In this unprecedented time of building resilient, sustainable, and scalable systems, the role of Project Managers is becoming more important than ever.
Resiliency is a key aspect to providing continuous value and services, even when unanticipated events occur. It involves recovering quickly from setbacks and returning to normal.
Frameworks and practices for adaptable and predictable project management help to build this capability by seamlessly managing risks, and proactively communicating the impact of those events.
It is important to recognize that unknown risks may exist, for which the impact and probability are not known. However, an effective risk management strategy based on an overarching change management strategy can quickly resolve these risks.
These are the steps to a successful change management strategy. It is important to understand that risk can also bring with it the opportunity for learning and growth.
1. Acceptance and adaptability to unexpected events
2. A combination of incremental and iterative approaches to minimizing the risk impact
3. Establishing regular and early feedback loops
4. Establishing clear, realistic, and measurable expectations
5. Project risk to be considered an integral part of organizational change management
6. Empirical measurement of value and improvement in impact
Strong project management will enable the above steps to become more sustainable and align with the shared vision to co-create their goals. It will include:
1. Revisions to Project and Business Continuity Plans can be made as and when necessary, rather than being “carved in stone”.
2. Facilitating faster, more sustainable collaboration decision-making using digital tools and building cloud-based resilient options
3. Delivering meaningful value in shorter iterations that are in a usable, releasable form
4. Determining the goals for each iteration and making sure it aligns with overall release roadmap
5. Risk identification through Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS), into Risk Topic, Risk Category, and Risk Type. Prioritizing the risks to create risk census and Risk Burndown charts for determining the risk exposure across all iterations.
Risk Breakdown StructureImage Credit: https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/breakdown-structure/what-is-risk-breakdown-structure/
Risk CensusImage Credit: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/managing-risk-on-agile-projects-with-the-risk-burndown-chart
Risk Burndown ChartImage Credit: https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/managing-risk-on-agile-projects-with-the-risk-burndown-chart
These points allow for predictable and adaptable approaches to work in tandem and seamlessly transition from hierarchical Risk Break Down structure to incremental Risk Burn Down chart.
For future scale and sustainability, the project must be sustainable. The role of PMOs is crucial to ensuring that the project’s impact continues and reaps the benefits. They are also key to thriving in business, political, economic, and social worlds. These are the key aspects that will ensure the sustainability of projects:
1. Organizational Sustainability – The PMOs are focused on creating an organizational culture that allows for repeatable and standardised execution of projects and achieves economies of scale.
They also work to establish a standardised way of governance, methodology, and reporting that will allow the various projects and programs to be comparable in terms of measuring progress.
It becomes a standard way to formalize the process when there is volatility and uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), in the projects. The predictable and standardized processes don’t work well.
In such
