While recent talks hosted by CompTIA have shown that an increasing number of IT companies understand the value of project management, consultants are quick to point out that in addition to the theory, project managers need the necessary skills and support to be effective.
"Project managers are often appointed without consideration of the wide range of skills demanded of someone in that position," emphasises Pieter Erasmus, business development director at Fulcrum Business Solutions. "A true project manager must be able to manage time, projects and people.
"Support needs to come from business leaders, who need to realise that a project manager is really the CEO of any project. Support must also come from project management tools and suitable training processes."
He says purchasing a project management solution should also include budgeting for mentoring and training in any skills that may be lacking.
Fulcrum suggests Microsoft Project 2003, a set of integrated applications that provide the collaboration tools a project manager needs. Erasmus says it can effectively increase productivity and efficiency by five times, enabling project managers to interact with all parties involved in a project and get daily progress updates.
Erasmus says in addition to providing an appropriate toolset, Fulcrum welcomes training that goes beyond the basics provided by Fulcrum and is aimed at producing multi-skilled project managers.
"Although there are many courses available, few provide the necessary experiential or role-based training required to develop effective managers."
He says project managers must be able to make important decisions under pressure.
"Project management is vitally important in the IT sector because of the complexities involved in certain development projects. In future, we will probably see a greater differentiation between role-players who will each be responsible for different aspects of the projects, which means the role of the project manager will become more clearly defined.
"The interest in management is gaining momentum slowly, but within the next 10 years, IT companies in particular will realise the need to run everything as a project so that productivity gains and performance can be measured. Project management is also gaining status as an independent career with an increasing number of universities providing qualifications in this field."
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