The Importance of Project Management for Organizations

In an increasingly competitive scenario, companies need to optimize the use of their resources, whether equipment, human or financial resources.

For this, it is essential to control the allocation of these resources in their projects, programs and consequently in their project portfolio.

In this article we will talk about the importance of project management to support the competitiveness of companies.

Project Management according to PMI

In accordance with the recommendations for good practice of the MIP, project management applies to the 10 areas of knowledge, where the project manager should act considering each of the process groups of each area.

The Knowledge Areas, according to the definition of PMBOK, are the areas defined by their knowledge requirements and described in terms of the processes that make up it: practices, inputs, outputs, tools and techniques.

Below are the 10 areas of knowledge and a brief definition of each of them:

• Integration management: Processes and activities necessary to identify, define, combine, unify and coordinate the various processes and activities of project management.
• Scope management: Processes needed to ensure that the project contemplates all the necessary work, and only what is necessary, so that it ends successfully.
• Schedule management: Processes needed to manage the project's punctual termination.
• Cost management: Processes involved in planning, estimates, budgets, financing, cost management and control, so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.
• Quality management: processes to incorporate the quality policy of the organization in relation to planning, management and control of project and product quality requirements to meet the expectations of stakeholders.
• Resource management: processes to identify, acquire and manage the physical or human resources needed for successful completion of the project.
• Communications management: processes necessary to ensure that the project information is planned, collected, created, distributed, stored, recovered, managed, controlled, monitored and finally organized in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Risk management: processes of planning, identification and analysis of risk management, response planning, implementation of response and risk monitoring in a project.
• Acquisition management: processes needed to buy or purchase products, services or results external to the project team.
• Management of stakeholders or stakeholders: processes required to identify people, groups or organizations that can impact or be impacted by the project, analyze the expectations of stakeholders and their impact on the project, and develop appropriate management strategies for their effective engagement in the decisions and execution of the project.

Despite the recommendations of PMBOK, the planning and management effort in each of these areas will depend on the characteristic, complexity, size or even project term. In a low-complexity project, the project manager should verify which areas apply to the project he is managing and in many cases will adapt the management according to the project being carried out.

The Role of Information Technology (IT) and Project Management

In the past, the IT department was seen as an area mainly responsible for supporting the infrastructure needed for the operation of companies and for many, it was seen as an area that generated only expenses because it constantly needed updating of servers, licenses, equipment, etc.

Over the years and the evolution of technologies, the IT department began to be seen and mainly began to act with a more strategic role within companies, because to meet the demands of projects and products, IT became fundamental to meet the strategic demands of the company.

With the change in the work of the IT department, the need to control the resources of the projects more effectively and strategically became even more important so that companies could plan which projects would be executed, when and what the expected return for each of them. Moreover, by better controlling project resources, companies can make better decisions to remain competitive in the market.

Despite this change in the role of the IT department, performing a more strategic function within organizations, still today, many employees do not have a clear view of the strategic, tactical and operational roles in their organizations and with this the project manager ends up having to use an extra effort in the management of human resources and in the management of communication.

In this process of communication and management of human resources, we identified that often professionals know very technically but in some cases do not have a broad knowledge or management skills.

In this sense, we recommend an analysis or evaluation of the level of knowledge of their employees on management. Initially this proposal may seem strange, but in many cases when this reflection is carried out it is identified that employees know a lot about their own activities but have no clear knowledge or vision about the impacts, risks and contribution of that project to the company's ecosystem.

To promote this evaluation, we can ask three simple questions but that can demonstrate the understanding of their collaborators on the subject or even identify opportunities to train them, thus improving:

Do your employees know what project management means and what impact it has on your organization?

When was the last time your employees received any training on management, strategic alignment, tactical or operational?

How much can your company gain or save by improving your organisation’s communication process and resource management?

The answers to these questions can help direct actions aimed at developing your company's employees.

To learn more about project management, training and optimization of your company's project office, please contact us.