Why is project management important for an Organization?

Why go anywhere else it started when I was appointed as a project manager, having experience in managing projects but things changed when I started to learn about PMP and modifying the available knowledge to different projects. It was like projects could be so much more effective and efficient than we think or assume they are.

They wonder if they really need project management because on paper it looks like an unnecessary tax and overhead as project managers don’t really deliver anything and often get in the way of what they want the team to do!

So if all that’s true, why does project management matter?

The truth is, running projects without good project management is a false economy. It’s often thought to be an unnecessary burden on the budget, and there’s no doubt it can be expensive – as much as 20% of the overall project budget.

But can you afford to not have project management?

Without it, what holds the team and client together? And without it, who is left to navigate through the ups and downs, clashes, and catastrophes of projects?

Great project management means much more than keeping project management’s iron triangle in check, delivering on time, budget, and scope; it unites clients and teams, creates a vision for a successful project, and gets everyone on the same page of what’s needed to stay on track for success. When projects are managed properly, there’s a positive impact that reverberates beyond the delivery of ‘the stuff’.

Top 10 Reasons of Importance of Project Management for an Organization?

Strategic Alignment:

Mark Langley, the president and CEO of PMI, has said, “If your organization is not good at project management, you are putting too much at risk in terms of ultimately delivering on strategy.”Strategic Alignment is the process of linking the organization’s structure and resources with its strategy and the ultimate objective. All the clients that approach you or give you a project, have certain objectives for their own organization and this project is a step in achieving that goal. Project Management is important here as it can align the tasks in such a way that the project connects with the strategic alignment of the customer too. A project manager ensures that the project helps in fulfilling the strategic alignment of the organization.

Leadership

Project management is important because it brings leadership and direction to projects.

Without project management, a team can be like a ship without a rudder; moving but without direction, control, or purpose. Leadership allows and enables team members to do their best work. Project management provides leadership and vision, motivation, removing roadblocks, coaching, and inspiring the team to do their best work.

Project managers serve the team but also ensure clear lines of accountability. With a project manager in place, there’s no confusion about who’s in charge and in control of whatever’s going on in a project (especially if you’re using a RACI chart or other similar tools). Project managers enforce the process and keep everyone on the team in line too because ultimately they carry responsibility for whether the project fails or succeeds.

Effective resource allocation:

The biggest resource any project managers have at their disposal is the team members. Project teams consist of people of different backgrounds and departments and they might have other commitments. Through proper project planning, you can ensure that they are available when needed.

Similarly, other resources like the budget, tools, machinery and others can be arranged effectively to avoid project delays during the execution. Through properly allocating each resource in the beginning, you can also monitor the phases that are more demanding and prepare accordingly.

By figuring out a smarter and efficient direction, you can ensure that each prioritized task is optimized to give you maximum output at the lowest cost.

Clear Focus and Objectives:

Project Management is important as it comes up with a proper project plan for achieving the strategic goals. If you leave the work of project management to your team you will see that there would be no accountability, the team would be working without a proper brief, there would be a lack of focus, it could be possible that there are no clear objectives due to not having a proper project description, and the project can get stuck when any risk or problem arises. Lack of clear goals was the most common reason for project failure in 2017. A project manager can prevent such situations by breaking the project into tasks and helping/managing the team in completing the tasks on time and by project analysis. The work is divided into small tasks and the completion of these tasks leads to the completion of the project. An efficient project manager foresees the risks, therefore risk management is an important part of project management. If any risk or problem arises, an efficient project manager would be able to solve it without causing any delay in the project.

Reduced Costs and Quality Control:

In 2018, according to PMI, 9.9% of every dollar invested was wasted due to poor project performance - that’s $99 million for every $1 billion invested. Project management reduces project costs by optimizing the use of resources, improving efficiency, and decreasing risks. Therefore, even with the added cost of a project manager, you stand to gain much more. As it is important to deliver what was promised to the client, the project manager ensures that the quality of the deliverable remains up to the mark. The projects are to be delivered really soon and such a rush may result in ignoring the quality. It’s the duty of the project manager to deliver a quality project on time.

Improved customer satisfaction:

Retaining clients is considered more important than acquiring new ones and a guaranteed way of doing it is by offering unparalleled services. An effective set of operations that focuses on quality and efficiency, would naturally leave the clients feeling satisfied. This means that they would return with more business in the future.

A satisfied client would also refer your organization to other potential customers, which means free marketing for you. This can be an extremely effective marketing strategy for businesses.

SME (Subject Matter Expert):

Project Management is important here as it ensures that everyone is doing their respective work properly. Unlike any other manager, the project manager also ensures that everyone is doing their respective work and are completing their tasks on time. The project manager understands their team, the expertise, and limitations of the members, what system they use, and blends all this to deliver the ultimate results. Without SME through project management, the projects become unbalanced as the creatives ignore the limitations of technology. The developers don’t understand the creative view of the project. Project management does the right compromises here to bring everyone together and turn the project into a success.

Realistic Project Planning

Project management is important because it ensures proper expectations are set around what can be delivered, by when, and for how much.

Without proper project management, budget estimates and project delivery timelines can be set that are over-ambitious or lacking in analogous estimating insight from similar projects. Ultimately this means without good project management, projects get delivered late, and over budget.

Effective project managers should be able to negotiate reasonable and achievable deadlines and milestones across stakeholders, teams, and management. Too often, the urgency placed on delivery compromises the necessary steps, and ultimately, the quality of the project’s outcome.

We all know that most tasks will take longer than initially anticipated; a good project manager is able to analyze and balance the available resources, with the required timeline, and develop a realistic schedule. Project management really matters when scheduling because it brings objectivity to the planning.

A good project manager creates a clear process, with achievable deadlines, that enables everyone within the project team to work within reasonable bounds, and not unreasonable expectations.

Quality control

Most project managers are under enormous pressure to complete the project on time. When deadlines are missed, schedules get tightened, work is rushed, and corners are cut, resulting in poor quality work.

Methodologies like Agile ensure the quality and applicability of the delivered product by creating a separate phase for examining and testing at every step. Proper project management also gives you control over the timelines and resources.

Learning by retrospection

As a project manager, you can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. It’s also key to do more of what went right and less of what went wrong. And, projects generate a tremendous amount of knowledge.

Almost every project management methodology includes a retrospective stage at the end of the project to facilitate this. Frameworks like Scrum include periodical retrospection so you can learn from what went wrong throughout the course of the project.

Properly recorded documentation allows you to keep track of all activities, enabling the team to learn from successes and failures. The learnings from a project can be applied to all future projects. It’s also a great tool to estimate costs and project timelines.

Conclusion:

Lack of proper project management, clients and the team are unclear of the objectives, no accountability is there, risk of project failure is high, and so on. Thus, the client and the team are exposed to disordered management. And great project management can deliver you the hard-earned success that you deserve.