Project management, whether it pertains to national government or the private sector, is all about people. The sooner we realise this, the quicker South African project managers will gain the skills they require to be on par with their international counterparts. According to Jurie Smith, general manager: project management at Business Connexion: "Project management is 80% people skills and 20% technical project management. If you can persuade people to work towards a common goal during the lifespan of the project, you can get the job done. However, this is easier said than done as it sometimes involves getting people to do things that they do not want to do," says Smith.
This is where a good project manager comes in handy. While there are a lot of project managers around, it is rare to find one that excels at the job, says Smith. "Often these individuals enter the project management field through their technical backgrounds, but lack the ability to manage people. Thus, their careers in the discipline can almost be viewed as accidental," he says.
Proficient project management ought to bring a mixture of business acumen, project management experience and technical expertise to the table. A good project manager is a strategic asset to the business as this individual is charged with spearheading the strategic and change initiatives within an organisation.
"Projects are the initiators of change in a business and as a result, one needs to closely manage the change that people will go through once a project has begun. It is not uncommon for people in a business to go through a spectrum of emotions from denial to resistance to participation and then ultimately acceptance during a project. Knowing how to manage this change cycle is important if a project is to survive.
"When companies realise the importance of the people element and are equipped to deal with it, then we might see a reduction in the number of projects that fail," he notes. As it is, approximately 53% of South African IT projects fail - around 50% of IT projects in small companies and 37% of IT projects in medium-sized companies fail. In large companies, failure happens about 59% of the time.
If a project does not fail altogether, the likelihood that it will overrun the budget is also high. These overruns can chiefly be attributed to the inefficiencies surrounding people management regardless of the size of the organisation. Overruns cost on average R73 000 in small companies, R73 000 in medium-sized companies and R908 000 in large ones, says Smith.
While managing the skills at a company`s disposal can prove to be a problem, the lack of resources can be another headache all on its own. "Resources in an organisation are a scarce commodity. The more projects that are initiated, the more thinly spread the resources will be across the organisation. It is of critical importance to look at the portfolio of projects that will be executed over the medium- and short-term to make sure you have the correct resource allocation with the right skills and knowledge to execute those projects."
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