“Trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play a football game without a game plan.” – Karen Tate.
Project management is the art of organizing, directing, and disciplining all the aspects of a project, keeping the restraints and the goals in mind. Project management has greatly evolved due to innovative practices that have introduced new trends like artificial intelligence, data analytics, and emotional intelligence to the project management sector, which are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
The project management team must apply their skills, knowledge, information, and experience to meet the objectives and goals set for a specific project. The team is led by a Project Manager who keeps a keen eye on every detail of the task. He is responsible for planning, scheduling, and initiating a project within budget and time. He defines the objectives, communicates with the stakeholders, sets deadlines, keeps the team intact, and provides emotional support to the team members to motivate them by making them feel valued.
Industries That Hire Project Work Professionals
While project work professionals can be found in almost every sector, their demand in industries like finance and insurance, construction and engineering, healthcare, and information technology is relatively high. Project managers in IT companies organize resources and maintain clear communication with the client.
An HR resourcing or training company can be a good option for hiring well-qualified and trained individuals with experience in project management. Revature, for example, is a company that trains college graduates who have a passion for working in the field of Information Technology and offers placement opportunities. Project managers at Revature go through a paid training program and are referred to clients for interviews after completing the training. The average Revature project manager salary ranges from $47000 to $107000 a year.
Trends in Project Management
In the past decade, massive shifts in business operations have emerged due to the technological boom. A similar transformation has modified work protocols for Project Management motivated by technology, psychological analyses of employee behavior, and the consequences of the pandemic lockdown. These changes have cemented a spot in the regular performance protocols of this field.
1. Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation are quite evident in the Project Management sector. Many companies have started using AI for daily tasks requiring human effort. For example, visualizing the data, scheduling the resources, analyzing the risks, estimating costs and time scales, and generating performance insights. AI and Automation have been a great help in executing projects within the given deadlines.
Artificial intelligence is the capacity of machines to imitate human intelligence. Since these machines or computers are designed to work like the human mind, they can exhibit human traits, like learning and problem-solving. Automation is creating technologies that help in performing tasks without human intervention.
2. Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Emotional intelligence plays an important role in project management because it helps create a positive environment to work effectively with others. It helps encourage team members to perform and execute a task successfully.
Increased awareness of the significance of emotional intelligence in building teams and improving work outcomes has added a new dimension to project management. It refers to understanding and recognizing one’s emotions and behaviors and those of others. It is the capability of distinguishing thoughts from feelings. It helps to understand different behaviors and use the power of emotions to motivate, connect and influence.
3. Hybrid Methodology
Methodology in project management is a set of rules, principles, tools, and techniques to manage and execute projects. In the past, project managers or companies stuck to one methodology, regardless of the projects they worked on. Over time, many companies have evolved to use different methodologies based on their needs and requirements. Rather than restricting themselves to working within one framework, they have adapted to a combination of methodologies, resulting in satisfactory outcomes. For instance, a major consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic was increased remote work. The remote work model shifted from a monitored daily activity to a task-based or project-based work with a predetermined deadline as a framework to allocate work to employees.
4. Remote Work
Remote work breaks the traditional mold of the office and the work environment set by the employer. Remote employees work from their choice of space, like a private office, home, or anywhere else. Almost all the remote jobs are online and require the employee to have a good and stable internet connection.
Consequently, the project manager’s role has become more central in ensuring on-time delivery of projects. The project manager needs to keep track of the various aspects of a project progressing on schedule and meeting the deadline.
Besides a rise in remote jobs in every sector, the project manager can also work remotely. Most project work can be done online without problems, making this career ideal for remote work. A remote project manager is expected to ensure that his team works in collaboration. They are meeting the required objectives without any hassle and within the given timeframe to meet the overall project deadline. He should check every process detail and constantly review the team’s progress.
Remote work has also proven to be cost-effective because it helps in saving money on office setups and utilities. Apart from that, the work hours are flexible, which happens to be a win-win in balancing one’s work and life.
5. Analytics
Businesses use statistics and technology to get new insights and improve decision-making. Data is the new buzzword in cornering the market and is essential to stay on top of trends in customer behavior and resulting data analytics. Analytics may be diagnostic, prescriptive, descriptive, and predictive. Analytics is receiving and processing business data to identify and analyze the business strength or root cause of a problem.
The possibility of project failure has forced project managers to turn to data for help. The data is collected through Business Intelligence (BI). It is software that collects, stores, and analyzes data from different sources and converts it into useful information. Proper data use has helped remove the probability factor from the decision-making process. The project managers guide the team in an appropriate direction to meet the objectives efficiently.
Conclusion
An organized beginning leads to a productive ending, especially for the project manager’s role. Recent trends have certainly brought drastic changes to the project management sector. Ultimately, the new dynamics have been quite helpful in organizing, decision making, cost-saving, meeting deadlines, and creating a positive work environment.
