Pandemic, war for IT talent and the explosion of transversal projects have created a context of quicksand for organizations looking for more effective project management with agile, traditional or hybrid methods.
This famous VICA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) is here! Add a pinch of artificial intelligence, a wave of Great Resignation, and a super heterogeneous project culture: you will get a complex work context, or, to remain positive, exciting!
Under these conditions, before even thinking about adapting as best as possible, the art of managing a project well will require a key skill: discernment. This article has this intention: to help you find your way. Contribute to a better reading of what is happening, so as not to fall into “positivism” or easy distrust.
Yes: project management is also an activity in transition that requires updates to our approaches and skills as well as the sharing of experiences..
What beliefs should we revisit in order to suffer less and fail to deliver projects? What do you need to add to keep the process fun and efficient? What are the interesting trends to watch in order to monitor and anticipate changes in project management? And finally, what are the 7 key steps to advance the company's project culture?
The article to read to remove the handbrake on your project management and the business transformation speed limiter!
In project management, the heritage of years of MOA/MOE and practice with references of “per task” project management tools have conditioned our vision of implementation in terms of task lists, schedules and resources.
We have long believed that by dividing tasks into a schedule, “it would pass”. We also bet on THE super Project Manager for success. The reassuring Top Gun for managing a project, but operating in a silo mode between MOA/MOE...
And, in the end, the project did not even correspond to the real need. The adoption of tools and the ROI are most often negligible. It's amazing when you know the energy and talent deployed.
In real life, successful project management is achieved through individual and collective commitment, versus an approach focused on monitoring and controlling tasks. 80% of projects do not need Gantt-style planning today. A committed team will suffice!
Preparing yet another Gantt schedule will not protect you against late, out-of-budget delivery of a project without user adoption.
This responsibility is too heavy for one person to do everything and carry out increasingly complex jobs and solve difficult problems on an almost daily basis.
Today, the role of the project manager has moved away from someone who can check off actions and tasks as completed on a Gantt chart to move towards one strategic leadership position allowing changes to be made in an organization.
To sum up, we share three beliefs here:
The agile manifesto is already 20 years old! One of the project management trends we're seeing more and more is the acceptance that hybrid management approaches are the way forward for better execution.
The “full agile” real difficulty in going beyond the framework of IT/digital teams. In this context, Semi-agile is an interesting hybridization for businesses looking for a methodological update of their delivery methods.
We will always aim for continuous iterations for development with a significant involvement of customers in the deliverables at all phases, but managed within the framework of a governance and decision-making structure with the project steering committee.
The rise of hybrid project management is good news because:
No more management with dedicated software, isolated from the company's ecosystem! As our environment becomes more complex, uncertain - and let's say it, sometimes political - we need more and more next-generation tools to help carry out transversal projects in this type of environment and constraints.
The use of a modern platform will allowstandardize the frames, the project monitoring, reporting and governance.
(Editor's note: I suggest you reread the above sentence a second time! :-)
Yes: the more the company grows and the volume of projects with it, the more key is the ability to maintain a clear, coherent and easy to access level of communication for everyone. The increase in the number of ongoing initiatives and projects, coming from business lines, makes portfolio management useful and even indispensable for more and more organizations of all sizes.
Developers use Jira, marketing is a fan of Trello, the innovation department is on Wrike, quality is a fan of ZenDesk, HR uses Monday, the IT department is on Teams... Help : The silos are back ! The challenge is to offer a macro tool that is shared AND synchronized with the other platforms used on a daily basis.
For a real impact on the achievement of business transformation, we will seek to include and collaborate with the various businesses and stakeholders in the same space-time. The objective is to see clearly within the perimeter to facilitate decision-making, to prioritize through value, collaboratively and continuously. A whole program without an adapted platform!
Good news for being a pilot. Automating and standardizing reporting are accessible and now constitute real assistance in project management. Simple help to automate and simplify repetitive tasks with low added value (for example data collection, sending flash reports, identification of risks and data re-entries...).
Standardize the shape, In other words: we are going to make our lives easier to manage a project, to understand each other regardless of the challenge we face. This, by the way, also reduces cognitive fatigue for everyone.
Let's keep in mind the complex, human and therefore multifactorial side of managing a transformation project. That's what makes it taste like! La Knoster matrix (see table below) proposes a very relevant reading grid, models, to check the elements and indicators that are essential for modern management.
You have to get to sharing the same observation with the teams (project, job, management): there are too many topics, everyone is under water, people ask “where are you at” all the time. We are in a permanent RUN. It's rowing...
🙍🏻 ♂️ If the observation is not shared, it will be complicated to say “we are going to change our working methods”. Here, the challenge is to create the conditions and choose a key moment, in particular to release the word about the diagnosis.
Define with the Codir/Copil what is vital and what is not.
🙍🏻♂️ Otherwise you will still end up with a list of 70 projects all super important, and a team of three people to carry them out.
For example: “the commercial excellence program (CRM project, behavioral analysis project, predictive analysis project...) should lead us to enter the top 3 Europeans”.
🙍🏻♂️ Otherwise, after a few months, the projects will no longer make sense, and the lack of motivation of the teams can quickly be felt.
Start by setting up a platform like AirSaaS to standardize the specifications, project frameworks, project monitoring, reporting and governance.
🙍🏻♂️ If the teams are not all mature in project management, then putting them on Jira will be an assured failure, just like trying to get them to do a Gantt, trying to have understandable and well-thought-out scoping sheets on PowerPoint.
What is a sponsor? A project manager? A business referent? Rights and duties of everyone?
🙍🏻♂️ Without it, no one will be responsible for anything.
🙍🏻♂️ Every Tuesday, project manager + business representative meeting lasting five minutes per project: decisions to be made, point of attention.
Every Friday, the flash report is sent to all stakeholders
Every month, Copil on next month's challenges and alignment with the available business time.
🙍🏻♂️ OK, you have to solve the problems, but above all, you have to involve the teams continuously. So talk about successes, Communicate them. Make you want. Knowing and working on the strengths of the team's talents is the secret!
You now have an updated vision of what is at stake today in the management of the project. Proposed next step: zoom in on a key ingredient - the project milestone: a technique for sequencing your projects intelligently.
