Action-Fraction

Daily Telegraph to report on project management

14 March 2013 | By Catherine Wheatcroft

Well it is great to read that the Daily Telegraph are reporting on project management, in a special report due out on 3rd April 2013.

The report is going to highlight the key issues that organisations need to focus on in order to make projects more successful. There will no doubt be input from consultants and organisations in the field and the Association for Project Management (APM) will be supporting the report.

This is all good for the project management community as it makes people think, provides information on better ways and methods and may even spark some changes and improvements in organisations and programmes.

That the issues need debate and covering by a report, seems to indicate it is a ‘given’ that project failure and negative reports in the media will exist. Yet businesses are spending £millions on internal business transformation, better working practices, green credentials and waste reduction programmes. Are we saying that this is somehow not filtering down to projects and programme management?

I wonder whether this report is another of many that will provide the ideal, with articles on best practice and how things should be done. But will this address the real problems and practices of individual businesses, each with their own structures, multiple stakeholders and individual processes?

It is reported that there will be articles on the key aspects of project management, including investment, transformational projects, reputational risk, managing relationships and capturing success. These are all important areas that could affect the projects success, but there is a lot to cover there without seeming to only ‘scratch the surface’.

All of these areas are of course, driven by people and hopefully the report will address how and why they should be at the forefront of any change improvements. Aspects of leadership, communication, organisational environment and reporting are huge factors contributing towards project and programme success.

The Business Reporter will also look at techniques for ensuring lessons learnt are shared, but wonder whether some businesses need to understand first, the importance of conducting lessons learnt.

The report is due out on 3rd April so we will have to wait until then to see how this major industry of project management is tackled and covered.