Project management has always been an essential factor in shaping organizational fortunes, as it directly affects their bottom line, aside from their ability to acquire and retain customers. Thus, project management methodologies have evolved drastically with changing market dynamics and consumer demand. However, the focus on effective project management has increased multifold off late in response to the after-effects of the pandemic. As a result, businesses are revisiting how they manage projects and their workforces to ensure profits and client satisfaction. All this while navigating challenging trends like the Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle, and Quiet Quitting.
Common understanding suggests that prudent project management helps keep the three sacrosanct factors- timeline, budget and project scope – in check. However, its benefits go beyond them. We have listed some of them below:
1. Project Planning
Organizations can’t deliver on projects without planning them well. Project management enables organizations to set realistic plans and estimate costs and timelines in which they can deliver the project. Organizations can then communicate these estimates internally as well as to their external stakeholders. This process instills confidence and transparency and allows project leaders, vendors, and other stakeholders to align their deliverables accordingly.
2. Enhances Utilization of Resources
Project planning helps organizations optimize resource utilization, as project managers can foresee resource availability. Plus, it allows them to understand their resourcing needs and make informed decisions about hiring full-time, part-time and freelance professionals. In addition, this process gives them visibility into delivery timelines, helping set realistic customer expectations. Scheduling resources also enables project managers to evaluate the degree to which they can use specific resources and align project deliverables accordingly.
If project managers lack visibility of their resources and extending the timeline is not an option, they can choose to allot tasks to available team members or even de-prioritize some deliverables. Such an approach ensures effective utilization by identifying the best-fit resources, thus impacting the quality of the deliverables, and consequently affecting the bottom line and revenue.
3. Offers Real-time Insights Into the Progress of the Deliverables
Organizations need accessible and actionable real-time data and analytics as they increasingly work from remote and hybrid setups. They need real-time insights to make informed decisions faster. Plus, they need to share relevant information with stakeholders to manage their businesses efficiently. Also, actionable instantaneous data helps project managers understand how their projects are progressing, aside from identifying areas of concern before they manifest into more significant challenges. Thus, organizations are increasingly using tools like Polaris Professional Services Automation, boosting their project management capabilities. These tools empower them with real-time insights into diverse project metrics, cutting across vast data silos and helping them transform vast tracts of structured and unstructured data into insights to make prudent and potentially profitable decisions.
4. Helps Mitigate Risks Associated With Projects
Efficient project management is now intertwined with PSA tools that help organizations proactively manage risks. As organizations employ tools that aggregate information and data, they can better forecast and understand the risks involved in each step of the project management process. This early insight enables them to course-correct faster, dramatically reducing the chances of a project failure.
5. Helps Manage Project Costs Better
Organizations often find budgeting and managing a project challenging. It is all the more difficult for organizations that deploy legacy tools and systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Project management allows organizations to forecast project budgets. They use PSA tools that offer them hands-on capabilities of managing costs and monitoring the budget, as compared to the actual costs, providing a decluttered picture of their existing budgets and their future financial projections. Besides, it ensures that they can deliver a project on time without budgetary escalation, thus enhancing customer satisfaction and retention.
6. Enhances Productivity
Every organization uses project management to boost efficiency and productivity in as short a timeline as possible. Besides, the lack of resource optimization and under-utilized employees is a challenging combination that can cost organizations millions of dollars annually.
Prudent resource management helps organizations improve productivity, aside from creating opportunities for their employees to engage in project deliverables that are best suited to their abilities and talents. Hence, excellent project management contributes to employee engagement and lowers turnover.
Efficient project management is a highly desirable trait among organizations and is often the single most crucial factor in deciding their business trajectory. As new workplace models take center stage, organizations would do well to evaluate their project management capabilities. And move to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning-enabled PSA tools that are designed to accommodate the business challenges of the post-pandemic landscape. Boosting the organizational abilities to manage projects better can positively impact employees and customers, ultimately ensuring long-term success in the marketplace.