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Want to drive innovation? Boost your project management

ByIAadmin
Project management is an essential building block for delivering innovation. The better you are at delivering projects, the more effective you will be at converting ideas into commercial reality.
Getting this right is not as simple as sending a few managers on project management training.
To be truly effective, you also need to select the right project management methodology and the right tools to support your project teams. You also need to make sure key players in project management are able and motivated to drive innovation. And finally, you should instil a project culture everywhere in your company.
While it may take some work, the good news is that when you succeed, your company will be good at delivering all kinds of projects – not just those focussed on innovation.

A quick overview of Project Management

Henry Gantt, inventor of the Gantt chart
With roots in scientific management theory, project management as a discipline was born in the 1950s in the fields of engineering, construction and defence. This may explain why many of the methods used in “classic” project management are almost mathematical (Work Breakdown Structures, Gantt chart construction, critical path analysis…).
Since the early years, project management broadened in scope to include elements of people management and leadership and it continues to evolve as new approaches and tools are developed.
A good place to find more detailed information on the latest thinking on project management is the Project Management Institute (PMI)1. This non-profit organisation was established in 1969 in the USA and is a community of almost 3 million members, providing help, advice, tools and training for project managers everywhere. It also publishes and updates the “Project Management body of Knowledge” (PMBOK)2, a book that serves as a foundation for cross-industry best practices.

Breaking down Project Management

According the PMI: “Project management is the use of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to deliver something of value to people.”
From my personal experience, I break down Project Management into five main elements. It’s not an exhaustive list, but to me, these are the main areas to get right if you want to build up your project management practices.

The five things you need to get right

METHODOLOGIES. Use the right approach(es) to manage your projects.
PEOPLE. Put the right people in the right roles with motivation and clarity.
SKILLS. Build project management skills and techniques.
TOOLS. Use appropriate project management software tools.
CULTURE. Instil a company-wide culture of delivery by projects.
Let’s assume you do have all these project management elements working well. Does this mean your innovation delivery will be perfect?
Well, no.
Because there is one further element you need, but it’s not strictly part of project management as such. It’s Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and that’s a topic for another article – see box 1.

BOX 1: Project Portfolio Management

According to the PMI, Portfolio Management “… refers to the centralized management of one or more project portfolios to achieve strategic objectives.”
It’s not part of project management per se, but it is strongly connected to it because even well-managed projects may not deliver if the overall portfolio is not steered and prioritised properly.
Effective portfolio management is another key success factor for innovation delivery and this topic is worth an article of its own.
But once you have good project management in place, supported by good portfolio management, what benefits can you expect?

1. Good project management drives results

Innovation is delivered by projects and projects are delivered better when they are managed well.
According to the 2020 pulse survey of the PMI4, companies with a high project management maturity outperformed those that are not mature:

Project performance: high vs low maturity level

Met goals: 77% vs 56%
Met budget: 67% vs 46%
On time: 63% vs 39%
Scope changed: 30% vs 47%
Project Failed: 11% vs 21%
So more of your innovation projects will meet their goals while staying on time and in budget. On top of that, the scope of your innovation projects will not drift as much and you’ll have half the innovation failures you have today.
As well as improving the end result, establishing good project management in your company brings other benefits along the way.

2. Good project management provides clarity

A significant benefit of well-established project management practices is clarity across the organisation.
Projects are the basic building blocks for your innovation programme. At senior management level, being clear about projects helps to see the bigger picture. And when you’re clear about how the innovation portfolio is being delivered, you can take better decisions on it.
Outside the senior managers, the whole organisation benefits from this clarity. For example, everyone knows what a project is and is not. People understand the roles and responsibilities in and around projects. Everyone uses the same vocabulary to discuss projects. Teams use the same methods and tools for tackling complex tasks.

3. Good project management mobilizes and motivates

In many organisations, the work done to deliver innovation is less visible than the daily work done to run the existing business. The same can be said for the results of innovation vs the results of “ongoing business”. For the people working on innovation, the lack of immediate results, combined with the lack of recognition can be frustrating. But being good at project management also helps with this.
When innovation projects are well defined, when the teams delivering them are well known and when there is wider awareness of the progress being made, the profile of innovation practitioners is raised. People whose contribution to the business would have been obscure are valorised and seen in a new light.
Being a project leader becomes something more than an extension of the day-job. It becomes an important and valued role in the company.
Project teams become empowered. A community forms, where innovation practitioners can share tips and learn from each other.
What’s more, the entire organisation becomes more aware of and engaged in innovation. There’s excitement about what’s coming around the corner.

So what do you need to get right to have effective project management?

Let’s return to each of the five elements I include in Project Management.

METHODOLOGIES

The first thing you need is the right project management methodology for your innovation needs. It may even be two methodologies – you don’t have to use one method for all your innovation projects after all.
And there are plenty of methodologies to choose from5.
By far the most common is the “waterfall” approach of linear planning developed in the 1950s and adopted by the PMI. This is the classic approach most people have in mind when “project management” is mentioned. You probably have also heard of Agile methods such as the Scrum framework, or Lean methods such as Kanban. There’s also a hybrid Agile/waterfall approach which is gaining popularity.
If none of these work for you, you could also invent your own approach.
Whatever you do, like 77% of companies, you should have a project management methodology in place3. And just to be clear (because some companies make this mistake) it’s not the same as your innovation methodology – see box 2.

BOX 2: Innovation methodology is not Project Management methodology

Your project management methodology is not the same as your innovation methodology.
What do I mean by “innovation methodology”? It’s the way you manage your innovation from idea to market launch. Let me give you an example.
The well-known stage-gate® process typically used for new product development is an example of an innovation methodology. You need an innovation methodology AND a project management methodology, and they need to work well together.

PEOPLE

Each project management methodology has roles that are absolutely key to success and whichever method you choose, you need to have the right people in these roles.
Because some of these roles are complex as well as important, you need to make them attractive enough to appeal to highly talented people. What’s more, you need to ensure that the key roles in project management are crystal clear to everyone in the organisation.
People in key roles need to fully understand and buy in to their role. They should feel that this is “right” for them and feel valorised because they are contributing something important to the company. They need to feel the appropriate accountability and responsibility too.
What kinds of roles am I talking about?
Well, in “classic” project Management, Project Leaders are central, but Project Team Members are important too. If you use a Scrum methodology, you will need to make sure your Scrum Masters and Product Owners are in place and energized to deliver. In Kanban the same applies to Service Delivery Managers and Service Request Managers.
So far, we’ve talked about people understanding and delivering roles within project teams. People outside the project team can have key roles too and these are just as important.
I’m talking about roles like Sponsors – senior managers who champion the project with their peers at a senior level in the business and Stakeholders – people who can have a significant positive or negative influence on the success of the project.

SKILLS

Once people are clear about roles and responsibilities, they need to have the right project management skills to be able to deliver. This is where project management training comes in; sessions where project teams learn the basic methods and skills to actually set up and run a project.
The skills needed are both hard and soft. They depend to some extent on the project management methodology you use and the role of the individual on the project. For instance, project leaders need a wider skillset than project team members. Projects using the Scrum framework will require less long-term planning than projects using the waterfall method.
Below are some examples of typical project management skills:

Hard Skills

work breakdown
project planning
project scheduling
project tracking
budget tracking
risk management
resource estimation

Soft Skills

team leadership
communication
stakeholder management
problem solving
adaptability
conflict management
time management
The list can be long. The important thing is that you start building these skills in your organisation in line with your emerging project management needs.

TOOLS

Project planning, tracking, risk management and all the other project-related activities can quickly become unmanageable without a specialist project management software tool.
Yes you can use excel, but in my experience, this very quickly becomes unwieldy to use and keep updated. It’s worth checking out available software options for companies of all sizes (and budgets). Examples include MS project, Asana, Wrike, Monday.com etc.

CULTURE

Once everyone is clear about their role, equipped with the right skills and supported by a project management tool, you need to think a little bigger. Projects and project teams thrive when the whole company gets excited about them. Innovation projects should be publicised internally – at least as far as confidentiality will allow. Innovation project successes should be celebrated and bad news should not be hidden.
It’s likely that your company is already good at “running the business”, now you should start to make “delivering innovation” part of your company culture too.

Don’t focus on one element, you need to build them all.

The organisations that have tried and failed to build their project management performance have one thing in common; they only focussed on a single part of project management. For example:
They invested in project management tools without investing in training people. Or they did the opposite.
They threw project leaders in at the deep end – appointed them to lead a major project alongside their “day job”, without senior management support or recognition.
A senior manager asked an untrained team to work “in project mode” on a topic. But there was no clear project methodology defined in the organisation. How exactly was the team supposed to work?
In all of these examples, you generally end up with a kind of ad-hoc, patchwork approach. It’s perhaps better than nothing, but which does not provide a solid foundation to build upon.
If you want to build solid, effective project management capability, you need to cover all the aspects and develop them in parallel.

Summing it up…

Building strong project management practices will supercharge your innovation delivery, but you need to take a holistic approach and build all the elements you need to succeed.
You need to select and use the right project management methodologies, ensure the right people are in the right roles and provide them with the skills and tools they need to do the job. All of this embedded in a company-wide culture that understands, supports and recognises good project management.
Being good at project management will take you part of the way towards being a high-performing innovator. To fully drive innovation delivery, you also need to be good at managing the overall innovation portfolio. This subject – Project Portfolio Management (PPM) – will be the topic of another article.
Graphic showing the Six Dimensions Framework

Projects deliver innovation. Project Management delivers projects.

Effective project management will boost your innovation success rate and reduce wasted time and effort. This is even more the case when combined with effective Portfolio Management.
This article covers topics that are parts of the Skills & Capabilities, Processes and People dimensions of the Six Dimensions Framework for successful innovation.
Find out more about the Six Dimensions Framework here.

Have a question or comment?

Contact me

Further reading

1. Project Management Institute website. https://www.pmi.org/
2. Wikipedia Project Management Body of Knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Body_of_Knowledge
3. PWC second global survey on the current state of project management (2007). https://www.pwc.com/cl/es/publicaciones/assets/insighttrends.pdf
4. PMI (2020). Ahead of the Curve: Forging a Future-Focused Culture. Pulse of the Profession: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/forging-future-focused-culture-11908
5. Forbes article on PM methodologies : https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/project-management-methodologies/

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