Top Project Management Trends and Goals
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Lofty Goals
As more companies migrate to the cloud, project managers will need to identify and manage gaps between the expectations of business leaders and the constraints of cloud platforms. -
In-Sync
Hiring for immediate needs and developing skills later will give way to a more strategic approach, as organizations that align talent planning to business objectives average 14% higher project success rates. -
Flexible Positioning
Increased uncertainty and business velocity will directly affect processes and risk management, elevating the value of agile development and rapid learning. -
Short-Handed
More than four out of five project organizations are understaffed, and a significant "brain drain" is on the way: 30% of current project managers are expected to leave the workforce by 2018. -
Reverse Course
Because top-down project management can't keep up with shifting business dynamics, enterprises will embrace a bottom-up process that empowers project teams to determine how to deliver business value. -
Coaching Weak Spots
Managers will ignore the needs of project professionals at their own risk: 42% of project team members said their boss' biggest failing is his/her shortcomings in coaching and mentoring. -
Speak No Evil
Faced with tough situations and decisions, more than a third of project team members admit that they lack the capability to have difficult conversations and manage conflict. -
Come Together
In 2015, there will be more integration of change management and project management efforts in order to account not only for what a project delivers, but also how it affects the business. -
Culture Wars
Teams will pay greater attention to how organizational culture affects their goals. A rules-based culture, for example, may inhibit efforts to build higher levels of intimacy into the customer engagement process.
Organizations will expect project managers to better align outcomes to business strategies this year, according to a recently published list of project management trends for 2015 from ESI International. That's because the rapid pace of business shifts and technology changes will undoubtedly accelerate, and project teams will have to quickly integrate principles of agile development and change management into their approaches. In addition, they'll face considerable staffing and leadership shortages, as the availability of existing talent can't keep up with increases in demand, and older, seasoned team members will be leaving the workforce during the next several years. That means project managers will have to deal with significant day-to-day challenges, while facing building pressure to address big-picture objectives. "All too often, people talk about strategy and execution independently," says Mark Bashrum, vice president of marketing and strategic intelligence for ESI. "In the coming year, we will see a heightened focus on managing the critical links connecting the two. … Project managers—who are typically held accountable for delivering project outcomes—will now also be responsible for how those deliverables impact the business. This will require a retooling of their skill sets, [elevating] the PM's role as a critical enabler of business strategy, and that's a very good thing for project managers who can make the jump." The following is adapted from ESI's list of project management trends.