Enterprise project management skills in short supply, says META Group

Nearly 80% of IT organisations report that the lack of enterprise project management capabilities is a key IT workforce issue, according to Best Practices in Project Estimation and Performance Management, a new report released today by META Group.

To foster these increasingly important skills, the report maps strategies for building a project portfolio performance culture and best practices that help drive continuous performance improvements.

"Some organisations have focused efforts on training and certification, but finding and growing skilled project managers is only part of the solution," said Johan Jacobs, META Group Consulting, Practice Leader, Customer Relations Management. "Top-performing IT organisations recognise the need to solve IT project performance issues starting at a higher level."

According to the report, "one-off" or heroic project efforts consistently lead IT organisations to poor performance. Lack of coordination across resources is extremely detrimental to successful implementation of the complex projects and programs that are now the norm in most organisations.

"Instituting project management as a strategic competency within an organisation requires new methods, tools, and performance metrics," said Jacobs. "The often adopted management-by-objective style is not sufficient to create project performance consistency. We believe a management-by-project approach, combined with these new methods, helps generate consistent performance and limit employee burnout."

The report details best practices in the project and performance management areas, including:

* The top 10 issues facing project managers and methods to minimise their impact on project performance.

* How key inter-related IT functions such as enterprise architecture, infrastructure planning, systems engineering, and asset management affect project performance.

* Establishing an enterprise program management office that will facilitate crucial coordination and governance functions and oversee project management development.

* Employing risk-based project selection criteria to support portfolio analysis, establish priorities and measure value.

* Applying proven project estimation techniques and approaches to appropriately set confidence levels and expectations for the project team and throughout the IT organisation.

"IT managers want to move their organisational capability from a state where a project`s success is determined by the individual efforts of its leader to a repeatable process with consistent, broader leverage across the IT staff," said Jacobs.

"The report provides a model for project portfolio management and best-practice advice and techniques for establishing a project performance culture. It also emphasises project estimation and performance management control, which are vital to managing the business value of IT projects and where IT organisations often have most difficulty."