Project Management Trends in 2016
What’s this year going to bring? That’s the question I ask myself at this time every year, not least because I like to write about trends in project management. It’s also important to reflect personally.
Often, what’s trending in project management is going to have a person impact on you as a project manager, sooner or later, so the two are linked. Here’s my view on what is going to be hot in 2016 in project management and how it is going to impact your daily work.
1. Mastering the Talent Pipeline
We’re facing a vast growth in the numbers of project managers required in the coming years, according to research by PMI. They’re predicting 15.7m new project management roles worldwide by 2020 and I don’t think the workplace is taking the talent gap seriously yet.
We’ll see a greater focus on succession planning and making sure that there are enough candidates coming up through junior project co-ordinator roles and similar to meet the needs of business moving forward.
How it will affect you: You might get involved with recruiting new team members or training existing team members. Don’t think you can do it? You probably already are without realising. If you are interested in the possibility of getting involved with talent management (that’s a fancy way of saying recruiting people and career planning) then talk to your HR team or manager. There might already be a mentor scheme that you could join to pass your knowledge on to others.
2. Training on Soft Skills
Project management credentials are still important and that won’t change: employers will still look out for candidates who have a great CV packed with relevant qualifications. But they’ll also be looking for something else: soft skills.
Soft skills are things like leadership, listening, team building and other skills that help you manage and lead a team successfully. They can be taught and you can improve in them. We’ll see 2016 bring more focus on to those, as they are all needed in order to be a rounded and effective project manager.
How it will affect you: You might be offered soft skills training or you might have to go out and seek it on your own. It is going to be an important right to play as a project manager so if you think a course will help you improve in areas of weakness then think about what support you need to grow your abilities.
3. Project Manager as Strategic Manager
Project management is moving from a delivery function to a strategic advisory position and it has been for a while. However, that change is still evolving and we’ll see more of it, in more traditional workplaces, this year.
How it will affect you: Think about how you can stretch your delivery role to support strategy either by delivering key benefits earlier so as to add more strategic value or by advising your senior management team. Actually, don’t just think about it: do it.
4. Distributed is the New Normal
Distributed, virtual, non-hierarchical teams have been around for a while now and they are becoming the new normal. Soon people won’t be able to remember a time when they didn’t rely on collaboration tools to get work done.
The knock on implication for this is that project managers are more reliant than ever on technical solutions that support that way of working. They need to be able to access their project schedules and work breakdown structures from wherever they are, because they can’t walk upstairs to their colleague on the next floor up and ask for it.
Personally, I’m not sad that the cubicle days are long gone.
How it will affect you: It probably already is affecting you. You’ll be working with off-shore and outsourcing companies on projects, dealing with conference calls in different time zones and using collaboration and online project management software to work with your teams. You’ll do more of it over time, trust me!
5. Change Management Matters
Finally, change management is a separate discipline to project management and I believe that they will merge. It might not totally happen this year, but there’s a strong argument for the project manager also being the change manager, especially in small and agile teams. Businesses don’t have the luxury of having dedicated business change managers: everyone has to pitch in to make sure change happens and the project manager is no exception.
How it will affect you: This ties back to your role as a strategic advisor. In order to make the outputs of your project stick, you need to ensure that the change management support is there so that people move to the new ways of working and stay there. Build change management activities into your project plan, and put them in the budget too!
That’s my assessment of what the next 12 months will bring for those of us working in a project-driven environment. What do you think? Leave your comments in the section below and share your views with the community here! Thanks!