Why “projectifying” is important

Getting results – the right results – is more than organizational lists and repeating standard processes.

All you have to do is look at the huge listing of LinkedIn articles and blogs and you’ll see experts talking about the importance of project management and the “project economy” in the marketplace. No matter what your place or function is in your company, tapping into this mindset will help at all levels.

So what is the project economy? It’s the idea that organizations need to see their business as the result of projects and embrace project management concepts. Success is built on delivering value – to the organization, to the shareholders and stakeholders, and to customers. Relying on familiar practices should give way to working with best practices.

Best practices require a workforce thinking in terms of the big picture. They need to be agile, inquisitive and adaptive. Today’s workforce needs to think less about defined roles and more about delivering results. Planning, examining risk and opportunity, executing efficiently, making changes when it’s strategic and prudent, and learning and capturing those lessons are the traits that bring success. They also need to embrace the concept of lifelong learning and development – not as a company-mandated practice, but as a personal one. With the new pace of business and unexpected events like the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, improving skills and developing new ones has already been highlighted as crucial.

In addition to embracing the project management mindset, workers and organizations need to rethink the traditional idea of company roles. Speed to market now hinges on communication, collaboration and cross-functional teamwork. Projects come together with the work of many people, each experts in their own way and relying on others to build and move. The more employees learn and appreciate what everyone else does and get a holistic view of the company, the better their contributions. While not every organization can train employees across disciplines, encouraging some degree of collaboration builds trust, teamwork and pride in one’s own skills.

And this brings me around to the organization. The FlexPro Group addresses the need for project mindset from a company’s standpoint. As the work landscape changes, being able to think in terms of projects and portfolios and the project mindset helps drive better staffing, planning, retention and other business decisions that can bring better value to the company and its stakeholders.

The business world moves ever forward and ever faster. Competition, efficiency and adaptiveness will be the difference between striding and stumbling in that movement.