Why We Need Value-driven Approach For Project Management

Project management is the need of the hour, especially in a turbulent economy. After all, every organisation is reeling under the pressure to overcome competitive threats, along with spiralling operational costs and lower profit margins. Consequently, companies handling specific projects for their customers have done some soul-searching and realised that customers not only want to pull through the famous triple constraints of scope, time and cost, but also appreciate value addition in terms of benefits and productivity when a project is deployed to end-user environment.

Keeping in mind customer needs and market demands, organisations have, therefore, started aligning critical projects strategically. This means the traditional definition of project management is changing fast. It now extends further than the initiation-till-closure period and aims to deliver more than merely ensuring that the project has met its intended objectives within the triple constraints. Considering the current scenario, it is only natural as working for short-term goals and gains might not work well for project management specialists and could very well jeopardise their competitiveness.

This has led to framing of policies which ensure that project management is no longer based on per-project approach, but is well aligned with the service provider’s organisational strategies, resulting into stability and long-term gains.

Aligning projects to corporate strategy helps streamline project management processes at the organisational level. For instance, when project managers specify their requirements in terms of resource, budget, risks and timeframe, it helps the senior management judge these requirements strategically and take necessary steps to prioritise projects and thus facilitate consistent delivery.

Project management, at large, can be seen as the discipline to leverage benefits from the unique mix of processes, matrices, plans, soft skills and innovations – all strategically gelled to deliver value to end-users. And a value-driven approach goes beyond the delivery of a quality product or customers benefiting from it. This approach paves the way for any organisation to strengthen its portfolio and provides an opportunity to build competency – even across domains and diversified platforms. It further measures the value added to organisation’s project portfolio that will provide a strategic advantage to bid for future projects.