Do we really do any project management in IT? A good question, some might say, and it definitely gets a lot of people thinking. And more so, the project managers!!
It is a direct question which is rather straight in the face and many project practitioners will get defensive in justifying that they do project management as per PMP® (Project Management Professional) or any other project certifications. I would believe so and after all, a lot of effort and time has been dedicated to make the organizations process centric and get it certified as per some global institutions.
I mentor project managers and the like, and interact with roughly 30-40 project managers on a monthly basis. I coach them on global project certifications like PMP®, PgMP® (Program Management Professional) and the best practices in the project management space. I also interact with organizations who want to improve processes or implement project management software. Therefore, currently my world revolves around project management.
I often ask this question to project managers. And I get this back, “Ashish, is there really any project management? You have worked with the top global IT companies – the leaders in IT; do you see any project management happening.” Well, you got the answer!
Project Management is all about learn, apply and enable, i.e., people, processes and tools. And to think of it, most of the project managers say most of their precious time is spent dealing with people. The processes and tools take a backseat. You measure the project success by a single yardstick normally – whether it is delivered before the promised date to the customer. C’mon, is this what the customer means as a successful project? I don’t think so. But it doesn’t matter as long as the project manager and his / her managers strongly feel that the project is successful as long as it gets delivered on time.
In my next series of blogs, I will focus on the various aspects of project management and my views on this topic. This topic of project management is interesting and is dealt by practitioners and thinkers very superficially. Project Management can be a game changer – we at ProThoughts believe this, and in fact we have shown this to our clients. It is time to recognize this discipline and give its due regard.
I would love to hear from you on your comments and feedback. Interaction helps to learn and unlearn, and that’s how project management functions. There is no right or wrong – just learning and unlearning.
The project goes on and so do my blogs ……and your comments….. keep them flowing !!
