Association for Project Management (APM) Benefits and Value Specific Interest Group (SIG) Research Report on the impact of webinar based professional development “Does webinar-based professional development affect knowledge and behaviour?”

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is a core requirement of the project professional and the APM expects 35 hours of project-related learning annually.

CPD is intended to be more than just input. It works best when planned and accentuated, e.g. by pausing for a moment of reflection and declaring an intention to undertake a specified activity, signalling an escalation from received passive knowledge to applied learning. A characteristic of professionalism is expanding and enhancing knowledge, skills and competence.

The Association for Project Management (APM) Competence Framework1 publication lists 27 competencies, including Benefits Management. Each competence comprises a definition, introductory notes and a short list of knowledge and application elements.

When self-evaluating, an individual provides evidence across the knowledge and application areas in order to achieve a score for that competence ranging from 1-5, whereby 1 = aware, 2 = practised, 3 = competent, 4 = proficient, 5 = expert.

Live polling of more than 2,400 attendees during each of a sample of 8 webinars delivered as part of the Effective Benefits Management series (12 in total), resulted in 600+ responses/reflective statements. These were analysed according to eight inductively derived themes and mapped against the relevant APM competencies, providing clear evidence of an association between webinar attendance and professional development.

The results demonstrate the importance of interaction between the webinar speaker, host and attendees. Mentimeter has proved to be a reliable tool/enabler to engaging audiences and capturing feedback throughout webinars, including after speaker presentations and Q&A.