A little under two years ago I left a very successful multi-national consultancy to set up my own company. At the time it seemed a big risk and was undoubtedly some kind of leap of faith, but with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight it has become one of the best choices to react to a recession.
Plugging away and demonstrating value can signify the opening today's PM consultants are looking for.
Value has become the watchword in a time of austerity and while it is true that the kind of fee once commanded and the length of commission may not be as readily available, this is not necessarily a bad thing because it drives the performance of the project manager to be as lean and efficient as possible. The assumption is that the recession is bad for project management as the big capital programmes are being pared back; however, not all is as bleak as it seems.
What is undoubtedly true is that change is on the agenda and all good project managers know that poorly managed change brings its own problems so there is a clear role for the project manager to support the change agenda. What’s more, we can help address the claims of waste and inefficiency by demonstrating value. A clear focus on the cost / time / quality triangle has never been more important and never been more necessary if some of the statistics on bloated and failing projects are to be believed.
Those working in projects know the value of strong project management,but now is the time to prove it and demonstrate that the cost of employing a project manager is significantly outweighed by the cost of project failure or overrun.
