5 Project Management Trends that Should Guide Your PM Strategy
Reading Time: 5 minutes Like any sector in the constantly-changing business world, project management is always evolving with the technological changes as well as the market shifts and the rising needs of the customers.
By and large, in the past couple of decades projects have become more complex and now span multiple departments. Projects nowadays have numerous sub-tasks and even smaller supplementary projects, various key actors, and the need to employ more contemporary tech tools in order to ensure efficiency and productivity across the board.
Suffice it to say, this means that the trends in these sectors are changing (if only slightly) with each passing year.
This also means that you have to stay on top of those trends in order to ensure business success, preserve operational efficiency, and make your projects more cost-effective, less labor-intensive, and ultimately, more productive.
Let’s take a look at the PM trends you need to know about in order to find and implement the best solutions that will help you achieve these goals.
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Table of Contents
The introduction of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are quickly becoming commonplace in the modern business environment, especially now that these technologies are more attainable even to the smaller businesses that have limited financial resources.
Now that everyone has the opportunity to utilize the power and potential of AI and machine learning, business leaders have the opportunity to truly take project management to the next level by quickly collecting relevant data and insights, and using these technologies to devise more efficient and effective solutions.
Artificial intelligence has the power to pinpoint all of the pain-points that project management leaders and their teams are struggling with, and suggest ways to cut time and financial waste while elevating productivity.
Machine learning, on the other hand, allows the technology to get to know the PM environment and every process within so that it can devise even better solutions over time.
Automating key and repetitive processes
Of course, one of the foremost applications of AI and modern technology, in general, is to alleviate the pressure off of your employees by automating everything from menial and repetitive tasks, all the way to those complex tasks such as data collection and analysis, demand sensing, forecasting, and more.
Automation should be one of your top priorities when you’re adapting your project management strategy for 2020 and beyond because it will allow you to focus on the core processes and to drive your projects forward with minimal risk and fewer setbacks while keeping your employees happy.
Some of the tasks you can easily automate include data visualization and reporting, performance monitoring, activity logging and oversight, and more. Your goal should be to take advantage of automation as much as possible and use the insights that this technology creates to make better decisions and ultimately make the project more successful and rewarding for all.
Creating a centralized work environment
Speaking of tools that aim to make your projects more efficient and productive, it’s important that you choose a comprehensive project management software like Taskworld that also allows you to create a centralized, collaborative environment where everyone can work together in real-time.
Cross-department collaboration is one of the most common pain-points nowadays, as projects have become more complex than ever before and encompass multiple departments and sectors while even involving remote partners and experts.
Managing all of those people and processes in a single project can be a nightmare, especially if you don’t have all of the information in one place. That’s why it’s essential to choose one platform that will hold all of your project-related data.
Once you choose the one that fits your needs, you need to make sure to shift all communication and work to that one platform and don’t let anyone exchange project data and files on any other – not even email.
This will allow you to stay in control of the project on all fronts, and most importantly, it will allow everyone to communicate and collaborate seamlessly on a single platform.
Taking emotional intelligence into account
Managing a project is not just about knowing the scope of work, or setting deadlines, or using the latest tools. You also need to keep in mind that the people that are handling all of those tasks and processes are human beings with feelings and emotions.
After all, the fate of the project is in their hands, so all the more reason to prioritize employee happiness as the project is progressing, which you should do by focusing on emotional intelligence.
This is also one of the biggest mistakes that inexperienced HR professionals make, as they often fail to take into account the true emotional state of the individual, which can lead to problems within the team down the road.
Be sure to assess the different personalities in your project teams, strive to understand their emotions about the project and the feelings they have towards their colleagues, and try to figure out what truly drives them in order to make better decisions that will lead to happiness and success.
The focus is on remote work
And finally, keep in mind that in 2020 and beyond, remote work will continue to blossom across the global business sector. The digital transformation that is currently raging strong around the world has facilitated the popularization of remote work and outsourcing, particularly in the field of project management, as sometimes you need a way to bring new people to the project without bringing them in full-time or making them move into an already-cramped office space.
Be sure to embrace the remote work culture, and look beyond your borders to hire the best of the best and invite the top talent in the field to join your projects from the comfort of their homes.
Wrapping up
Project management is constantly evolving with the industry trends, and only the ones who monitor the latest developments in the field will be able to make their projects more successful in 2020 and beyond.
Be sure to use these trends to reduce your expenses, improve productivity, and ensure employee satisfaction.
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