With the value that project management offers any organization, it is easy to understand why more and more industries are adopting project management as the way to do business. But projects aren't easy to manage and involves a lot of challenges. The key reasons why projects are challenging to manage are:
1. Uncharted territory—Each project is unique. The work to be done has likely never been done before by this group of people in this particular environment.
2. Multiple expectations—Each project has multiple stakeholders that each have their own needs and expectations for the project.
3. Communication obstacles—Due to natural organizational boundaries,communication channels, and team development stages, communication of project information must be proactively managed to ensure proper flow.
4. Balancing the competing demands—Every project is defined to produce one or more deliverables (scope) within a defined time period (time), under an approved budget (cost) with a specified set of resources. In addition, the deliverables must achieve a certain performance level (quality) and meet
the approval of the key stakeholders (expectations). Each of these factors can affect the others, as the figure below illustrates.
For example, if additional functionality (scope, quality) is desired, the time and cost (resources needed) of the project will increase. This is a key focus of an effective project manager.
5. Cutting edge—Often, projects have a strategic, innovative focus. As a result, they often deal with new, leading-edge technologies. In these cases, the project has more risks, more unknowns, and is much more difficult to estimate accurately.
6. Organizational impacts—In addition to overcoming natural communication obstacles created by the project structure, the project manager must also manage overlaps in organizational approval and
authority domains, contend with competing priorities for shared resources, deal with annual budget cycles that might not be aligned with the project’s funding needs, and ensure that the project is aligned with the focus of the organization.
7. Collaboration—Depending on the strategic level and scope of your project, your project team will consist of stakeholders across the organization from different functional areas that are likely not accustomed to working together. For project success, these different stakeholders must learn to work together and to understand the others’ perspectives to make the best decisions for the project. Often, the project manager plays a key facilitating role in this collaboration process.
8. Estimating the work—Estimating project work is difficult, yet the time and cost dimensions of the project are built upon these work effort estimates. Given the facts that the work of the project is often unique (never been done before at all, never been done with these tools, and never been done by these people), and most organizations do not maintain accurate historical records on previous projects (that might have similar work components), it is difficult to accurately estimate the effort for individual work items, not to mention the entire project. For the entire project, you need to anticipate the quantity and severity of the issues and obstacles that are likely to surface.
Thus a Project Manager plays an important role in any organization. With the business trends of global competition and increased worker productivity continuing for the foreseeable future, the demand for successful project managers will only increase. Even in industries and organizations that are experiencing staff reductions, the individuals who have the knowledge, the people skills, and the management competence to solve problems and get projects done are the individuals most valued and retained by the parent organization.
1. Uncharted territory—Each project is unique. The work to be done has likely never been done before by this group of people in this particular environment.
2. Multiple expectations—Each project has multiple stakeholders that each have their own needs and expectations for the project.
3. Communication obstacles—Due to natural organizational boundaries,communication channels, and team development stages, communication of project information must be proactively managed to ensure proper flow.
4. Balancing the competing demands—Every project is defined to produce one or more deliverables (scope) within a defined time period (time), under an approved budget (cost) with a specified set of resources. In addition, the deliverables must achieve a certain performance level (quality) and meet
the approval of the key stakeholders (expectations). Each of these factors can affect the others, as the figure below illustrates.
For example, if additional functionality (scope, quality) is desired, the time and cost (resources needed) of the project will increase. This is a key focus of an effective project manager.
5. Cutting edge—Often, projects have a strategic, innovative focus. As a result, they often deal with new, leading-edge technologies. In these cases, the project has more risks, more unknowns, and is much more difficult to estimate accurately.
6. Organizational impacts—In addition to overcoming natural communication obstacles created by the project structure, the project manager must also manage overlaps in organizational approval and
authority domains, contend with competing priorities for shared resources, deal with annual budget cycles that might not be aligned with the project’s funding needs, and ensure that the project is aligned with the focus of the organization.
7. Collaboration—Depending on the strategic level and scope of your project, your project team will consist of stakeholders across the organization from different functional areas that are likely not accustomed to working together. For project success, these different stakeholders must learn to work together and to understand the others’ perspectives to make the best decisions for the project. Often, the project manager plays a key facilitating role in this collaboration process.
8. Estimating the work—Estimating project work is difficult, yet the time and cost dimensions of the project are built upon these work effort estimates. Given the facts that the work of the project is often unique (never been done before at all, never been done with these tools, and never been done by these people), and most organizations do not maintain accurate historical records on previous projects (that might have similar work components), it is difficult to accurately estimate the effort for individual work items, not to mention the entire project. For the entire project, you need to anticipate the quantity and severity of the issues and obstacles that are likely to surface.
Thus a Project Manager plays an important role in any organization. With the business trends of global competition and increased worker productivity continuing for the foreseeable future, the demand for successful project managers will only increase. Even in industries and organizations that are experiencing staff reductions, the individuals who have the knowledge, the people skills, and the management competence to solve problems and get projects done are the individuals most valued and retained by the parent organization.
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