Project Institute Finland Ltd. sponsored the 23^rd IPMA World Congress in Helsinki Fair and Congress Center, June 15^th – 17^{th, 2009}. More than one thousand Project Management professionals around the world gathered to Finland to participate this annual event. We interviewed the participants, and asked about the biggest challenges they face in their projects,

or project world in general.

 

Helena Nepola, Jukka Huovinen and Christina Rydgren, Fortum Corporation

“We have started our journey to align ways of working and processes across many cultures with different businesses, interests and focus areas.”

Prof Pieter Steyn, Cranefield College of Project and Programme Management, South Africa

 

"It is time to take Project Management knowledge to the strategic level: Leading and managing an organization. The organizations in the future are going to be run more and more like a group of projects, and although not all of those processes will contain projects, they will still operate cross-functional. It means that we still need to apply project management principles. A next dilemma is that people in the organization all need to be re-educated.  They are going to have to learn much more about program management, since these cross-functional processes need to be program managed, while still applying project management techniques. In modern organization some of the capacity are external to the organization. Since the organization focuses on core-competence, they have to utilize their external network clusters to increase capacity. This virtual network also needs to be program managed, which brings a very new dimension to an organization.

 

The other problem is the leadership abilities. Most of the current top managers in global organizations need to change to leaders that are more transformational. This is a major shortcoming. The transactional leadership style is still too prevalent. They should be re-educated, mentored and coached to become transformational and focus more on building trust, giving support, encouraging innovation and autonomy, decision making, and also team work.”

 

 

Judy Umlas, International Institute for Learning, Inc.(IIL), Author of The Power of Acknowledgment, IIL Publishing, New York, USA

 

Judy Umlas, International
Institute for Learning, Inc.

“A major concern about projects that we see all the time is the communication between team members. One of the great tools I believe in for enhancing team performance and engagement is the power of acknowledgment. When people honestly let others know their value to a team, to a project and to an organization, we see great results. We all have a craving to be acknowledged for the good that we do and the value that we bring. Being acknowledged in a heartfelt, profound and authentic way motivates us to do better, be more active, and loyal to an organization. I can not stress this enough.”