Exploring the Impacts of Economic Crises on Project Management

The economic down turn that begun in 2008 had touched everyone. We have seen rising unemployment, salary reduction and a decrease in other benefits during the past three years. The idioms such as “budget cut”, “work force reduction”, “head count reduction” were the most frequently heard idioms in most of the work environments. During these years, most of the organizations around the globe have implemented projects to improve productivity, to reduce cost and focused more on quality instead of concentrating more on innovation. Let’s see how it impacted Project Management.

ESI International, one of the leading providers of project management services has conducted a survey to identify the impacts of economic crises on Project Management.  They have approached project managers, program managers, PMO Managers, Line of Business Heads and their supervisors from Industry sectors including Financial Services, Information Technology, Pharmaceuticals, Health Care, Telecommunications, manufacturing and Energy/Utility companies in the US. Below highlights the summary of the survey results:

• 44% of survey respondents from the manufacturing industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated

• 34% of survey respondents from the Financial Service industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated

• 26% of survey respondents from the Information Technology industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated

• 24.8% of respondents from the Telecommunication industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated

• 17% of respondents from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Care industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated.

• 14% of respondents from the Energy/Utility industry said that that at least half of their projects had been terminated. Industries in this sector experienced very less impact during economic down turn. It is mainly because of the frequently changed oil price kept them busy doing projects.

Regardless of the industry, almost all projects that were not eliminated suffered some resource reductions; however, resource reduction was not greatly affected by project size. Besides the size of the project didn’t offer high variance in terms of scope reduction.

To view the complete survey report, please visit ESI’s International official website. Comparing the survey results with the organization where you work and sharing your view would definitely help the Project Management Community.

Reference:

CURRENT STATE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT: THE IMPACT OF AN ECONOMIC CRISIS, Retrieved January 20, 2011, from http://www.esi-intl.com/Resources/Industry-Reports/Research-Reports.aspx