Project management is a set of skills that you should endeavour to pass on to everyone in your organisation. Whether by direct external training or lateral skills transfer, helping people develop in project management yields surprisingly positive results.
Identifying projects is vital
One of the chief benefits of having staff familiar with project management is that they recognise projects more easily. What’s more, and perhaps more importantly, they also know what is not a project, and how to treat each relevant situation accordingly.
It’s very easy to lose time and effort in planning projects and project teams. The ability to discern between real projects, simple task and daily activities is therefore a boon. Your employees should all be familiar enough with project management so that they can help decide which endeavours get turned into a project. Projects have a fixed plan, definitive scope and preferred timeline. Tasks are generally shorter endeavours with a much smaller and more easily achievable goal. Daily activities, on the other hand, fail outside of project scopes because they are usually repeated for long periods.
Project management tools are transferable
Project management provides a variety of tools, processes and knowledge which help in the completion of various tasks and project goals. Those very same tools are also useful in non-project situations. For example, documenting routine reviews of known risk factors can help you identify potential shortcomings. Or, having a sound communications strategy has continuous benefits that are applicable perpetually. You can also take a lesson from projects and regularly conduct exercises to consider what lessons you have learned in recent times.
There’s another good reason for you to consider this knowledge transfer. Add a portfolio of generic project management skills to your staff complement, and you’ll have new options for future strategy. Examples of these skills include better time management, interpersonal skills and managing project stages or group activities. You can then incorporate these skills in your planning sessions. Once you achieve this, the relevant people apply the skills to the tasks for each strategic goal.
The human elements of project management
Another big advantaged conferred by project management training is the ability to work alongside team members. While project teams are temporary, your everyday workplace teams can greatly benefit from the project team paradigm. This is because project training incorporates many cooperation and functional elements.
Think of aspects such as team communication, working together on various tasks, and learning more about how to promote better interactions with fellow team members. These skills are easily applicable to the normal teams people work with on a daily basis. What’s more, they foster better understanding of how these interactions affect other and they work that they do.
Finding the right fit for training
Keep in mind that many of the lessons provided by project training are found in many places in the working environment. Furthermore, they don’t necessarily require a formal formative approach. There’s nothing stopping your experience project team managers and members showing others the ropes. A good plan to achieve this is to include it in the induction training you give to new staff members.
You’ll also need to remember that you don’t necessarily need to follow a defined type of project management methodology for all this to succeed. For example, your organisation may use both ITIL and Scrum methodologies for various purposes. It’s up to you (and your designated professionals) to determine whether your project management training needs to include aspects unique to a particular methodology, or whether you simply need to focus on the skills common to multiple methodologies.
If you do have a requirement for a highly specific methodology, it’s probably best to approach at least a few staff members to undergo the training formally. You can then apply the benefits directly to upcoming projects (and daily routines). Furthermore, you will also be accredited as having those skills on your payroll, a big advantage in many work sectors.
Adept subscribes to multiple possible approaches to projects or project-similar tasks. As such, we are proponents of educating our employees in the details surrounding project management, creating a more knowledgeable and productive atmosphere for all, to the ultimate benefit of our clients.