PMcrunch

Many project management positions are just that — positions managing projects. However, many other positions seemingly in project management are much more positions in programmatics. They involve tracking, reporting, working with metrics, and passing information on to decision makers. While, often, there is a need for these functions, there, often, also is not.

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SaaS, an acronym for Software as a Service, continues to evolve in the market today. Any project or program manager involved with software application implementation needs to be very familiar with SaaS. But any project manager on any project where there are systems involved with managing any aspect of the project will also benefit by being familiar with SaaS.

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Project management in one sense can be a pretty dry field. While it can be exciting professionally and emotionally, it also can be relatively mechanical in many ways and to many people. However, as I think about it, most things are actually that way. Most things can get to be ho-hum and humdrum. The difference I find is when we decide to do things with style. We add some class to our actions and become a different kind of project manager. Let me give you my thoughts.

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If you were like me, you have been on some projects over time where somehow it was not even apparent who the manager of the project was. Sometimes, there is no project manager. At other times, there is a technical lead. At other times, there is someone who calls themselves the project manager but they are not really a project manager at all. How can these situations be handled professionally?

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As project managers, we often are handed projects once they are sold. For example, in a consulting organization, a sales force will often sell a project which then is assigned to a project manager. Similarly, within organizations, someone has “sold” a project to upper management and to stakeholders and then the project is assigned to a project manager for implementation.

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Few weeks ago, I wrote a post about leadership in a virtual world in which I stated the limitations to achieve top leadership when not being directly engaged on site. The idea was that if a manager is not on site with regular phase time with subordinates, customers, associates, colleagues, and other stakeholders, he or she is not at all being positioned for increased leadership responsibility.

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In managing a project or program, we start with an objective, work in the details, get buying, put together a schedule, and implement. Of course, that is a very simplified version of what happens in project and program management but…

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The Project Management Institute, Prince II, and numerous other project management centric organizations have, for some time, had at their core that there is great an broad value to the application of structured and formal project management. At the same time, people have been managing projects really for about as long as humans have existed, albeit with varying levels of complexity. The question is, what is the value of formal project management?

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Innovation is a popular topic these days. It is rare to read much in the business accross something about innovation. I have, at times, perceived innovation to be open creativity. However, based upon my experience, I have found that it is more of a deliberate act of which creativity is a part.

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Most of the focus of individuals in the project management profession is on improving their own ability and that of others to execute well on projects. Typically, we are able to measure our progress in that regard by measuring performance and results on these projects. There is a process called “projectization” that refers to the general capability of people and organizations at large to manage projects effectively and predictably. Let’s take a look at how this is done at an organizational level.

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