Project management must be handled differently as companies shift to remote staffing approaches.
When project management emerged in the 1950s, it was mainly used in construction, engineering, and defense. Within a few decades, the concept had migrated to the broader business world because it boosted efficiency and results for nearly any group working side by side.
It’s become ubiquitous in recent years, to the point that it seems as if everybody is managing a project or three — which is often a problem. In 2015, Harvard Business Review found that nearly 75% of cross-functional teams were dysfunctional.
Project Management and Distributed Work
It’s no surprise that many of today’s project managers are struggling, and it’s not due to a lack of training or certification. The reality is that project management was not designed for complex remote projects or what we call distributed work.
Every widely used project management methodology, from Scrum to Agile and beyond, assumes the whole team is working together in the same office — a situation that no longer reflects our working reality.
Today’s projects need to be managed in a new way, particularly since the challenges are increasing along with the share of dispersed teams and distributed projects. Businesses need to modernize their project management approach to reflect the realities of today’s work environment.