the portrait club manon bradley
DESCRIPTION
At the APM 2014 National Conference for Women in Project Management, Manon shared with us the evolution of The Portrait Club, a group that explores the realities of diversity and gender issues in project management; after all if there is established evidence that points towards diverse boards make better decisions, surely the same should be within project teams? The Club’s aim, in line with that of WiPM, is not about quotas or feminism but about how can we collectively improve project success to strive towards “a world in which all projects succeed”.TRANSCRIPT
The Portrait Club
Manon BradleyFounder
Who am I?
• 10 years at the Major Projects Association
• Attended every event held in this time – 100+ seminars and dinners
• Current role – Development Director at MPA
“To improve the initiation and delivery of major projects through the sharing of knowledge and expertise.”
Observations
• During past 10 ish years – not seeing more women at events and seminars than back in 2005
• Key measure is the annual dinner seating plan!
3 Rhetorical Questions
• Is my observation representative of senior project teams?
• If so does this matter?
• If it matters what can we do to challenge this?
The Portrait Club
There is a lot of evidence that having greater gender diversity on Boards supports good decision making.
It is the basis for the 30% club which aims to have 30% female representation on all FTSE companies.
The Founders of The Portrait Club believe that by not including more women on senior decision making teams, projects are suffering. Therefore our mission is:
“To help improve the initation and delivery of projects by encouraging all those involved in this endeavour to improve the gender diversity of decision making amongst all levels and particularly in senior management teams.”
Key objectives
• To increase gender intelligence of projects by:
• Challenging “tokenism”
• Increasing visibility of women’s contributions
• Understanding why women leave the profession
• Increasing understanding about the business benefits of gender diversity
This is not about men and women – it is about better projects!
Enablers and Informers
• Setting a target of 30% female representation
• Identifying a strong network
• Creating strategic alliances
• Collecting information and undertaking research
Our plan to address the key issues is to:• Create the list of women in key decision making roles in
projects
• Paint the picture – tell stories about people’s experiences
• Try to find out where the women go and why they leave
• Identify supporters of this initiative – both individual and corporate
Contact:
• Find me on LinkedIn
• Find us on LinkedIn The Portrait Club Group
THANK YOU