Project Management challenges: Top two challenges for managers in year 2011

We are in the last quarter of 2010, and it is a good time to look the at the Project Management trends in 2011. During the fourth quarter of every year organizations conduct surveys to predict the future of next year. In that series, PricewaterhouseCoopers had in-depth interviews with leading executives and wanted leaders to predict the business trends. Likewise, Gartner group and Society for Information Management have conducted few surveys to identify top priorities of business leaders recently. If we look at the survey results and in-depth interviews, we can see the following two important trends which can be a major challenge for project managers in 2011.

Continue to see the trend to use latest Technologies:  Gartner Worldwide Survey conducted early this year showed that the focus for year 2010 was to use technologies such as Virtualization, Cloud computing, Web 2.0 and Business Intelligence. Most likely we won’t see a major shift in year 2011 because these new technologies can be implemented quickly without huge upfront expenses and that is what the business needs in next year.

Continue to face challenges of resource shortfall: Management must provide sufficient resources including workforce, time and money to complete a project successfully.  But most likely during the next year you might have limited staff, time and money, and will be asked to complete projects on time under budget. This would be a great challenge most of the project managers would face in 2011.

OK Now we know the two very important trends in 2011.  How do we tackle the challenges? I would suggest that apart from what ever you do today to manage your projects, you need to perform the following to successfully manage projects in 2011.

Learn new technologies: You and your team need to know the concepts behind cloud computing, virtualization and even more about web 2.0. For example, let’s say if you were asked to manage a project in Cloud computing environment, you and your team should know what cloud computing is, why is it different from mainframe and client-server model and how the concepts work etc. Hence spending some time to learn these technologies would be helpful in the forthcoming year.

Learn Quality Management principles: Wherever possible, improve the skills you possess. You need to brush up your knowledge in process improvement techniques and implement a suitable process to improve your skills. Demonstrating effective ways to produce product and services would help your company reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. Besides it would help you attain self-satisfaction which would help you move up on the career ladder.

Improve your workforce management skills: In today business, many project teams have geographically dispersed members. Hence, learn your team members’ culture, and ensure that your rewards are equal and fair regardless of their work location. Workforce management skill is all about assigning the right employees with the right skillsto the right job at the right time. Improvement in this area would help you manage your resources well.

Plan for more attrition if you manage projects in countries like India: Attrition is a major issue if you run projects in countries like India as demands for more man power are rising. Developing backup plans and proper Knowledge transfer plans can help you in this regard.

I’m sure 2011 will be an exciting year for the project management community and I wish them all the best. I’m wishing you advance happy New Year!