Get up to date in project management trends

ESI Group has listed the top ten trends in project management to enable companies to keep up to date with the latest developments in the project management sector.

The senior management and practitioners of ESI International have listed the top 10 trends in project management to enable companies to keep up to date during 2008 1 – Investment in project management training to counter effects of a troubled economy – keeping projects on track and on budget can counter the ill effects of a down economy .

Strategic organisations realise that an unsettled economy is the time to invest in project management training and development to optimise performance.

2 – Better, faster project decision-making – the pressures for project managers to ‘get it done yesterday’ keep increasing, particularly with today’s tightening budgets.

Project managers need to deploy best practices when choosing projects, knowing when to say no to ventures that won’t deliver a solid return on investment (ROI) and when to approve promising projects.

3 – Critical thinking as a key project management competency – technical competence alone doesn’t create success.

Project management has evolved into a robust discipline, and critical thinking is the key soft skill that can make the difference between success and failure.

4 – Emerging relevance of the project management office.

– project management offices (PMO) ensure a higher chance for organisations to reach their goals (Imagine the space shuttle without its command centre.) PMOs streamline processes, coordinate projects and enable more efficiency in day-to-day project management.

As more companies see the relevance of PMOs, this trend will become increasingly important to overall project management design.

5 – Co-dependency between project management and enterprise analysis – in active knowledge-management transfer, project managers with greater experience levels and an interest in functions such as risk management are taking on traditional business analyst responsibilities, including enterprise analysis.

6 – Project managers taking leadership roles in organisational change – in the face of unrelenting organisational change, project/programme managers need to take a leadership role.

However, leadership qualities are not programme deliverables, so project managers occasionally need direction in fulfilling their organisational change leadership obligations.

They need to understand business implications and what they mean for projects, and how they can drive organisational change through effective project/project-portfolio management.

7 – Communication challenges of remote team management – as projects are increasingly conducted remotely through outsourcing and global expansion, project communication is often based on e-mails and conference calls.

Unfortunately, a very small portion of what should be communicated is transmitted to the recipients through these channels.

To manage virtual teams, project managers need to find and use best practices in communications.

8 – Earning certification – certified programme management professionals will be joining the workforce in 2008.

This new certification from the Project Management Institute has project/programme management professionals asking what the inherent differences are between their disciplines.

9 – Navigating the overlap between PM and BA tasks – project managers and business analysts now recognise the symbiotic nature of their relationships.

They know where to draw the line on their responsibilities and how to work together on areas that overlap.

10 – Talent management’s impact on business return on investment – during the next several years, thousands of baby boomers will leave the workforce, and thousands of Millennials (born between 1982 and 1997) will enter it.

This will create challenges for managers, who will find that their new workers are motivated by a different set of incentives than the previous employees had been.

Organisations need to develop a talent management strategy that focuses on recruiting and retaining talent to improve business performance.

* About ESI International – ESI, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LSE:INF), helps people around the world improve the way they manage projects, contracts, requirements and vendors.

In addition to ESI’s more than 100 courses delivered in 18 languages at more than 75 locations worldwide, ESI offers eight certificate programmes through our educational partner, The George Washington University in Washington.

Founded in 1981, ESI’s regional offices are located in London, Singapore and Washington, DC.

To date, ESI’s programs have benefited more than 950,000 professionals worldwide.

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