How Project Management is Evolving

Our Pearls of Wisdom educational topics and programs have really been expanding this year, and we hope that you have found them interesting, informative, and that you’ve learned a few things along the way. We are very proud of the documents and webinars we have been sharing with you and look forward to many more. This month as we near the end of this infamous year 2020, we want to share our take on the importance of effective project management. Moving into this next business year, having a strong project management program is going to be critical, and we’re excited to share some concepts we are focusing on.

Project Management Institute (PMI) & Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)

We are a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), which allows us access to many project templates and other great reference material about the profession of project management and opportunities to further our knowledge. Mike Evans is one of our associates who has been enrolled in the Certified Associate in Project Management course (CAPM). One area that is covered in CAPM curriculum is Risk Management, which has increased dramatically as projects have received shorter timelines and leaner budgets.

As stated in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide 2020: “The key benefit of this process is that it ensures that the degree, type, and visibility of risk management is proportional to both the risk and the importance of the project to the organization and other stakeholders.” By having an effective risk management plan tailor to be implemented for each project helps reduce the impacts to their success and minimizes the overall risk.

How has Project Management changed?

We have all have been affected by 2020 in some way, including our day-to-day work of how we conduct business. This includes our engineers working in the field on jobsites and our project managers adapting to new virtual engineering and project management methods. Due to travel restrictions and challenging times our team has efficiently limited the number of onsite visits this year and moved towards innovative methods of what we call “virtual engineering.” We are taking advantage of advances in telecommunications tools such as Zoom and MS Teams to more effectively communicate with our clients and internal teams.  The visual aspect of being able to see someone’s face and pick up on all of the non-verbal communication is a great leap forward in improved communication. By utilizing these new tools we are able to communicate quickly and effectively with our coworkers and clients and integrate planning software to assign tasks both internal and external of our organization.