Agile methodology has had a significant impact on the project management profession, both in terms of its approach and the skills required for success. Here are some of the ways Agile has impacted project management:
- Increased focus on customer satisfaction: Agile methodology places a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, which requires project managers to be more customer-focused and to work closely with stakeholders to ensure that the project meets their needs.
- Greater collaboration and teamwork: Agile methodology requires cross-functional teams to work together closely, which has increased the importance of communication, collaboration, and teamwork skills for project managers.
- More flexibility and adaptability: Agile methodology is more flexible and adaptable than traditional project management approaches, which has required project managers to be more agile in their thinking and approach to managing projects.
- Greater emphasis on continuous improvement: Agile methodology is based on continuous improvement, which requires project managers to be more proactive in identifying opportunities for improvement and implementing changes.
- More iterative and incremental approach: Agile methodology is based on an iterative and incremental approach to project delivery, which requires project managers to be more focused on delivering value in small increments rather than completing large, complex projects all at once.
Overall, Agile has had a significant impact on project management, and it has changed the way many organizations approach project management. As Agile continues to evolve, it will likely continue to shape the project management profession in new and innovative ways.
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Whatever is the nature of your business, innovation is critical today. In order to survive competition and be the customers’ choice, you need to come up with really new products and services. All it means is that your ability to manage the change is a direct measure of your success. In other words, timely launch of new products/services in desired quality and price are going to determine your success, apart from cultural change aspect. So whether you want it or not, good project management skills are essential in today’s business to survive and win. Without digressing on other pre-requisites of good project management, let’s focus on one of most important but rarely focused area.
There are several project management techniques and tools available such CPM, PERT and Critical Chain. Immaterial of the base on which these models are structured, out of my experience, everything finally boils to predicting time duration for a task and the delivering as predicted. In small organizations(less than 10 employees), it is more of coordination, multi-tasking and communication that will determine if a task can be completed as predicted. But with organizations involving a few tens of employees, it is all about how resources and efforts are synchronized. There may be lack of knowledge of what is to be done next, on who owns which piece, how & when to escalate lack of clarity on authority and decision making. Additionally unlike bigger organizations, smaller companies will have to manage with inexperienced and understaffed scenarios.
So to make life easy for everyone, if processes associated with project management such as supply chain management processes, finance processes, clearly defined inter-department service levels and authorities, etc., are established well, that will help the organization deliver projects in time. Isn’t this what ‘Process Management’ is all about! Mathematically also it makes sense to focus on process management. For instance, consider the PERT model in which the PERT Time (Task duration) is a function of Optimistic Time (OT), Most Likely Time (MLT) and Pessimistic Time (PT). When OT and PT are wide apart, it means that it is not possible to predict the task duration accurately. In other words, the process on which the task is dependent has high variation. Such a process leads to higher PERT Time. When all the tasks of the project have widely spread OTs and PTs, the overall project duration itself will be high and unpredictable.
In order to have closely defined OTs and PTs, we should have confidence that our processes will consistently deliver on-time. In other words, our process should be statistically under control and stable. Again, it’s Process Management!
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Six Sigma & Project Management are two high trending topics of interest among professionals and organizations today. While Six Sigma is a management approach, project management principles instill the rigor of execution.
Whatever is the nature of your business, innovation is critical today. In order to survive competition and be the customers’ choice, you need to come up with really new products and services.
Six Sigma & Project Management are two high trending topics of interest among professionals and organizations today. While Six Sigma is a management approach, project management principles instill the rigor of execution.
Whatever is the nature of your business, innovation is critical today. In order to survive competition and be the customers’ choice, you need to come up with really new products and services.
All it means is that your change management ability is a direct measure of your success. In other words, timely launch of new products/services in desired quality and price are going to determine your success; apart from the cultural change aspect. So whether you want it or not, good project management skills are essential in today’s business to survive and win. Without digressing on other pre-requisites of good project management, let’s focus on one of most important but rarely focused area.
There are several project management techniques and tools available, such as: CPM, PERT, and Critical Chain. Immaterial of the base on which these models are structured, out of my experience, everything finally boils down to predicting the time duration for a task and delivery as predicted.
In small organizations (less than 10 employees), it is more of coordination, multi-tasking, and communication that will determine if a task can be completed as predicted. But with organizations involving a few hundreds of employees, it is all about how resources and efforts are synchronized. There may be lack of knowledge of what is to be done next, on who owns which piece, how & when to escalate, and lack of clarity on authority & decision making. Additionally, unlike big organizations, smaller companies will have to manage with inexperienced and understaffed scenarios.
So to make life easy for everyone; if processes associated with project management such as supply chain management processes, finance processes, clearly defined inter-department service levels and authorities, etc., are established well; it will help the organization deliver projects in time. Isn’t this what ‘Process Orientation’ is all about!
Strong Process Orientation: one of the key foundations of Six Sigma is responsible for success in most project based industries. Mathematically also it makes sense to focus on process orientation. For instance, consider the PERT model in which the PERT Time (Task duration) is a function of Optimistic Time (OT), Most Likely Time (MLT), and Pessimistic Time (PT). When OT and PT are wide apart, it means that it is not possible to predict the task duration accurately. In other words, the process on which the task is dependent has high variation. Such a process leads to higher PERT Time. When all the tasks of a project have widely spread OTs and PTs, the overall project duration itself will be high and unpredictable.
