Organizational agility is critical for any enterprise, yet businesses around the globe and across industries do not have systems in place to adapt. While C-level executives are concerned with disruptive new entrants, only 10 percent of survey respondents are confident they can pivot their business if needed. This ongoing struggle is made more challenging by a disconnect between project managers and executives. More than half of respondents (53 percent) acknowledge being unsure of their corporate objectives and values. Similarly, half of respondents cited poor communication between and within departments as the most difficult aspect of managing teams.
“The hard truth is, at any moment, your business is most likely disrupting or being disrupted,” said Alan Shefveland, Director, Product Management, Strategy and Innovation at Changepoint. “The best way to thrive in the face of rapid change is rewriting your playbook to refocus on accelerating internal operations.”
Nimble organizations actively engage executive sponsors, align projects to strategy, and establish an effective PMO. Communication, collaboration, and engagement are key to enabling change and managing risk effectively and continue to be big hurdles for PMOs. Survey respondents said the most pervasive and prevalent barriers to agility include a lack of real-time transparency into projects (41 percent) and resources (49 percent), and overreliance on manual reporting such as spreadsheets (75 percent).
Other key findings include:
· Multiple, disconnected systems stand in the way of business agility
Project managers and executives desire one connected system for project management, portfolio management, and resource management. The majority of organizations still rely on a patchwork of outdated legacy systems, including multi-tenant SaaS, hosted software, on premise software, proprietary systems, and manual spreadsheets to manage project tasks and information. The three most important project portfolio management (PPM) capabilities ranked were project management (35 percent), portfolio management (20 percent), and resource management (19 percent). Without managing projects and resources to ensure nimble execution, the PMO and larger organization are at risk.
· Lack of effective communication tools make projects difficult to manage
Despite the surge in business communication tools, nearly one-third (31 percent) of respondents say they lack tools for managing better communication across teams and projects. In fact, nearly half (49 percent) of survey respondents cite communication, both intra and inter-department, as the most difficult aspect of managing a project. Interestingly, project managers who identified as agile reported struggling with communication even more (60 percent).
· Managing workloads and schedules is a continued hurdle to agility
Project managers spend the majority of their work day managing team workloads and schedules, with 43 percent citing this task as the most difficult aspect to project execution. Sixty-five percent spend more than three hours a day managing people; 55 percent spend more than three hours a day establishing and managing processes.
“To prepare for organizational change, project and business leaders must be on the same path forward. This demands confident decision making and prioritizing company initiatives,” said Shefveland. “A connected PPM system provides real-time insight and enables cross-functional communication, both important first steps to weathering organizational change.”
