Good project management in 2022

Good project management needs a plan, an idea for implementation, and resources such as proper budget and time. Sometimes we hear about a myth that states that project management in companies does not require coordination because they implement themselves. If it were so in reality, the position of a project manager could vanish from payrolls in many companies. Projects like this need to be managed because, thanks to this, we have confidence in their project evaluation, which is a measurement of goals, and, most importantly, meeting the allocated budget.

Good project management keeps the finger on the pulse.

The fact that projects are managed badly is unfortunately another affliction of this subject. This is so because, on the one hand, we have this assumption that none of them needs to be coordinated; on the other hand, we persist that keeping our finger on the beat is the remedy for all evil. It's not exactly like that because even coordinated implementations may end up failing spectacularly. It is worth looking at some statistics. Primarily, it is worth drawing our attention to the data on losses that occur during work conducted wrongly or poorly. In 2017, the American government lost 32 billion dollars on IT projects that proved to be failures. Harvard Business Review went even further and analyzed the annual losses of all IT projects in the USA that did not come to fruition. This is even 150 billion dollars, which is simply squandered just like that. 70% of all implementations do not come to fruition, but with proper change in an enterprise's organization and project management, this rate drops to 20%. Of course, there are many more statistics and data. It is primarily about delineating a certain phenomenon that is very common and which enterprises are not able to deal with.

First and foremost, a lack of project management in companies equals poor management. Both cases are usually struck with failure and loss, which in some businesses are worth millions.

What guarantees good project management?

Each stage of implementation requires a leader who coordinates the tasks, delegates the obligations, and, most importantly, watches the time of implementation. Supposedly, even 80% of all tasks were not "handed over on time". No management or poor management leads to the failure rate of 70% mentioned above. Project management primarily allows the achievement of maximum efficiency and economy. Often, new ideas arise during work, which allows us to verify the current process and put it on new tracks, which may translate into, e.g., acceleration of work.

Even the smallest tasks should be implemented in a project-like manner. Let's take writing a text for a website as an example. This task requires the preparation of a brief, writing content on its basis, correction of the content, and placing the text on the website—all within the set time. All we need to do is write out every stage in a simple calendar, and we can talk about managing this task. A person supervising the work shall be the action coordinator, and manager, responsible for leading the task to its completion.

The most important profits from skillful project management are as follows:

• performance improvement—a project, similarly to the client's travel map, is a sort of activity pattern. If we "lay it out" well, it will be easier to see at which stage we are currently on if we are proceeding according to the plan, if we have delays, or if maybe we have already used up all of our resources,
• increase in employees' performance and boost their experience—people engaged in a task are usually focused on this task only. No distractions or external factors mean that even very difficult projects may be completed much faster (if the publication is about 5 days and the sprint has already been published, it can be linked here). In addition, working in a qualified team means that people with less experience can use the knowledge of their colleagues, who are more familiar with the topic.
• well-directed projects give control over planned and current actions, and allow us to quickly react to crises and find a way out of unplanned situations, thanks to which we can always be one step ahead of the competition.
• an increase in risk assessment: while each plan assumes some risk of failure, there are also external and internal factors that can bring about its fiasco. Simulations of such events may help in their prevention.
• improved communication among project team members: It is a fact that if the team works over one or even several project issues, it is easier for them to communicate. There is no big noise here, which is frequent in large organizations, especially between departments that have very similar targets, e.g. marketing and sales,
• measurability of effects and result assessment is one of the most important project features, which is managed by the managers dealing with these tasks. In the beginning, the established effects may be assessed at the end of the work. The effects may be, for example, the number of obtained leads, the size of the sale, or the level of cost decrease.

What do we need to manage projects?

First and foremost, the methodology, knowledge, and tools. There are many management schools, and each one teaches a different way to reach the goal. There are sprints, which take 5 days; there is lean, which allows you to manage even with pruned resources; there are also blue ocean strategies, etc. No matter what style we end up choosing, the tools allowing us to perform communication simply and to verify the progress of entrusted tasks are also important.

In small teams, tools like IC Project or the not-so-complex Trello are enough, or even, at a push, Google docs with the folder in the form of a table where each person engaged in the work report their progress. Large teams will rather use their solutions or choose paid platforms, e.g. Bitrix24, or use the tools made by Microsoft, Comarch, and other producers. It does not matter what platform we use; it needs to match our needs and knowledge.

Bad project management

However, what happens to all those tasks that are left alone all by themselves? Most of them simply disappear, and go into oblivion, because no one is interested in them. Sometimes there will be employees who might "go the full distance" with them themselves. However, this occurs very rarely because the level of remuneration in the company is frequently insufficient to "do something above the average." In most cases, such tasks become weird hybrids, little horrors that generate costs, and use up resources but do not bring any benefits at all. Let’s come back to those naughty kids who were left home alone and are bored. Sometimes they might come up with an idea and decide to prepare dinner, but sometimes the entire kitchen may go up in flames. This is an example of bad project management, where projects are left without control.