Era of heroic individual gives way as project managers raise their game

Blame it on the chaotic boom days of the 1990s, if you will, but IT projects have an unfortunate reputation for underperformance. The general view is that poor performance is the norm, cost and schedule overruns high, and scope delivered low.

With IT projects critical to economic growth, the role of the project manager has changed, says SAP Africa`s Germaine Schumann. In an era of globalisation, inter-organisational collaboration, alliances and partnering, the project context is fast becoming more turbulent and more complex. Financial officers are demanding more compelling returns on their investments.

In other words, while project management performance is improving, the challenge of projects is becoming greater.

"It`s a clear trend across the world that projects are getting harder rather than easier in practically every aspect - technical, business, organisational," says Schumann. "The big challenge for project managers is that they need to raise their game just to maintain existing performance levels, let alone get better."

Successful project managers manage this growing complexity, uncertainty and turbulence into simplicity, certainty and stability by breaking down large projects into manageable modules, ensuring team stability and fostering stable relationships.

"Smaller is better," says Schumann. "The smaller a project, or a part of a project, the better your chances of success. That`s why we introduced the concept of overall programme management to ensure success of individual project components."

It is also important that an organisation-wide understanding of the challenges of project management be developed. Users and clients must understand the consequences of changing their minds, or asking for highly complex systems.

The reality, says Schumann, is that many project managers are achieving far better performance than ever before in spite of new challenges, mainly because of the importance project managers now attach to the delivery of business benefits ahead of achievement of narrow, project-centric measures like time, cost and scope.

"We`ve often tended to focus attention on the individual project and what a potential hero can do to snatch success from the jaws of failure. That`s simply not the case any more. Today`s project managers involve their teams in decision-making. They understand their client, their motivations, and their performance incentives. They invest in developing their project management skills," says Schumann.

Of course, the ultimate measure of project management is client satisfaction - the extent to which business objectives have been met. These are not always clearly quantified, so it is sometimes harder to measure. But thanks to the new breed of project managers, it`s an area of business which has improved immensely over the past five years.