Project management is not new. However, facing the evolution of the market and its demands and possibilities, it is interesting to be aware of project trends to align company strategies and achieve increasingly satisfactory results.
Otherwise, no matter how talented the manager is or how competent their team is, if there isn't an update that allows for the full utilization of these qualities, the project might fail. Want to avoid that? Keep reading and discover the innovations that can lead to more promising directions for your company!
Why follow trends in project management
It is important to think about project management in a way that makes more sense to follow market trends and evaluate them with an open mind.
In general, we tend to resist changes that may bring insecurity or discomfort in management. After all, facing a team and goals to achieve, it's common not to want to take risks and embrace new things.
However, the market evolves and brings new challenges, and it's not possible to manage projects based on new demands if you are closed off to trends that can pull you and your team out of your comfort zone. But these same trends can also define the future of your company.
Trends in Projects You Need to Know
Below, we present some of the project trends you need to know to prepare yourself and meet the demands and possibilities of the market and your company.
Hybrid methodologies
The evolving market is becoming increasingly diverse. This makes it increasingly difficult to find a methodology that can be used as a “standard” or as the right choice for the development and management of all company projects.
In fact, clinging to this idea is a mistake. The growing trend is to use distinct methodologies, according to the characteristics and purposes of each project. And, to achieve this, it is necessary to critically evaluate both new and older (and still useful) tools, such as PDCA, for example.
Remote projects
This is not a trend that fits the reality of every company, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss it. Thanks to technological advancements, cloud computing, and management software, developing and managing projects remotely is something that will become increasingly common.
And this is, above all, because technology already allows (and does so increasingly well) the integration and use of tools collaboratively, even if remotely.
Project Management Consulting
Following the already mentioned market evolution and diversification, the trend is for companies to increasingly hire external consultants for their projects.
In this sense, it's interesting to consider that this project management trend can also be combined with the one presented earlier, allowing this consulting to be done remotely as well.
Team integration beyond hierarchies
On its own, the idea of promoting team integration is not new in project management. On the contrary, it represents a common necessity for the success of different methodologies.
The trend in projects indicated here suggests that managers should reduce hierarchical barriers to effectively form teams that leverage and integrate top talent for achieving results. This includes knowing how to value each employee's skills and not just their technical capabilities, for example.
IT as an ally for project management
Project management has become increasingly complex. It's necessary to manage scope, deadlines, costs, resources, procurements, feasibility, communication channels, among many other details. And doing all of this manually, in Excel spreadsheets, relying on the gut feeling and experience of the professionals involved has become very risky, because the more complex manual control is, the more susceptible to errors it is, potentially generating waste and unnecessary losses.
Therefore, Information Technology emerges as an ally to project management, as specific software for this purpose helps control action plans, schedules, indicators (KPIs), overdue tasks, costs, among others.
The Strategic Management software – developed by Stratec, for example, assists in operational management, using common project management methodologies, critical path definition, budget and responsibility management, in addition to a complete system for controlling activity execution.
With a system like this, it's easy to scale alerts about activities, stating who is responsible for each action, seeing the project's progress, and also evaluating their operational management, in addition to being able to visualize the relationship between projects, their prioritization, and automatically generate indicators of project effectiveness and efficiency, such as the S-curve, for example.
How to use these (and other) trends to your company's advantage
At this point, you've likely realized that trends are primarily driven by technological advancement, and this brings not only new tools but also new methodologies for work and management.
Therefore, there are indeed other developments to keep an eye on, and it's still necessary to follow them with a critical eye. This is because, just as it's not positive to ignore these trends and think that you and your company don't need to adapt to them, it also doesn't help to think that you need to follow all of them.
To truly use trends in projects to the benefit of your company, evaluating, testing, and seeking adaptations is always ideal.
Do you know of another trend in project management that you'd like to share with us? Leave your comment below!
