Project management: the next step

Blog Laur 0305Any experienced project manager will tell you that when managing a project the most important thing is that you should continuously know the answer to a fundamentally repetitive question: what’s next? All project management frameworks or methodologies (PMBOK, PRINCE2, Scrum, IPMA etc.) have been actually developed in order to help project managers to get this answer. Unfortunately, because of the associated uncertainty of any project and the permanent pressure of getting all things done on time and on budget, people use to convert themselves into robotic followers of a specific frame. And this is a huge error. Not only because the core of the project is given by the people involved – so you should try first to get a real supporting motivated team for your project – but also because the continuously changed environment will never be adapted to a specific frame. On the contrary, you must adapt and create own customized management frame, taking the most suitable from the existing ones and being prepared to innovate, modify and even fail. Computers, software, management standards and professional frames are just tools to help you to get to the goal. You have to use them as such and never convert their use into a goal.

So what’s the next step? I wouldn’t prescribe it, since I would contradict myself. Inside the project management community there are a lot of debates, comments, pros and cons with respect to the different frames and methods, which one is the best and which one it is not to be applied now and in the future. Precisely because of this diversity, I would say don’t get confused by prescriptive rules and make a limited to necessity use of them. You should just be prepared to adapt and do not forget that above all project management is working with people. Technology will continuously improve, expand and be used, but the success in project management will only depend on the people behind and the ability of the project manager to understand how to adapt and communicate with them.

Author: Laurentiu Neamtu, PhD, PMP®, CSM®, Prince2® Foundation Certified

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