Long-term planning. No longer is it OK to assume that an organization will have the resources necessary to address issues that come up 4 or 5 years from now. Instead, companies are looking for PMs with the expertise to proactively examine market pressures, industry trends, and other information, and use that data to develop useful long-range plans.

Risk management. Successfully identifying potential problems and developing mitigation strategies becomes increasingly important as organizations are less willing to accept (or less able to absorb) risk as a normal part of doing business. Areas of focus include risk modeling, response control, and mitigation strategies.

Resource tracking and oversight. As companies continue to rely heavily on outside resources—consultants, strategic business partners, etc.—your ability to accurately forecast the need for external support and effectively use those assets will be valuable. Become familiar with technologies that can help you track resources, and learn best practices on using them successfully.

Change management. Along with beefing up your budget management prowess, being more adept at controlling change—and how it affects your project—will also serve you well. Improve your ability to spot potential needs for change early in the process, better control how changes are reviewed and approved, and minimize the impact of change on your project’s budget, deliverables, and end user satisfaction.

Social networking and media. Not only are PMOs more frequently turning to social media to keep stakeholders, end users, and the community updated on project status and news, but companies are increasingly using social networking platforms to engage with job candidates and see what potential hires have been up to.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

1 – Better workspaces. If you have access to slightly more enticing space—bigger cubes, private offices, or even just a desk with more natural light—it could be a powerful perk. Mind the costs to move and outfit your new digs.

2 – Flex time. Some employees find the ability to strike a better work/life balance to be worth more than a fat raise. Allowing workers to shift their hours to accommodate family or personal schedules could boost staff retention and snuff out malaise.

3 – Remote work arrangements. This won’t work in every organization, but if you can support telecommuting—even on a limited basis—you may find your employees are happier and more productive. Beware potential expenses if your company doesn’t already have the technology infrastructure in place to allow working remotely.

4 – New titles. It’s a strategy that’s especially effective if your organization is cash-strapped and unable to pay the top-tier wages of others in your area or industry. Keep titles realistic and relevant, but allowing a little leeway or individuality (maybe your senior project coordinators become Masters of End User Experiences) can be a fun perk.

5 – More vacation. While not technically a freebie, a little extra paid time off can work wonders for employee productivity and morale, while helping the team to avoid project burnout. Stagger days off and be sure that everyone gets (and takes) their share of downtime.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.

1 – We don’t recognize the project’s failure. Think you know when a project has failed or succeeded? Think again. It’s not uncommon that others (usually end users) see a host of unmet objectives while you move on to the next project thinking you accomplished everything you set out to do. The causes behind this lack of recognition are often tied to either poor planning (you didn’t set the right objectives in the first place) or lack of good follow up efforts (things were left uncompleted but you never checked back with end users to be sure their needs were met).

2 – We assume the failure was out of our control. While circumstances do occasionally make project success difficult or even impossible, it’s rare. Instead, it’s more likely that potential outside influences weren’t properly identified, investigated, and accounted for during the planning phase. Even if issues crop up after initial planning has been completed, your team needs to take ownership of managing—and possibly modifying—expectations so you and your stakeholders continue forward on the same page.

3 – We pin the failure’s cause on another group. PMOs will forever rely on other departments or business partners to get things done. No matter if your collaborators are internal groups or external providers, they depend on you to clearly set expectations and define the project’s parameters. Whether Purchasing is unable to negotiate prices that fit your budget or Real Estate is delayed in securing the lease on a new space, pushing the blame for project failure onto them is usually just a reflection of inadequate oversight on your part.

4 – We don’t take the time to identify where the project broke down. Chalking up a project failure should immediately set you on a course to pinpoint how you missed your target and where things started to go off-track. Simply moving on to the next project without conducting a thorough post-mortem—either because you’re too busy or don’t feel you can do anything about the failure’s triggers even if you identify them—is setting yourself up to the repeat the failure in the future.

5 – We blame the failure on a lack of funding or other necessary resources. Good project planning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Your objectives and timeframe must work in concert with the resources allocated to you. You may occasionally face a situation where funding was initially approved but has since been cut, forcing you to curtail or even cancel your project. That type of situation is likely something you couldn’t have foreseen and which may indeed lead to a failed project. However, setting objectives at the outset without the funding or other resources to back them up is a planning mistake that shouldn’t happen, and one that’s squarely in your power to correct.

6 – We see failure as unavoidable. An organization’s politics, culture, or methods of operation are sometimes viewed as recipes for project disaster. Instead of addressing these issues, PMOs may see ongoing failure as their lot in life. In this scenario, your ability to influence a bad situation through the use of good project management practices may be your only defense.

PMAlliance uses a team of highly experienced and certified professionals to provide project management consulting, project management training and project office development services.