Mission and Vision

Mission

The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Project Leadership Institute (PLI) program is to cultivate a diverse network of successful DOE project delivery practitioners—those capable of delivering major high-risk projects. The PLI program participants contribute to building a culture of project management excellence across DOE.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Effective stewardship and promotion of diverse and inclusive workplaces that value and celebrate a diversity of people, ideas, cultures, and educational backgrounds is foundational to delivering on the DOE mission.

The Project Leadership Institute (PLI) is committed to facilitate and foster safe, diverse, equitable, and inclusive project leadership development that values mutual respect and personal integrity

Vision

The vision for the PLI program is to provide cohort participants with a prestigious, transformational professional development experience that is simultaneously both a leadership development and project delivery course of study and practice, tailored to the DOE context. The program is rigorous and intensive with experiential learning components and interaction with leaders from a variety of fields. Participants undertake self assessment and executive coaching activities to examine strengths and potential weaknesses in the project leadership context. The program emphasizes critical leadership development principles including stakeholder communications, perspective-taking, ethics, service, and self-reflection.

The program offers a structured point of entry into the DOE project leadership community. Instead of relying only on ad hoc interactions and project peer reviews to make connections outside of their home institution, PLI provides a “front door” means to gain access to the community’s collective experiences and perspectives through the network of PLI alumni, Board members, and instructors/speakers. Alumni continue to contribute to and derive value from the network well beyond their cohort participation. The PLI network amplifies support of project delivery excellence through alumni presentations, peer review, and peer mentorship.

A key indicator of the PLI program’s success is the ongoing willingness and enthusiasm of prospective participants and their Laboratory or DOE Program management to apply for this opportunity. DOE’s programs and contractor organizations regard this program as an essential career/workforce development resource.