Thursday, January 15, 2015

ESI’s Top 10 Project Management Trends of 2015

ESI International, a project management training company, recently released its top 10 trends in project management for 2015. This year’s trends reveal that project managers (PMs) will be impacted by many changes this year including more hybrid environments, an increasing demand for talent management, and a growing need to align project outcomes with organizational strategy.
In 2015, the PM’s role will continue to evolve, according ESI VP of Marketing and Strategic Intelligence Mark Bashrum. Improving interpersonal skills, learning the discipline of strategic execution, and becoming well versed in change management practices should be on every PM’s list of New Year’s resolutions.

“All too often people talk about strategy and execution independently,” said Bashrum. “In the coming year we will see a heightened focus on managing the critical links connecting the two, as more organizations begin to view strategic execution as a core discipline.”

ESI’s top 10 trends for project management include:

Lofty Expectations: PMs need to become adept at managing gaps between the constraints of cloud-based platforms and the business’ expectations.

Out-of-Whack: Talent management within the PM community comes back into focus.

Fuel for the Hybrid: As the pace of change continues to accelerate, hybrid project methods will become the norm.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short: The ability to find and hire top PM talent is dwindling.

Bottom’s Up: Organizations must build bottom-up processes to link project outcomes to organizational strategy.

Ignore Them at Your Own Peril: Project managers will continue to be ignored and not get the coaching and mentoring they are screaming for.

Run!: Project managers continue to sacrifice project transparency as they flee from conflict and avoid difficult conversations.

Change is Coming: The disciplines of change management and project management continue to merge as PMs become responsible for delivering project and business outcomes.

Knocking at the Door: Project management and business strategy better align to the benefit of the organization.

Culture Shock: Organizational culture becomes a bigger consideration in risk management practices.

“The impact on project management is substantial,” he added. “Project managers, who are typically held accountable for delivering project outcomes, will now also be responsible for how those deliverables impact the business. This will require a retooling of their skillsets, but in the end it elevates the PM’s role as a critical enabler of business strategy, and that’s a very good thing for project managers who can make the jump.”


About the Author: Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist of the Marketing Division at IIR USA, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. Amanda is the Editor at Large for several of IIR’s blogs including Next Big DesignCustomers 1stDigital Impact, STEAM Accelerator and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts, and a regular contributor to Front End of Innovation and The Market Research Event,. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the technology industry. She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc.

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