Successful Project Management

There is a caution that needs to be raised and addressed as we encourage project managers to build their strategic, business and leadership skills. We need to be clear about why these skills are needed, and how they are expected to be utilized.

Projects are often seen as a source of innovation. With this article, the writer wants to turn that around–he wants to explore the innovation that project management still needs if it is going to (continue to) deliver value. What innovations are necessary to not only bring project management into the 21st century, but to position it to sustain its relevance long into the future?

Managing organizational change is one of the big, hairy elephants in the room when we manage projects. It is one we all recognize and know about, but that we struggle to deal with effectively–or even sometimes to discuss. Why this is, and why this should be, is a bit of a mystery.

We live in an increasingly quantified world. It would strongly appear that this won’t change much in the near future, but this creates a number of challenges–many of which aren’t necessarily obvious. A significant challenge is simply what we often do with the data that we have.

It is difficult for project managers to know, at times, who our customer actually is. Is someone a customer just because they are a stakeholder? Or, worse, is someone a customer just because they want to have a say in what your project does and how it is delivered? One hopes—if only for our sanity—that this isn’t the case.

The most significant challenge for any project manager is when projects shift modes. The shift from startup to execution, and the shift from execution to closeout, requires a change in mindset. Each shift needs the PM to adjust their focus and emphasis–and a corresponding change to how they deal with people.