Project Management - Trends in 2020

Already in our post from 2016 titled "5 most important soft skills of a project manager," its author - Kamil Kruk - listed communication as one of the key soft skills of a manager. This skill "allows to better understand the needs of customers and to communicate thoughts to the team more clearly." So why do we mention it also in 2020? Because not only does it not become outdated, but it also evolves dynamically with the emergence of new channels for conveying information.

Today, it's not just phone and email, but increasingly messaging apps like Slack or WhatsApp. The days of long messages, which took half a day to read or write, are over. Following the #LessIsMore principle, messages become as concise and specific as possible, devoid of unnecessary elements, which are reserved for official documents. It's not that easy to convey information in the shortest possible form - as evidenced by tweets from people who are not used to limiting themselves to the 280 characters imposed by Twitter and break up their message into several parts, making the communication unreadable. On the other hand, we have masters of brevity who can convey the essence in less than 140 characters. However, every stick has two ends - a too concise message may not convey all the necessary information, or emphasize the priorities correctly. In communication, as in any other aspect, it is necessary to find a golden mean, which, depending on the situation, project, or team, may lie elsewhere, and this is where the opportunity arises for a PM to use their knowledge, intuition, and skills to choose the right tools.

Tight schedules, but also the ability to collaborate with business partners from all over the world, also contribute to a reduction in face-to-face meetings, where body language played a significant role. Instead of live meetings, we increasingly use teleconferences or video conferences. Video meetings are reserved for smaller groups, while teleconferences can accommodate larger groups. Gestures, facial expressions, and sitting posture play a lesser role - here, the content and the way it's conveyed matters. That's why it's essential to focus on concrete, clear, and straightforward communication that can be directly translated into action without unnecessary "processing."

Uniform teams consisting of people of similar age, cultural background, and even speaking the same language as their native language are becoming a thing of the past. Fortunately, job postings mentioning "working in a young and dynamic team" are becoming increasingly rare. Within a team, we can have representatives from various age groups - baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and so on. Furthermore, a significant number of employees from abroad have appeared on the job market - citizens of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, as well as from distant parts of the world such as India, China, or Nepal.

Promoting openness to diverse teams in an organization allows it to acquire new, talented employees who, thanks to synergy, will positively affect its functioning and results.

The project manager faces the challenge of integrating the team and making it work efficiently. The ability to manage diversity allows the PM to choose the appropriate forms of communication and work style for each team member. Such an individual approach can prevent conflicts, employee burnout, and errors resulting from incorrect communication. It is necessary to reconcile the interests of employees with the needs of the entire team and organization. It is challenging, but as many examples show, not only achievable but also extremely profitable, as confirmed by the CSR Report: To the Benefit of Employees and Companies. Marzena Strzelczak, the General Director of the Responsible Business Forum, quoted in this publication, emphasizes that "in mature organizations, diversity management not only increases the level of integration and employee engagement but permeates all areas of the company's activity, has an impact on its products and services, and increases its innovation. It also contributes to improving the image and reputation of the enterprise, which in turn translates into cooperation with business partners as well as final purchasing decisions of customers".

Many tasks associated with project management are repetitive, sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly. Therefore, we should look for opportunities to automate them. Firstly, it will save us time, secondly, it will shorten the process, and thirdly, it will reduce the number of errors during implementation. Planning and modifying the schedule, assigning tasks, and accounting for work are just a few of the many tasks that can be significantly optimized with the right tools that support managers in their work. It is worth taking a moment to analyze these activities from this perspective because the invested time will pay off several times and quite quickly.

An example of software that will make our daily tasks easier is the G Suite package from Google Cloud - documents, spreadsheets, drive, calendar, and email - by working in one environment, we facilitate file sharing within the team, enable cloud work, easily tag other people, give feedback, assign tasks or organize a meeting or video conference. Other examples are applications that allow you to create to-do lists - Google Tasks, Nozbe, Todoist. Thanks to them, we will not forget about any important matter and at the same time improve work organization.

We also recommend using plugins that will allow you to integrate many tools, so that the flow of information between them will be carried out without our interference. It is easy to connect the Office or Google package with the Slack communicator or the project management program Trello.

For example, with one click, we can organize a meeting, send invitations, and enter the date in the calendar. For people using Google tools, we recommend the Black Menu for Google plugin, which makes it extremely easy to access functions from the Chrome browser. For the same browser, the Drag plugin can be recommended, which will turn Gmail into a kanban board and facilitate the management of correspondence.

However, it should be remembered that usually the weakest link is the human being and even if he has the best tools, nothing will change if the implementation process of the solution is not properly analyzed, planned, and carried out. It is worth using the experience of both your own employees and other organizations as well as the support of software manufacturers who provide instructions and valuable advice. Why pave the way yourself if in most cases someone has already done it for us - again - we have the opportunity to save time and money.

We are slowly approaching the second decade of the 21st century - it is a time of big changes and challenges that affect the projects being implemented. Above, we described only three of the most important trends that decide on the change in the approach to project management in the future. An agile project manager keeps his finger on the pulse, constantly updates his knowledge and approaches emerging opportunities with openness, which we strongly encourage.