Project management capability lacking, IT leaders warned

UXC Consulting chief executive Nick Mescher has questioned the IT industry’s ability to deliver projects with capability the big issue for today’s environment.

Mescher’s presentation, ‘The New Project Paradigm – Can Your Capability Still Deliver?’, delivered at the NSW IT Leaders’ Summit earlier this week, covered everything from the changing project management landscape to the manner in which CIOs could extract more from their existing resources.

In the past, “the project manager was expected to merely track a project plan while others developed the subject matter expertise,” said Mescher. “Now there is an increased importance on key skills, including stakeholder management, organisational change combined with new methodologies and approaches.”

Today’s IT project manager needs to evolve “or run the risk of non-delivery,” Mescher warned. “Non-delivery then becomes your problem.”

CIOs can meet this challenge by understanding the capabilities of the organisation’s staff. “Does your organisation have the right capability mix to enable effective project delivery in changing times?” Mescher asked.

It was a question he had earlier offered in his whitepaper ‘Where have all the skills gone?‘: “Do the skills required for this transformation exist in your organisation today? Without them, there is a real risk that you will not be able to deliver the promised business case benefits.”

Echoed this week, Mescher’s suggestion in his paper was for organisations “to invest strongly in the capability uplift of their people… The market for experienced, strong project managers is heating up and the organisations that invest best will be rewarded in the form of more assured project delivery.”