May 30, 2018
Project Portfolio management (PPM) has continued to make massive, cross-industry impacts resulting in a new era of innovative methodologies, increased teamwork, and redefined tools transformed by the group that now dominates the workforce: Millennials.
The new ideas and influences unique to this group can be leveraged to address PPM challenges and encourage your organization to remain unique, modern, and competitive as it looks to adopt new PPM technologies.
#1 Collaboration
A Forbes article written last year honed in on the importance of relationships to Millennials stating that “more than 90% of those surveyed cited connection and community as their greatest need.” It is evident that this unique generation wants to work in diverse, empowering, and engaging teams.
This will require a transition to more collaborative approaches and a greater reliance on resource management systems for assigning work, aligning goals and functions, and cost management. Cloud-based databases and social tools, for example, are two concepts that can foster this collaboration and increase in autonomous decision-making.
#2 The role of the PMO is changing
PMO’s (Project Management Offices) have always been synonymous with leadership, communication, and organizational skills. However, with an increase in decentralized teams, the role of the PMO additionally includes the ability to adapt to change while managing diverse teams.
The PMO of the future must be very flexible and utilize PPM technology to provide reasoning as to why we are completing the project and the benefits therein, rather than what are the deliverables to execute high value projects. PMO’s can utilize real-time performance monitoring systems and dashboard tools for effective management of decentralized teams.
#3 Speed and Agile
Millennials are accustomed to speed and immediate results. With the vast amount of data that flows through organizations, Millennials are encouraging flexibility within PPM practices, which utilizes data more efficiently. Agile methodologies within project management approaches such as Lean, Scrum, and Extreme Programing, allow for fast deliverables and flexible responses to data and development.
#4 Advanced Technologies
A word that is most commonly associated with Millennials is ‘technology.’ With greater use of PPM software, technology is proving to be a precious resource regarding successful portfolios and projects. Two main trends that have been spotted are self-service and PPM within the cloud.
Self-service will allow PPM solutions to serve as a gateway for collecting and sharing data for resource management, cost, and scheduling efficiency. Everything is moving to the cloud and PPM will not be an exception. This real time tool will allow further collaboration, and transform PPM solutions for teams in the future.
