The management of projects is changing as the needs of organizations change. Two factors explain the evolution:

• Speed: organizations need to bring changes to the market faster and the approach to project management changes to support this speed. The digital enterprise revolution is forcing traditional organizations in all sectors to shorten their cycles of development and change in order to adapt to market needs at the speed of their digital competitors.
• The need to combine different capacities: in order to be able to serve adequately the needs of the client, in the majority of business it is critical to work “transversally” – across the organization-, combining different capacities and skills in the design and implementation of projects, which adds a lot of complexity to the management of projects, especially in large organizations.

In this context, organizations have incorporated project management methodologies from design thinking, innovation, social sciences or software development.

Then the key factors of success of the management of ‘classic’ projects remain applicable in many cases, but no longer in a universal way: agreed objectives and scope, a good plan execution, select the most appropriate people for each task, use robust methodologies for the implementation of the project, monitoring and rigorous control…

But finally the only key factor of success of universal application is talent. It always was and is becoming increasingly more critical, especially in projects that are not based on waterfall methodologies. Now it is not enough to have talented leaders. Now it is critical to increase the density of talent in the entire organization.

So that, there is a major challenge for professionals in project management, We must be able to attract, develop, encourage, and engage people with talent, with exciting projects, environments and excellent working conditions and sincere concern for their development. This will make the difference between the organizations that will succeed and the rest.

Manuel Boullosa
Alfa Consulting Managing Partner