The Future is Project-Based – Is Your Organization Ready?
The COVID-19 pandemic may have brought the office into our homes, but that doesn’t mean work has become a solitary endeavor. The novelty of working remotely wore off quickly, and many organizations barely missed a beat. That’s because many organizations were already preparing for the future of work – a future that’s project-based, collaborative, and relies on teams of changemakers who come together to tackle problems and deliver success.
The pandemic has taught us that we have to be prepared for similar disruptions in the future. Just as it’s taken resilience to navigate all COVID-driven changes, the organizations that will have a competitive advantage ahead will embrace what Project Management Institute (PMI) has termed “The Project Economy.” By providing individual employees the skills and capabilities they need and coming together on project teams, these individuals can turn ideas into reality to prepare for shocks before they happen.
While many organizations were forced to put projects on hold in the past year, those that forged ahead did so with gusto and achieved better project outcomes, according to PMI’s recent report, Pulse of the Profession ® 2021. Organizations surveyed reported a three-year high for the following outcomes: The percentage of projects completed in the past 12 months that met original goals or business intent (73 percent), the percentage of projects that were completed within the original budget (62 percent) and the percentage of projects completed on time (55 percent).
Joe Cahill, Chief Customer Officer at PMIMore often than not, what comes between an idea and reality is a project in most organizations. That project may be what builds that bridge or what designs that new software. The organizations that understand this will have an edge in making their workforce most efficient and impactful.
Project-based work yields results across a wide variety of organizations and a shift to project-based work will require a shift in mindset. To adapt to advancements in technology, changes with consumers and market dynamics, organizations need to prioritize continual transformation, and they must commit to empowering and developing their employees to become leaders and adopters of these ongoing transformation efforts. They should foster a culture where teams of people across various functional areas are able to collaborate to deliver projects to bridge the gap between strategy design and delivery. To help, PMI offers the Organizational Transformation series with self-paced virtual courses that provides the tools and best practices for supporting and leading transformation efforts, effectively empowering leaders and their team members to create a culture that bridges the gap and fosters collaboration.
For employees, they must also recognize that their careers will focus on building a portfolio of project experience rather than amassing static job responsibilities. To succeed in The Project Economy, employees should:
• Be willing to explore a new way of getting work done
• Embrace new technology that can help accelerate project outcomes
• Lead with empathy and a people-centric perspective
• Think creatively and adopt a continuous learning outlook.
Organizations and professionals are experiencing complex challenges with no single best answer, and rapidly evolving industries can lead to continuously changing expectations, goals, budgets, and stakeholders — making asking good questions, sharing ideas, and finding solutions more difficult than before. A culture of visualizing ideas is necessary, but teams must have the resources to enable them to tackle these projects more creatively, collaboratively, and effectively.
technology and design pioneer, Tom WujecWe’re providing tools to people to be able to make positive, massive change in their organization by giving them simple methods, clear tools, and resources to be able to identify problems, to systematically build a shared understanding of what those problems are, and to create wider set of alternatives to navigate forward change
PMI, through their partnership with Wujec, offers Wicked Problem Solving (WPS), a revolutionary design-thinking course and downloadable toolkit that ensures teams and individuals are identifying the right problems by asking questions, making all ideas visible through diagrams and visualizations, and ensuring teams are aligned on the way forward with tangible next steps. It’s one of the many educational resources PMI offers that can help businesses and individuals thrive in a project-based workplace.
“Education is what PMI does best – we train, we certify, we work with individuals,” Cahill notes. “PMI’s contribution to transformation is focused on the reskilling and upskilling of individuals in an organization.” It’s important to focus on developing these changemakers and getting the right technology and resources in their hands. These are the individuals who will help to move projects forward, make change happen, and ultimately contribute to the success of their organizations.
Organizations that commit to continuous transformation and are continuously learning and adapting, while fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation, will be the most prepared for the future. “It’s in their DNA and in their culture to constantly change, adapt, and get ready for what’s next,” Cahill adds. “This mindset is what you need to be prepared for things that you can see coming, and particularly for things you can’t see coming. It’s a mindset to be ready, to identify change, and to make that pivot.”