ICPM

We are currently facing a challenging economic climate which is forcing many companies to cut costs in order to survive.  There are different ways of doing this, and unfortunately, a popular one is slashing employees, projects and even entire departments.  Consequently, almost everyone in the business world is now looking for a way to justify their work to upper management and other stakeholders in order to be spared.

Many executives do not fully understand the value of the PMO in their organization, endangering the survival of the PMO when the time comes to cut back.  In fact, Josh Nankivel of PMStudent.com recently polled project managers about how the economic climate is affecting them, and he found that 27% had experienced project cutbacks, 14% had experienced PM layoffs, 11% had experienced financial scrutiny of projects, and 10% had experienced project staff reductions.

The answer to this problem is threefold: PMO managers first need to focus resources on the right projects, then ensure that these projects are successfully executed, and finally, effectively communicate the value of these projects to upper management.

Project management technology has been around for years now, so the problem of project execution must be basically solved, right?  Wrong.  The Standish Group has found that 68% of technology projects failed in 2009[1].  Does this mean that project management solutions are just a waste of time?

The truth is that project management technology is only as good as the processes that support it.  The only way to improve project execution rates is to look at the root causes of project failure and implement the necessary changes that will allow the technology to work.  Here are a few of the top ways to accomplish this in your organization.