Canadian National Project Awards

The Canadian National Project (CNP) Award is annually awarded to the most successful project teams in Canada. The award identifies examples of excellent project management and acknowledges innovative projects. It supports professional project management in achieving high performance in projects and motivates project teams to identify and optimize the use of their strengths. The Award was presented for the first time in ProjectWorld Conference in Toronto in 2011.

General Benefits for Award Applicants

The CNP Award is a unique form of benchmarking for project work. All award applicants receive an individual, detailed written benchmark report from a team of qualified and experienced project experts in leading positions. Benchmark report shows not only the strengths in project management but also indicates in which areas the project work can be improved, which leads to better project results in the future. The benchmark report includes also the comparison of the best project teams' performance.

Special Benefits for Award Finalists

Prestige: The CNP Award offers a considerable gain of prestige. Award Finalists, Prize Winners and Award Winners are published and the logo of the CNP Award is available for company documents and publications. This enables the team to show that it is one of the most successful and nationally recognised project teams. The national Prize and Award Winners may wish to participate in IPMA International Project Excellence Award contest at the next step, and score further success then.

Exchange Experience: Award and Prize Winners are invited to exchange their experience of “Project Excellence” at the annual ProjectWorld Conference in Toronto.

Leading Project Team: This is an outstanding opportunity to show their status as a leading project team and to exchange professional experience with the other winners.

ProjectWorld Conference: The ProjectWorld Conference documents and other publications provide further opportunities to demonstrate the excellent Project achievement of the team and the organisation responsible.

CNP Award Winners Club: The Award Finalists are invited to join the CNP Award Winners Club which will be established in the ProjectWorld Conference in Toronto in 2011. The Winners Club is an exclusive group for Award Finalists and the CNP Award Management Board and selected Award Assessors.

For more information, please contact our Director of Awards [awards@pmac-agpc.ca].

Project Excellence Model

To help assess any project a fundamental and sound picture is required. This structure is offered by the IPMA Project Excellence Model. The Model is a benchmarking tool which helps project teams to reflect on their own strengths and potential improvement areas. The model is an adaptable and open concept. It allows many different project approaches to be used and should gain major benefits for future projects. The model elements are based on the fundamental insights, concepts and experiences of Total Quality Management (TQM). Of course, this experience – and therefore the IPMA Project Excellence Model – shows only the status quo of current management quality. However, the model is being developed continually based on the experience of outstanding organisations and project teams.

The current model is based on the following demands and insights:

The target for the CNP Award applicants is to collect 1000 points.

The IPMA Project Excellence Model divides nine assessment criteria into two sections of 500 points:

Project Management:

• What is the project like?
• How is it managed?

Project Results:

• What does the project achieve?
• What comes out of it?

The IPMA Project Excellence Model covers the following important aspects:

• Customer Satisfaction - In well-managed companies and projects, the customer – with all his/her issues – has to be the “king”. The customer alone decides on quality perception. A company project team must completely understand customer needs and wishes.
   
• Employees’ Development and Participation - The complete potential of employees can only be released in an atmosphere of confidence and openness.
   
• Partnership with Suppliers - A customer-supplier relationship based on confidence and cooperation is a great asset for both sides.
   
• Leadership - Genuine leaders form the culture of the organisation and steer resources and efforts towards excellent achievements. Therefore, leadership quality is imperative.
   
• Social Responsibility - Every excellent company needs to understand that it can never make optional decisions if they are isolated from the environment. Ethics and social responsibility play an important part in all decisions.
   
• Processes and Facts - Activities are conducted systematically as processes and they are subject to permanent improvement. Facts and clear measurements serve as a basis.
   
• Results - To obtain lasting outstanding results, the expectations and demands of all parties involved have to be well-balanced. From this basic idea, nine criteria have been established to judge how projects progress to great achievements.

Application Brochure

The Application Brochure for the CNP Award contains the description of the IPMA Project Excellence Model. If you wish to obtain a copy, please send a request with the name of yourself and the organisation by e-mail to the Award Office, awards@pmac-agpc.ca.