How project management can be an organisation’s results engine

For organisations to survive and thrive in this environment, they need to adapt and be agile enough to keep pace with the ecosystem around them. They need to have a vision for the future and a mechanism through which they can achieve that vision. This is where project management can help.

Project management is more than just tracking a project and reporting updates. When done correctly, project management becomes an organisation’s results engine. It is a key connector between strategy and execution that ensures the right projects are effected in the right way, with the right people, at the right time.

How can project management be your results engine?

• Grounded in strategy. This ensures that the right projects get done. These projects would be aligned with the strategic objectives of the organisation and directly contribute towards their achievement. Project managers adapt to the ever-changing external factors by rooting decisions made in the strategic objectives to be achieved. In this way, the project is more likely to deliver value where it was needed.
• Considers multiple perspectives with telescopic adaptability. A project management office (PMO) spans across teams and departments which means they can prevent silos and understand how to leverage different expertise / resources to deliver projects. This perspective also means project managers can see how one teams’ actions can have impact on another. PMO can also deep dive to understand the specific activities of each team. This telescopic adaptability to go from bird’s eye view to deep dives positions PMO as the transformer of plans to actions and to deliver results.
• Project managers understand and connect people. At the root of project management is the ability to manage people. You need to ensure that you align your stakeholders and have their buy in to make the project successful. You then need to keep the team motivated and aligned to a common goal. This is a critical function of the project management team that could be easily overlooked without their presence.
• Focus on reporting. This focus maintains accountability for each person on the project to ensure that activities are completed on time, to budget and to the desired quality. Without it, projects can easily lose priority and be forgotten.

Putting all this together results in a significantly increased chance for project success. The benefits of a results oriented PMO goes beyond the success of a project. The organisation overall will see benefits such as:

• More cohesiveness and alignment as the PMO function will be communicating across departments and hierarchies.
• Attaining higher levels of employee engagement and lower turnover rates as teams will be united towards a common vision and constantly motivated towards achieving it.
• More flexibility as the organisation grows since the PMO team will serve as the cross-departmental connector.
   

About the author

Karen Youssef is a consultant at Deloitte Consulting in Malta. For more information, please visit www.deloitte.com/mt/consulting