THE CHANGING FACE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

14 August 2001

According to Cutter Consortium, the biggest problem facing project managers today is a lack of direction.

"The current state of the economy has put IT project managers in a peculiar bind," says Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Bob Charette, who is part of Cutter's e-Project Management Practice. "They are under pressure to respond to the 'go go go' world of the new economy, while at the same time trying to respond to the 'no no no' world of a slowing economy."

And according to a recent survey by Cutter Consortium, 88% of respondents have changed their approach to project management during the past year.

How has your organization changed its approach to project management in the past year?

Approach has been streamlined                   42%
Approach has become more complex                46%
Approach has not changed                        12%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

And when asked what provoked those changes, more than half of the respondents said it was a result of the changing pace of business.

What has caused the changes in the way your projects are managed?

Increased rate of change facing businesses                      55%
The need for innovative new solutions to business initiatives   36%
Company is trying to reduce wasted effort                       33%
Need to treat projects as a production type of activity         33%
Frustration over the inability of                               30%
  previous processes to bring budgets in on time and on budget
Persistent project failure                                      24%
Lack of budget or time to establish                             21%
  stable processes because project schedules are
  highly compressed
Greater number of e-business projects                           18%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"Although the survey does not address it specifically, the rate of change can be assumed to have been primarily customer/competitor driven last year, shifting to internally driven by last fall and into this year," says Charette. "This can be seen in the fact that only 18% of respondents say that e-business projects are impacting their organizations."

Respondents were also asked about the difficulties they have been facing with their projects. "The only surprise here is that so few managers cited the rework and redundant work issues as being sources of difficulty," says Charette. "One would expect these to be relatively high, especially given the amount of replanning being done. It may indicate that replanning is not really seen as 'rework' by many managers and/or that rework is so common that it takes a lot of it to be perceived as excessive."

What types of difficulties have you encountered with your projects?

Sudden change in priorities and plans                           55%
Competition for resources with other projects                   52%
Slow decisionmaking                                             49%
Insufficient planning                                           49%
Too many dependencies with other projects                       27%
Unnecessary deadlines                                           21%
Excessive rework                                                15%
Redundant work                                                  12%
Delays in materials                                              9%
[Source: Cutter Consortium]

"The life of the IT project manager today is one of multiple paradoxes," concludes Charette. "They must be innovative but not wasteful. They must plan but operate in an environment that does not allow planning. They must work at great speed but be subject to deliberate decisionmaking. It doesn't sound like fun."

--Cutter Consortium

[These statistics were taken from Cutter Consortium's e-Project Management Advisory Service. For more information, please contact Dennis Crowley at +1 781 641 5125 or +1 800 964 5125 or e-mail dcrowley@cutter.com or visit http://www.cutter.com/consortium/index_ebusiness.html.]