In the quest to become what the Project Management Institute calls “future ready,” organizational leaders increasingly are turning to project management professionals to drive innovation, results and change.
PMI calls this The Project Economy. It’s one of the central ideas in the Pulse of the Profession 2020 report from PMI. In this new business paradigm, project leaders shoulder a bigger burden in turning an organization’s ideas into reality.
Sunil Prashara, president and CEO of PMI, told EuropeanCEO that a key element of The Project Economy is that people in an organization “should all be able to be well-versed in project management disciplines, and the ability to execute. Because they’re going to be called upon to do that, moving from project to project to project.”
Delivering Value Through The Project Economy
PMI defines The Project Economy as a “fundamental paradigm shift” in the business world toward using projects to handle work and solve problems. This includes using projects to foster organizational change because “organizations that stick with the status quo risk not just treading water, but sinking.”
PMI goes as far as arguing that in many ways, an organization is its projects. No matter what approach they use, organizations need skilled project leaders with expertise in the latest process improvement theories and methods of applying them to real-world challenges.
Ultimately, projects deliver value to stakeholders by solving their challenges, delivering products and aligning projects to an organization’s value streams. All these initiatives also “deliver financial and societal value,” according to PMI.
Why is the Project Economy Important?
In the Pulse of the Profession 2020 report, PMI surveyed business leaders around the globe. They found that the largest percentage of organizational leaders – 35% – think organizational agility is key to future success.
That includes creating a culture that is receptive to change, which 53% of executives said is a high priority in their companies. Project leaders play a large role in this area, including the use of design thinking in projects. This human-first approach requires project teams to consider the point of view of every stakeholder involved in a process and then working with them to develop solutions.
PMI reports that “change happens through projects.” Project leaders no longer do work that is adjacent to regular business operations. Instead, projects have emerged as the way work is done. That is one of the fundamental changes in the business world that has led to The Project Economy.
Another key component of The Project Economy is technology. Executives ranked both technical and digital skills highly among attributes they want to see in project leaders. While project managers do not need to understand every detail of technology engineering, they must know enough to assess the progress of technology, review deliverables and advocate for the needs of the customer.
The Project Economy is key to how an organization evolves. That places project managers at the center of the process.
Aspects of the Project Economy
In his interview, Prashara said a key aspect of The Project Economy is that organizations “are going to have to really rethink the way work is done in their businesses. So, we’re seeing the world at the business level becoming projectified.”
He said a significant component of this are project teams that move between functional areas without the traditional boundaries of finance, human resources and the legal department.
To demonstrate the shift, PMI released a report on six global trends driving The Project Economy and how they impact project leaders.
- As other parts of the world’s population ages, a lot of young talent is coming out of developing nations, including those in Africa. This will lead to a new generation of project leaders in areas in desperate need of projects in areas such as upgrading infrastructure and improving access to technology.
- Project professionals play a pivotal role in heading up projects to combat the impact of climate change.
- The emergence of artificial intelligence offers advantages to project leaders with the right blend of technical and people skills.
- Protectionist decisions made by governments have made project leaders even more valuable in the execution of projects by “multinational, multi-ethnic and geographically distributed teams.”
- The need for infrastructure overhaul is global in nature. Project leaders are critical to leading smart, agile teams that take on infrastructure projects with often tight budgets.
- An increased emphasis on cyber security has project leaders developing projects that include the participation of cyber security leaders.
Taken together, this list shows how many factors are leading to a need for more qualified project leaders. Their performance is critical to success for organizations in The Project Economy.
