Why Have Project Managers?
Why do we have project managers and then use the PMBOK to conduct projects within organizations?
We do it so our organizations can:
Grow
Develop new ideas
Implement new technologies
Find new ways of working.
This is why project management is pivotal to a businesses growth and success. We have a dynamic corporate environment these days, and its project managers that ensure our organization meets these dynamic demands.
Project management helps ensure that:
Objective are met
Resources are optimized
Risks are mitigated
By maximizing project management value, we can achieve so much more throughout our organizations. We can increase productivity, see better financial performance, and gain that coveted competitive advantage over all of our competitors.
Maximizing Project Management Value
Thomas Lechler defines project management value in his article “The Project Value Mindset of Project Managers” on PMI.org as:
“A project’s value is defined by the value a project creates for its stakeholders. The project value could be represented by a single or any combination of efficiency, technical effectiveness and the satisfaction of a project’s stakeholder with emphasis on clients and shareholders.“
The value of our projects comes from the value we create for our stakeholders.
Many time those stakeholders are aiming to maximize the growth or development of their organization. Effective project managers encompasses this call to action for the organization. Their aim is to implement structured methodologies and processes that make the project management process more valuable to their stakeholders.
But How Do You Maximize the Value of Project Management?
The easiest way to maximize value of project management is to align your project goals to the Project Management Triangle:
Time
Scope
Cost
As long as you bring in your stakeholders, you can easily meet the requirements they determine within Time, Scope, and Cost. In turn, you can push to maximize value of your project by meeting or exceeding their requirements.
We gain this value when:
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You meet all timelines or come in ahead of schedule
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Meet all scope requirements without any scope creep or “gold plating”
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You meet your budget or come in under budget.
When you align your work to the project management triangle, you ensure that value is provided to your stakeholders, allowing your organization to focus on business growth.
Understanding Business Growth
When looking at business growth, often the organization looks at:
Revenue Increase
Market Share
Improved Profitability
Demand
Return on Investment
However, these metrics do not capture the full impact of project management on business growth. Instead, as project managers, we add in:
Customer Satisfaction
Employee Engagement
Project Success Rate
Focusing on these additional metrics, we can gain a comprehensive view of the value of our project. Managing this information to adjust the work and then meet stakeholders’ needs is how a project manager can contribute to overall business growth.
Aligning Projects with Business Goals
Setting Clear Objectives
If you want to maximize project management value, project managers need to ensure that their projects align to business goals. And they do this through ensuring their objectives for the project are SMART. You can read more about SMART Goals in our article on Managing Projects for Beginners.
Specific: We want our objectives to be clear and direct – anyone on our project team should be on the same page and able to understand what it is and what we are trying to accomplish.
Measurable: We want to be able to measure the progress of our objectives.
Actionable: We want enough resources and equipment to manage the work and meet our objectives.
Relevant: If the objective is irrelevant to our organization, our scope, and overall bringing value to our organization or customer, we might not need it.
Time-Based: We need to set a timeline for our objectives. We want to avoid Parkinson’s Law where our work expands to fill time, we want time-based, specific timeframes for completing our work.
By setting SMART goals, we can ensure we align to our stakeholders strategic vision. From here we can gather what needs to happen, prioritize, and execute the work – and bring the most impact and value to our project work.
Ensuring Project Relevance
Have you ever started work on a task and wondered about its relevance to the project?
In Afghanistan, I remember having this conversation with my boss. As a young Lieutenant leading convoys as a Transportation Officer, I was not involved in strategic planning. Instead, I was the one on the ground.
After spending a month living in my MRAP, I was tired and frustrated – and I asked him, “What was the point? Why were we out there doing that”?
It didn’t seem relevant to me, just stressful and a huge pain.
But he explained the relevance. Why were we out there putting our lives on the line with IEDs going off constantly? We had a part in the strategic alignment of forces throughout Helmand Province.
Knowing the relevance in the work made it easier to pack up my truck and head back out a week later.
Relevance in Project Management
Every project should be relevant to the organization’s and stakeholders’ objectives. The project manager needs to know and understand this relevance.
Regular reviews and assessments with the project stakeholders help ensure everyone is on the same page and understands the plan. This reduces waste and confusion while ensuring the work is aligned with the strategic goals.
It is also critical to ensure that the stakeholders and project manager are not the only ones who know and understand the project’s relevance. The project team needs to understand the relevance, as well. In my article on “Leadership Principles and Traits”, there is a leadership principle on “Keep Your Marines Informed”. This applies to your project team – Keep them informed.
These practices ensure that every project undertaken has a clear purpose with tasks that are understood and people read to contribute meaningfully to business growth.
Every project undertaken should be relevant to the organization’s core objectives. Regularly reviewing and assessing project relevance helps businesses avoid resource wastage on initiatives that do not align with their strategic goals. This practice ensures that every project undertaken has a clear purpose and contributes meaningfully to business growth.
Utilizing Technology in Project Management
Project Management Software Tools
Project management software tools have exploded over the past few years. Microsoft continues to be a program used in most large companies, but tools like Trello, Monday, JIRA, Asana, and many more, the ways of managing projects is quickly evolving.
Each project management software has its own way of doing thing, but at the end of the day they all provide the same functions around:
Task Tracking
Resource Allocation and Tracking
Time Management
Collaboration
Streamlining of Activities
Project Timeline (Gantt Charts, Kanban boards, etc)
Selecting which software is right for you is really a matter of personal preference. The important part is ensuring the program fits your needs, style of work, and budget. If you can find the right one, though, it can seriously increase the value of your projects.
Maybe one day we will do an article comparing different programs, but for right now, I am a fan of ClickUp. Click meets all my customizable needs, allowing me to build my business, store SOPs, and maintain my blogging.
The Benefits of Automation
Luckily, we live in the day of automation, not just any automation but AI automation.
Automation can increase the value of project management within your company. At this point, I think all of the programs mentioned above have options for some sort of automation.
And once you learn how to use it, you never want to go back!
Using technology like AI, you can easily automate tasks like emails, calendar management, and my favorite meeting minutes.
How automation can help your project:
Build this out: The Project Schedule has Three tasks with gaps between them
AI can allow me to end a task and the next person get the task, AI analyzes schedules and time to complete task = shifts work and now your project is done on ahead of schedule
Learning how to utilize automation for you and your organization is a must if you want to increase the value of your project management methodologies and skills. And when you use it right, you get:
Real-Time Insights on Project Performance
Adaptable and Easily Manageable Calendars
Quicker Decision-Making Cycle
Proactive Risk and Issue Management
Key Stakeholder Engagements Bring Value to Projects
Your stakeholders will make or break your project. Finding the right stakeholders to engage with throughout the project is critical to maintaining value throughout the project management lifecycle.
You must understand for each stakeholder their:
Needs
Expectations
Communication Methods
Rate of Communication
Investment in the Project
Influence over the Project
Once you know this information, you can align your work, your emails, engagements, and everything in-between to stakeholder management. Doing such ensures that your stakeholders are engaged and prepared to provide valuable inputs, guidance, and support throughout the project.
Budgeting and Cost Control
We can’t talk about maximizing project management value without talking about money.
Effective Budget Planning
Plan your budget. This is critical to project management since money makes the world go round, and the same applies to your project. No money means no resources, which means no project. So to provide any value, you need to have the right budget for your project to make more money.
Ensure that everything we talked about above on planning is set, allowing you to allocate resources to each deliverable. This will help determine the cost of each deliverable and, in turn, help build your initial budget.
Throughout your risk planning, you will determine risks that need to be mitigated or planned against. This could result in additional money being budgeted towards your project. (Another reason to ensure your risk management planning is top-notch.) With your analysis, you can build a well-thought-out reserve for any risks that do materialize.
Cost Control Techniques
Like managing risks, you want to manage your budget and funding constantly. Doing some Earned Value Management helps in this part of the project.
Ensure that you constantly validate your budget, making assessments against where you are, where you are going, and how you plan to get there. The worst thing that can happen is that you are not ready to deliver and run dry on funds.
To continue providing value, you must monitor all the costs of your project and run consistent budgeting meetings/reviews. You cannot have value if you cannot complete the project because you ran out of funding.
Wrapping This All Up
In conclusion, for project management to maintain value, it is not just about meeting a deadlines and sending out meeting minutes. It’s about
Driving business growth
Managing budgets
Keeping stakeholders informed.
To achieve this, remember to:
– Align with Business Goals: Ensure your projects align with the overarching business objectives through SMART goals.
– Leverage Technology: Utilize project management software and automation to streamline processes and enhance efficiency.
– Engage Stakeholders: Understand and meet the needs of key stakeholders to maintain project momentum and value.
– Manage Risks: Proactively identify and manage risks to safeguard project outcomes.
– Control Costs: Implement robust budgeting and cost control techniques to ensure financial sustainability.
When you focus on these areas, your projects will produce value and enhance your organization. You will increase productivity and financial performance and maintain a competitive edge within your market.
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