Ensuring professionalism in a dynamic and changing workplace

ROAD TO CHARTERED SERIES

In April 2017 APM became a Chartered body. As part of becoming the Chartered body for the project profession, APM is publishing a series of thought-leadership papers over the next 12 months, until April 2018. They will provide insight into how your professional body will develop, what this means for you and how you can be involved in this evolution. This is the fourth paper in the series, which focuses on CPD. 

CPD, or continuing professional development, plays a key part in the journey of a professional. Arguably in this era of constant change and the increasing public expectation that professionals updating their skills, CPD becomes ever more important. This paper looks at the history and trends across professional bodies in recent years. Written by Professor Andrew Friedman of the Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) this paper sets the context for APM and the profession’s future journey, concluding on initial thoughts of how APM as a Chartered body needs to adapt and support members - both corporate and individual - in their journey to professionalism using CPD.

As the foreword by Dr Paul Chapman states: “Professional bodies have a crucial role to play in enabling and supporting CPD. This relates to the vital role that professional bodies play in underpinning and justifying public confidence and ensuring when the public deals with a professional that they can trust and have confidence in the skills of the professional, and that their organisation/firm is at the cutting edge of their profession in terms of the latest knowledge. Commitment to CPD is not only the best way to maintain professional standards, but also to signal a commitment to them too.

"In ensuring professional standards, the role of a professional body is vital for a number of different reasons, and first and foremost is in supporting the individual professional’s own self development. It is also important as a component for organisations and firms ensuring their people are aware of developments both relevant to their specific work, but also of wider training needs and ensuring their organisation or firm is investing in the skills of its people.

“APM, like other professional bodies, is keen to benchmark the journey we need to take to ensure our CPD content and systems are fit for purpose for our future plans as the Chartered body for the project profession. This paper on best practice and developments in other professional bodies is therefore of great help to us, as I am sure it is for others.”