scores as well as
for each category within the assessment: the top 20 competencies in the assessment were
all from the following three categories: Project Management Knowledge and Experience,
Leadership and Cognitive/Personal Effectiveness. The benchmark calculated for the
overall score was 73%
8. Developing a user-friendly, Excel-based tool that allows industry professionals to perform
360o evaluation of PMs. The tool has five main outputs that are most relevant and useful
for SHA PMs:
a) Project Manager Index (PMX) which reflects the overall score of the PM as compared
to industry averages and organization set targets
b) Spider and Bar Charts which show the score of the PM in each of the different
categories as compared to set targets. It also shows the PM’s score for three
consecutive assessments which allows the PM to monitor his/her progress over time
c) Project Manager Strengths which highlight the distinguishing competencies that the
PM excels at
d) PM Training Needs which outlines the distinguishing competencies where the PM
could improve
e) Recommended Training Programs where the person filling in the assessment can input
training programs to tackle the different training needs of the PM
All the research components were validated through regular meetings with WisDOT
professionals as well as an academic team from UW-Madison to ensure its relevance to SHA and
its importance in terms of filling a research gap.
Subject
competency
assessment
department of transportation
state highway agency
project manager