Categories: Best Practices, Calculating Project Value, Career Help, Communication, Education and Training, Human Aspects of PM, Leadership, PM Think About It
by Dave Wakeman
Care to do a little thought experiment with me? Let’s imagine what the new and improved next-gen project leader should look like. And let’s come up with a few key attributes that would make this new and improved project leader successful.
Here are a few of my ideas about how to achieve success in the future of project management:
1. Emphasize strategic ownership of your projects and your role in the organization.
I know that I’ve been hitting a constant drumbeat over the last few months about the need for project managers to become more strategic in their thinking and their actions. For good reason: As our businesses and organizations become more project-focused, the need to think and act strategically becomes a key factor in our success or failure.
One way you can jump on this before everyone else does is by always taking the initiative to frame your projects in a strategic manner when dealing with your sponsors and key stakeholders. Work with sponsors on ways that you can manipulate and focus your projects strategically.
2. Less domain knowledge and more business acumen.
The project management role in an organization has changed. Even in industries that have long embraced project management principles and the job title (e.g., IT), technical knowledge aspects have become less important because of specialization.
What has replaced the emphasis on specialization in the project manager’s role? An emphasis on strategic thinking and business acumen. This is likely to accelerate to become the new normal.
You can take advantage of this trend by working to think about your projects as tools to increase the value of your company and its products and services to your customers and prospects.
3. Communicate or die.
This last point shouldn’t be a surprise. Being a good communicator has been the differentiator between successful and unsuccessful project managers as long as project management has been a thing.
But as our world becomes more interconnected through technology, with teams dispersed across continents instead of floors, the ability to effectively communicate is going to be more and more important. And the ability to be that communicator is going to have a bigger and more meaningful impact on your career and your success in your organization.
What qualities do you think next-gen project leaders require? Please post your comments below!
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