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Project Management Is Finally Getting Real RespectProject Management Is Finally Getting Real Respect
From the right priorities to bigger paychecks, project management is getting more than lip service at many companies.
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Art Wittmann
The practice of enterprise project management is finally getting broad respect, not just lip service. Seven out of 10 companies use formal project management methodologies, our new information Analytics survey finds. Pay for project managers was on the rise last year, even as pay for most IT pros was flat. Sixty-one percent of the managers we surveyed see the Project Management Institute's project management professional--PMP--certification as important to their companies.These numbers matter, but more important is the recognition of the project management office's broad role--well beyond being the keeper of the almighty Gantt chart and a budget bludgeon. The PMO is most valued, our research finds, for helping companies prioritize good projects over bad, getting the right people on the job, airing out progress and problems, and executing consistently using the company's standard practices.
"Project management is finally evolving to become more focused on being collaborative, leading and inspiring teams, and ensuring the people angle is taken into account to ensure quicker adoption of changes," says Lynn Batara, director of the enterprise project and portfolio office at Franklin Templeton Investments. However, Batara does see a need for more emphasis on the strategic side of project management, like portfolio management to prioritize projects, and doing a better job of aligning projects with company strategy, minimizing risk, and measuring the benefits.
Asked for the top reasons to create a PMO, 64% of survey respondents say to prioritize projects and 55% say to standardize on an approach--by far the most cited reasons. The next biggest PMO priority is to provide project visibility to leadership teams (34%). Less than a fourth of respondents see tracking project status and project costs as a top reason.
Most companies have some project management methodology in place, and that's part of the problem--if you're not actively questioning your approach, looking for weak spots, and comparing it with other options, it'll creep along in whatever direction it's already headed.
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Research: Enterprise Project Management
Project Management: Right-Sizing Governance 
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Subscribe and get our full report on project management. This report includes 32 pages of analysis and 16 charts from our survey of 684 tech pros. What you'll find:
Data on which employees get trained in project management
Data on which certifications are most important to companies
Analysis on whether to intergrate project management with financial applications
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