Marshall Centre writes:
Here’s why developing project management skills is important to ensure your workforce is future-fit.
Teaches you how to plan and schedule your project
Projects can become chaotic especially when stakeholders add to or change the scope of the project – it can get messy! As we are living in unpredictable times, unexpected changes are likely to happen. By having an effective plan from start to finish, and someone capable of keeping everyone on track, you will avert chaos and ensure you meet your goals, so you successfully complete every project on time and on budget.
Having a schedule will mean you have full visabilty of the timeline, critical pathways, potential project delays and potential cost over-runs. This means that you can manage the risks more effectively.
Learn to collaborate more effectively
We know that Vanilla Ice isn’t a Project Manager but when he said ‘stop, collaborate and listen’ we could relate to that from a project management perspective, as it’s the formula for success in all great teams. You can share your ideas, bring teams together and work collaboratively towards your project goals. However, balancing different and sometimes opposing stakeholder needs or expectations along with managing people with different personality types, can be challenging. If you do not have a dedicated project manager in place who understands not only how to manage process but also people, your project is at risk of failure.
Plan A to Z
When something unexpected crops up, which is inevitable in our ever changing world, it could cause delays to project delivery. But when your team use effective project management disciplines like risk management through future scenario planning, the project team can consider all the things that could go wrong so they can create contingency plans. This proactive approach will help keep your project on track no matter what might go wrong.
Manages your finances
Projects costs can easily overrun, so having a trained project manager on board to set a budget and allocate resources is vital to ensure you don’t overspend above your tolerance. They can also manage your clients’ expectations to ensure they understand that any change in scope will come with a cost attached.
Learn from your mistakes
If you are doing something for the first time, there will be a learning curve and you are bound to make mistakes. Project managers should keep a log of lessons learnt from each project, so when you do a similar project in future, you can reflect and adjust your approach to avoid similar pitfalls.
Managing a project from start to finish successfully can be challenging especially if you do not have a team with previous experience or qualifications. Investing in Project Management training for your workforce will increase productivity, reduce risk, increase quality and save your business money.
Find out how investing in project managment helped Jack Seeley from CamdenBoss super-charge his productivity.
If you want to discuss, which project management qualification is right for your people or yourself, email info@marshallcentre.com or click here.