March 29, 2024

Pratamiklas

Business – Your Game

The Differences Between a Conventional Project Manager Versus a Contemporary Project Manager

The conventional project management methodologies will work best if the projects do not have lots of uncertainties nor there are many moving variables to take care of simultaneously. Nowadays, projects gets more and more complicated and the complexities increased as compared to those old days where simple methodologies and project tools just can’t aren’t feasible no more for today’s projects.

Here are some of the key differences between conventional vs contemporary Project management.

1. Conventional project management is suitable for projects with low budget, contain 2-3 variables only, and with a medium time frame not more than 6 months from envisioning to deployment. While contemporary project management is not feasible for someone without the experience or required skills to manage because of its complexities. That’s the reason why PMP certificate has been called out as the pre-requisite for a project manager today.

2. Replace predictive planning with adaptive planning. In the traditional world, everything is much simpler and therefore predictable. A simple project management tool will do the work for the predictive project planning. We are now transitioning to a new arena where project management skills have increasing being called out as ‘essential’ in an organization due to the increased complexities in today’s projects and the multiple problems around it, with so many constraints to take care of

3. Contemporary project manager response to changes with Adaptive action and not Corrective action which has been commonly used as an approach in conventional projects. The fundamental problem with many conventional project management frameworks is probably even more relevant to science than it is to business. In today’s world, project manager need to be flexible enough to handle and manage multiple changes simultaneously. To enable this, the only way is to get adapted to the surroundings and the many different constraints which the project is having. The fundamental problem with many conventional project management frameworks is probably even more relevant to science than it is to business

4. No doubt a good planning is essential to kick off a project successfully but a perfect plan is really a myth. There is no such thing as perfect plan and perfect project. Theoretically, books on project management will provide guidelines as to work a good plan can be work out from. Nevertheless, from the eyes of a modern project manager, it is the ability to stand and adapt to these changes which make the difference.

5. Contemporary project management is stressing on the EXECUTION, rather than the PLANNING aspect of a project. This does not mean that planning is not important, but the key stress and the main focus should be on the EXECUTION aspect of the project once the project has exited envisioning and planning phases. All the pending action items need very close follow up and monitoring. This is to ensure there are no missing items unaware of, no over-look of open issues or pending action items and no hidden gaps unexplored… etc.

6. Traditional project manager does not focus on collaboration of the team work for the project. They are taught for top- down approach in mind and not meant for open collaboration. The traditional Project management tools make the Project manager the core element for communication, inclusive of the need to remind the team members on the dead-lines and overdue tasks. Contemporary project managers see this as a waste of resources as it is not the PM responsibility to keep on reminding the dead-lines, but to ensure close collaboration is in place within the whole team itself. If everyone in the project are fully committed, reminders on dead-lines or on overdue tasks are actually not necessary at all.