I
believe project management is going to become more result-oriented
and pragmatic. Right now, there is a drive to get certifications
and learn increasingly esoteric terms and management techniques,
making project management resemble a "religion"
to some extent. Business leaders don't want to hear about
strange formulas and Gantt charts, they want objective information
about how their projects are performing. The project managers
who can take all the "science" behind project management
and interpret it, and present it to business leaders will
rule the day, and those obsessed with certifications and the
technical side of managing projects will struggle.
Risk
management is an interesting area, because it is easy to focus
too strongly on, or not put enough focus on. We always hear
about projects that did not appropriately account for risk
and therefore failed. I think it is okay to go after a risky
project, as long as there is an understanding that it might
fail, and a plan to get something of value from the failure.
Obviously, every human endeavor is not going to result in
success, but we tend to run away from failure rather than
learning from it and capturing something of value from it.
Risk should be understood, and a mix of projects with varying
risk levels should be undertaken by every business, rather
than completely avoiding risk.Project
failure is inevitable. High failure rates must be investigated
in light of what was being attempted. If you have an experimental
and risky project that fails, it is one thing, if you have
safe projects that fail due to poor leadership or poor management,
it is another thing altogether.
There
seems to be an adversity to failure in most organizations.
A project fails and everyone runs away from it rather than
facing the failure and trying to analyze what has happened.
Project management is a fairly young discipline, and I feel
there is too much emphasis on certifications at this point.
Project managers must be leaders to a great extent, and must
also be excellent communicators, who can rally assistance
when a project begins to struggle. Too often organizations
hire people based on some letters after their name, rather
than making sure they can lead, and react when difficult situations
arise. A rigorous, phased approach is not always the best
solution to a project management problem, and this is where
PM's need to be flexible rather than following the "project
management religion" at the expense of all else. |
