Why Project Management Is Critical for Business Profitability

Introduction

Managing a project is a multifaceted process that requires planning, scheduling, reporting, and tracking. Gaps in communication, resource allocation, or backup plan can affect project progress and business profitability. This article sheds light on the importance of project management and the pivotal role it plays in ensuring business profitability.

What Is Project Management?

Project management is the application of certain techniques, skills, and tools to achieve the final goal of the project. It involves planning and organizing the project to produce the desired outcome within the stipulated timeframe. The project management lifecycle consists of four rudimentary stages: initiation, planning, execution, and closure.

Over the past decade, project management has evolved through several stages. The evolution was driven by the need to deliver the project more quickly and efficiently. Most managers have switched from emails and spreadsheets to project management software. To ensure smooth project flow, it’s necessary to meet future contingencies that could derail the project.

Top Reasons Why Project Management Is Critical for Business Profitability

●       Clear Objective to Improve Competence

Setting clear objectives and a realistic timeline is the first step towards project success. By breaking the project into smaller tasks and prioritizing them appropriately, the team gains clarity about what needs to be done. If the objective is ambiguous, the project is more likely to see scope creep, missed deadlines, and, eventually, cost overrun. In the absence of project management and defined goals, the teams may misplace project priorities, causing missed deadlines and budget leaks.

●       Better Project Planning Helps Staying Top of the Deliverables

Project management requires allocating resources in the best possible ways. With proper utilization of budget and resources, you are more likely to complete the project in time. On the other hand, in the absence of a proper plan, you may risk wasting resources and time.

It’s better that the project manager discusses the budget, timeline, and objectives with stakeholders and clients. Together, they can outline a roadmap by keeping all aspects in mind.

Project planning involves assigning responsibilities to team members, streamlining workflow, and gearing up with a backup strategy. This way, the project completion strategy can be re-assessed and re-aligned in the event of any contingency,

●       Project Management Ensures Alignment of Project with Business Strategy

Often, organizations overlook how the project aligns with the business strategies. Effective project management not only navigates the planning and execution of the project but also ensures that all the tasks and goals of the project resonate with the organization’s strategy, vision, and objective. This alignment also keeps the project manager and the stakeholders on the same page, ensuring frictionless collaboration across the team.

●       Keeping Deliverable Quality in Check

As teams rush towards meeting project deadlines, it’s possible for quality standards to suffer.

Since quality is critical for client satisfaction and the organization’s brand reputation, project management needs to play a key role in ensuring quality at all stages of the project.

To sum up, project management not only completes a project on time but also ensures that the quality of the output is assessed periodically.

●       Right Project Management Methodology Step up the Game

Regardless of the level of project complexity, proper planning and execution are indispensable for project success. The organization must consider aspects like team dependencies, the team size, the project timeframe, resource allocation, contingency likelihood, and the request frequency from stakeholders.

Project management methodologies facilitate proper project planning to address all such issues. These methodologies are the set of rules that guide how to plan, execute and manage the project. There are many methodologies, and each comes with its own paradigm. After assessing, the project manager can select and implement a method that suits the project requirements. In short, implementing the right project management methodology can improve the team's competence, thereby ensuring project success.

●       Project Management Save Time and Resources

One of the top concerns for any business is to accomplish the project within the stipulated time and budget. This is where well-organized project management and planning comes in. It helps allocate the right resources on the right task that preempts resource wastage, missed deadlines, and cost overruns. Effective project planning helps you analyze the project journey, spending, resource utilization, bottlenecks, deadlines, etc. Armed with this data, one can evaluate how achievable the deadlines are and re-shape the project journey to ensure seamless execution.

●       Better Decision Making with Project Management

When the project manager has clear visibility into the project's progress, they can effortlessly make smart decisions that benefit the project. Project management provides insight into who is working on which task, where the resources are being spent, what the priorities are, and whether the project is on track. Equipped with this knowledge, businesses can make the right decisions to optimize the project workflow and mitigate the bottlenecks before they aggravate.

Conclusion: Project management streamlines the project flow and facilitates goal attainment in time, thereby ensuring the project’s success. This, in turn, enables organizations to achieve business profitability.

Author Bio: Sonika Malviya works as a content writer at Replicon and loves to write about technology trends.

Recognizing and Combatting Complacency in the Workplace

Complacency is all around us, but it (and the problems it brings) can be especially noticeable in the workplace.

If people have stopped going the extra mile and if they seem totally content with the status quo, their complacency could be hurting your organization. The good news is that complacency often comes after some success, and people feel comfortable and confident enough to stop trying so hard. The bad news is that it can keep you from being successful in the future because people stop aiming for bigger, better things.

Don’t let that happen. Battle complacency in your workplace. Here are some of the signs so you know what to look for in others and also in yourself.

Overall Disengagement

Complacent employees tend to retract from their coworkers and managers. There will be less participation in meetings or daily conversations. If employees seem like their head isn’t in it some days and you notice that they are working less hours, it might be a warning sign. 

Complacent employees don’t have their heads and hearts in their jobs. It’s like they’ve lost the interest and excitement.

Less Initiative and Risk Taking

Motivated employees will take initiative to make changes and take on new responsibilities. Complacent employees do the opposite. They avoid any new tasks or assignments when possible and don’t sign up for anything risky. It’s like they don’t want any additional attention on them. 

Loss of Creativity

If employees stop thinking about and coming up with new creative ideas, it’s a sign of complacency. You want a team that drives improvement for the team and for each individual member. In meetings and group calls, you want new ideas to bounce around. Having team members that don’t seem to care or don’t have anything new to offer can impact the entire dynamic in a negative way. 

Shortcuts Taken

Especially in workplaces with a strong safety culture, taking shortcuts can be detrimental. Complacent team members take the easy route and sometimes even skip over steps while working either intentionally or because they weren’t paying close attention. This can lead to unsafe acts to happen within the workplace.

In addition to safety, it can negatively impact a company in many other ways. Taking shortcuts with anything legal can be a big nightmare. There can be issues with customer service results or function of services and products sold.

Uninterested in the Future

Most employees have a clear goal for their next career move. Maybe it’s working toward a promotion and acquiring the necessary skill-sets to do that or maybe it’s just mastering a certain part of their role to be the best. Complacent team members will lack interest in the next steps. It doesn’t appear that they are working towards anything specific.

Combatting complacency and keeping your team engaged and interested is a continuous challenge, and we all know that employee engagement doesn’t just happen by accident. But it’s not all bad news, either. There are effective ways to intentionally foster a workplace where employees care about their jobs, even when the tasks themselves aren’t overly stimulating. Here are 5 ways to combat complacency in the workplace.

Share the mission.

Remind employees of the company’s purpose and goals so they feel connected to the larger mission and see how their behaviors can have an impact on customers. 

Change Up Routines

Complacency can happen in situations where there are repetitive work and boredom. If you have lots of roles with repetitive tasks, get creative about how to switch things up. Invite the team to offer suggestions for automation of certain parts or ways to make the process better.

Offer Continued Education and Training

Another way to keep employees engaged is to offer opportunities to learn.

There are so many different forms of continuing education that employees can participate in. Some education is mandatory to stay informed on any changes within specific industries. As regulations and technology changes, employees may need to take part in classes to learn about the differences and how it impacts their part of the process.

Education doesn’t always have to be formal classwork. Many companies offering mentoring or job swap opportunities to help employees learn and understand other roles within the organization. This promotes a sense of teamwork and helps highlight how different roles impact each other. It also gives employees ideas of other areas they might like to explore a career path in within the organization.

Publish Results Publicly

Everybody is familiar with scoreboards. Choose different metrics to post regularly with a results ranked for everyone to see. By switching up the different metrics, people are motivated to work hard and fight to reach the top of the list. The rankings can be shared in meetings, posted within the office or even shared on a virtual platform like Slack.

Having results visible to the team can inspire people to fight their way up the list or fight to stay at the top if they are there. Creating a little friendly competition keeps employees on their toes while at work.

Adapt and Learn

Dealing with change can be difficult, but it’s a necessary part of life. As things grow and change, you should be constantly working to adapt and learn new ways to accomplish your goals. It’s a good way to continue to challenge your mind and stay engaged.

Complacency is a danger to many organizations. It can destroy a organization’s success. Leaders need to keep employees energized so that they can provide the best possible service to their customers, whether they are coming to you for the first time or the 10th.

Lean Quote: What Employees Want From a Leader

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person — not just an employee — are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability."   —  Anne M. Mulcahy

Employees naturally gauge their connection and engagement with an organization through their local relationships and environments. And no one has a greater influence on those day-to-day interactions, processes, and operations than the managers on the ground with them.

Good managers build personalized relationships and connections with their employees, leveraging individual strengths to empower and motivate their people where they are.

Fortunately, leadership is a learned skill and you can train your current management to better understand and address their employees’ needs. To do this, you first need to know what your employees want.

A survey of 500 U.S. employees-published in the book "What People Want," by Terry Bacon-reveals what matters most to employees.

9 Things Employees Need

1. Honesty. 90% say they want honesty and integrity from their manager. Lies and secrets are the biggest killers to credibility.

2. Fairness. 89% want their manager to be fair and to hold all employees accountable to the same standards.

3. Trust. More than 86% want to trust-and be trusted by-their manager.

4. Respect. 84% want to respect-and be respected by-their manager.

5. Dependability. 81% say they want to be able to count on their manager when needed.

6. Collaboration. 77% want to be a part of their manager's team and be asked to contribute ideas and solutions. Shutting employees out will shut them up-and send them shipping out.

7. Genuineness. 76% want their manager to be a genuine person. Employees sometimes spend more time with their boss than with their families-they don't want a phony.

8. Appreciation. 74% want their manager to appreciate them for who they are and what they do. When was the last time you handed out a "Thank you!" or "Great job!" to employees?

9. Responsiveness. 74% want their manager to listen, understand and respond. Be a sponge, not a brick wall.

Bottom line: These traits are important to understand, but they don't apply to every employee. That's why it's best for managers to understand what each individual employee craves and then try to fulfill those needs. In the end, more satisfied employees stick around longer, are more loyal, do better work and make a manager's job much easier.

Managers Play a Crucial Role in Employee Engagement

If you’re a leader looking to improve employee engagement and performance at your organization, it pays to spend time working with the people who can deliver more impact than any other—managers.

Middle managers play a key role in employee engagement, creating a respectful and trusting relationship with their direct reports, communicating company values and setting expectations for the day-to-day business of any organization.

The relationship between an employee and their manager is one of the top drivers of employee engagement and leading indicators of employee turnover. When that relationship is strained, it can create a disconnect between an individual and their motivation to do their best work. When a manager is leading effectively, their team members are much more likely to be engaged.

But middle managers need to be empowered by being given larger responsibilities, trained for their expanded roles and more involved in strategic decisions. If an organization's executives and HR professionals want to hold managers accountable for the engagement levels, they should:

Make sure that managers and employees have the tools to do their jobs correctly.

Periodically assign managers larger, more exciting roles.

Give managers appropriate authority.

Accelerate leadership development efforts.

Ask managers to convey the corporate mission and vision and to help transform the organization.

In fact, research shows higher manager capability increases the likelihood of both employee engagement and performance. And that, in turn, supports bottom-line results. Organizations that see highly engaged, strong performers are almost twice as likely to report growth in revenue and profitability compared to those with low performance and engagement.

Bringing managers into the fold and giving them ownership over engagement initiatives can be hugely beneficial and make transformation happen faster. After all, managers know the day-to-day challenges of employees best, and the organization can only win when teams are firing on all cylinders.

Invite managers to partner with your leadership team to determine ideal employee engagement outcomes. Then, give them the space and autonomy they need to come up with creative solutions to achieve those goals. Let them take ownership of how changes are implemented and how those changes are communicated to employees.

The truth is, a frontline manager can be an executive’s greatest ally in the war against lackluster employee engagement. The challenge for business leaders is making sure their managers are set up for success.

Five Leadership Lessons From Halloween

Each day we are presented with experiences that can teach us key aspects of leadership. Halloween is today! Whether you’re going to a party or have kids you have to rope into their costumes, Halloween is a holiday you shouldn’t be sleeping on. Let’s take a moment to think about how this fall holiday can teach us valuable lessons in leadership.

Here are five that definitely come to mind:

1. Identity matters. One of the reasons people like Halloween is that they get to take on different identities. 

Lesson: While that might be fun, as a leader, your identity must be consistent and familiar. Masks might be fun on Halloween, but as a leader, you can’t wear one at work. To be most effective, you must be real, transparent and authentic.

2. Engagement matters. Halloween parties are fun for many people. Why? Because everyone is engaged! Everyone participates! Many people put a great deal of effort into their costumes, and they like to talk about how they come up with and executed their ideas. They enjoy the music, the games, the contests and just being around other people. 

Lesson: When people are engaged in an activity, they’ll put in the time and effort needed to succeed. What can you do to encourage your people to be as engaged in their work as they were when coming up with this year’s costume?

3. Creativity is important. Creativity is everywhere you look on Halloween. From house decorations to costumes and everything in between, people go all out to make the most of the holiday. Even the most straight-laced people will get a little wild on Halloween, and most people are really excited about the whole process. 

Lesson: When you give people an outlet and purpose for their creativity, they will be creative. Make sure you’re finding ways to allow people’s creativity to flourish. Your team and the organization will benefit big time if you do.

4. Treats over Tricks. When I was growing up, the neighborhood kids would egg houses that didn’t decorate for Halloween or give out good candy. Oddly enough, it didn’t make them any more likely to get into the spirit the next year.

Lesson: You’ll get further with treats than you will with tricks. That is really by way of saying that we must make sure we don’t neglect recognition.  We can’t hit our folks over the head with rules, regulations, and processes continuously and expect them to want to improve. We need to provide training and feedback while recognizing achievements along the way.

5. Fun matters. One of the reasons Halloween is one of the most popular adult holidays is that it gives people permission to just have fun. There isn’t any other “reason” for the holiday. It is just about fun. 

Lesson: Remember that people need to have fun sometimes to be productive the rest of the time.

Leaders need remain open to learning from all situations, people, and experiences. The leaders who inspire me understand leadership is not about costumes, tricks, and treats. There is a depth and meaning to leadership we each discover in our own way.

Lean Quote: A Lesson in Faith From Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."   —  H. P. Lovecraft

"On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys for all the children!"

Charlie Brown has been an iconic figure for over 60 years. In 1966, viewers across the country tuned in as “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” premiered on television.

If you’re not familiar with “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” here is a brief summary: Instead of going trick-or-treating, Linus waits in excited anticipation in the "most sincere" pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to arrive, but receives only disappointment. It doesn’t end any better for the other characters either. Sally misses "tricks-or-treats" and Charlie Brown is stuck with a bag full of rocks. So what lesson can we learn from this?

A group of optimistic young people are placing their faith in things that consistently disappoint them. That’s a relatable theme, isn’t it? But what keeps us coming back year after year when the show ends on such a low?

Charles M. Schulz, its creator, said it best: "Linus represents a special quality of hope and belief, against all odds." This, along with Charlie Brown’s unwavering ability to bounce back from failure, seems to resonate with young and old alike.

So in the spirit of Halloween this year, let’s take a self-inventory. Who might you be if you were one of the characters? Do you bounce back easily? Do you have unwavering hope?

Wherever you fit, perhaps a lesson from the Peanuts gang might do us all a bit of good.

Lean Roundup #161 – October 2022

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of October 2022.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

 

What Should Be Your Target OEE? – Christopher Roser explains OEE and what is a good target based on your business.

 

Lean, Chess, and Techno-Solutionism – Kevin Meyer discusses impact of technology on Lean and problem solving with the understanding that it is a tool not a solution itself.

 

Making Big Problems Into Little Problems – John Knotts shares some tools you can use to break down a problem.

 

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership – Pascal Dennis discusses best practice sharing within organizations.

 

Why FIFO: The Benefits of First In, First Out – Christopher Roser talks about the benefit of implementing FIFO in your production system.

 

Strategies to Improve Employee Engagement in the Workplace - Brittany Currier shares 5 strategies to improve employee engagement in your workplace.

 

Policy Deployment: Examples, Techniques, and Tools - Adam Darnell discusses all things policy deployment including 4 phases of implementation, key to success, and software to use.

 

The Connections Between Joy in Work and Habitual Excellence, via Value Capture – Mark Graban shares notes from a presentation that Rich Sheridan gave at the Michigan Lean Consortium annual conference in August.

 

Ask Art: How Important are Your Suppliers to Implementing Lean Production? – Art Byrne discusses the importance of your supply chain in Lean production.

 

6 Guidelines for Moving Toward a Lean Value Stream - Mike Rother and John Shook share advice on using value-stream mapping to continuously improve your value streams.

 

How Lean Thinking and Practices Helps Manage Rapid Growth - Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartiers, cofounders of a successful digital startup share their experience navigating uncertainty.

 

Emotions on the Gemba - Michael Ballé and Fabian Sampayo discuss the role emotios play in a lean transformation.

 

Advancing Learning in a Lean Organization - Dan Prock explores our disposition to learning and the role of the sensei in enabling learning.