Recently, I was asked the question "Can you explain why my company should have project managers?"
A large organization having multiple functions, including HR, Finance, IT, Manufacturing Operations, Research, Quality Assurance, Strategic Planning, and Business Intelligence MUST have project management function within the organization to ensure success and eliminate waste, as well as ensure competitive excellence and leadership
Project Manager Value
The value a project manager adds to an organization by virtue of properly managing projects is:
- Manages scope of goals and directives assigned by leadership.
- Manages resources including human capital in stressful environments, and maximized “on the bench” capacity during times of reduced rate of growth.
- PLANS with a specific methodology, and maintains and applies the planning wisdom to additional initiatives within the organization.
- Is aware of status of all critical initiatives, and is able to report against them professionally.
- Manages stakeholders’ and sponsors’ expectations and perception of quality.
- Is a champion for right-sizing initiatives from resourcing perspective.
- Documents operationally Assembles teams, ensures appropriate staffing, and maintains focus on objectives and “sense of urgency” on projects
- Continually reviews success and progress of important initiatives and adjusts plans, capacity as required.
- Proactively seeks and manages issues before they become an impediment (or worse detriment) to the organization.
- important initiatives and reduces waste in replication of efforts.
- Risk management.
Absence of a project manager / project planner will expose the organization to:
- Unresolved issues due to lack of detailed analysis of efforts
- Materialized risks – risks that become real and unmanaged
- Inefficiently used resources and staff, leading to reduction in morale and efficiency.
- Inability to deal with problems until they are too late – reactive vs proactive issues management
- Unintended surprises on projects.
- Delays due to resource unavailability, administrative inefficiency.
- Poor planning
- Scope creep – probably the biggest source of “profit leak” within an organization.
- Confusion on schedule, responsibility within projects.
- Increase in unforeseen dependencies which can dramatically increase time / money of an effort.
- Repeating the same mistake multiple times – another huge “profit leak” for an organization.
