With an increasing number of technologies and effective tools for project management, the number of projects has skyrocketed in the past few years. Businesses are heavily investing in projects and related resources to increase revenue generation. According to Capterra, on average, businesses are spending anywhere between $1,000 to $10,000 annually (2020), on project management software. However, data from the PMI indicates that almost 12 percent of these business investments were wasted in 2019, owing to poor performance. Reports dating way back from the previous year also indicate that this number has barely budged over the past five years.
The fundamental problem of this business loss is rooted in the gradual shift in the way of work that we are presently witnessing. While project management tools are getting iterated almost daily, the project professionals aren’t suitably geared to leverage this new technology. Additionally, only a fraction of business leaders are interested in investing in training and reskilling employees.
With this, businesses are at the risk of creating digitally unsustainable environments. In a survey by PwC, 85 percent of respondents commented that artificial intelligence (AI) alone will significantly change the way they do business in the next five years. Close to two-thirds of global CEOs see AI as a bigger disruptor than the internet!
In order to build a capacity to adapt to the constant changes that advancing technologies are bringing, businesses are looking to build/hire professionals with high PMTQ (Project Management Technology Quotient).
What is PMTQ?
PMTQ (or Technology Quotient) is an agile concept of being able to adapt, manage, and integrate technology on the go, based on business/project needs. The PMI identifies three characteristics that define high PMTQ:
1. Always-on curiosity:
- Looks for new project delivery approaches, new ideas, perspectives, and technologies.
- Open-minded, but with a skeptic’s approach. Has the ability to integrate the appropriate project delivery practices without chasing after every new digital trend.
2. All-inclusive leadership:
- Leadership shift from people-management to tech-management i.e, assigning the right task to the right people – including robots! This leads to the effective management of newer technologies based on the team’s capabilities.
- An advocate of technology
3. A future-proof talent pool
- Recruiting and retaining the right project professionals, with skills most-needed for the digital era. These professionals are not just passionate about new trends and technologies but have the capabilities to adapt and keep up with constant rearrangement of ideas.
- The leader should be willing to accept that these cutting-edge technologies can be short-lived. They should adapt to these changes on par with tech growth, which is essential for business growth.
The rapid growth of technologies creates a new scope for project professionals and businesses. The future of work is demanding businesses to build the flexibility to accommodate broad and varying skills, capabilities, and different project delivery approaches to get the work done. Even the approach to the work has shifted from “job for life” to “portfolio of projects”, for both individuals and businesses. Project managers today are no longer handling the same static responsibilities throughout their career, transitioning the nature of work to multifaceted projects that require new technologies to succeed. Factoring in the new changes, there is an immense demand for individuals and businesses to embrace PMTQ.
Cultivating PMTQ
As PMI points out, “The real opportunity lies in project leaders/businesses beginning the hard work of developing a PMTQ mindset throughout their organization.” A study has already found the positive effect of cultivating PMTQ within employees. PMTQ innovators were found to waste lesser investment (8.5%) compared to laggards at 16.3%, and also reduce scope creep in projects. Certifications like PMP® and PRINCE 2® further leverage individuals and teams to be digitally enabled.
A truly digitally sustainable environment is created when ready-for-anything teams are cultivated, fuelled by the knowledge of their technology, as well as their project management which is exactly the intent of high PMTQ.
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