Project Management – From a Zero to a Hero

As Distribution owners push towards innovation, the need for project management is often met with ambivalence, but it doesn’t have to be. The way to get excited about what project management can do for you is to understand the difference between good project management and poor project management.

First, it’s helpful to consider an all too common scenario, one that starts out with a negative perception of project management.

Perception:
It’s an optional overhead expense with minimal to moderate value

Consequence:
The function is under-budgeted, the resource assignment is a poor fit, or both

Result:
The project can be negatively impacted in any number of ways; from increased risk to budget overages to missed deadlines

By starting with a negative perception, project management is undervalued from the beginning, setting a negative domino effect in motion. Thankfully, this fate is easily avoided because the opposite is also true.

When project management, good project management, is understood to be a highly valuable function of a successful project, it’s a game changer. The function is then properly resourced, risk is minimized, and results improve.

The key is to understand and differentiate between good project management and poor project management. Once decisions are made according to that understanding, projects run more smoothly and success rates go way up.