Innovation and Project Management – How Important Is Your Company’s PMTQ?

Pulse of the profession survey from 2019 provided us with some pretty interesting data. For example, almost 12 percent of project investments within an average organization is wasted due to poor performance. This number has barely budged over the past five years.

What is also an interesting piece of information is the fact that approximately 60% of businesses increased or planned to increase investment into the implementation of artificial intelligence, yet only 3% of them have actually planned to increase investment in training and reskilling programs.

“In today’s increasingly project-based economy, the most forward-thinking organizations know that the success of their strategies hinges on how well they can execute projects. And the race toward AI mastery is no exception,”

– said Michael DePrisco, vice president of global solutions at PMI.

“As we see AI technologies continue to be integrated into organizations, the research indicates that project managers, especially those with a high PMTQ, are well prepared to play an integral role in implementation.”

Obviously, many companies are making investments in technology – however, not all of them are necessarily putting them to the best possible use. This is why PMI advocates that project managers should go forward with better integration of technology into their projects, not just more technology.

This is especially important when having in mind a fundamental shift in how work is getting done. Not so many future jobs will revolve around a simple bulleted list of static responsibilities. More people will be employed to do complex, creative work.

What project management really requires now, is both digital fluency and the ability to support so-called “digital sustainability”. It’s a term coined to describe the constant changes brought on by advances in technology and our capacity to adapt to it.

Murat Bicak, the senior vice president of strategy for PMI, said:

“In jobs of the future, project teams will be more and more reliant on technology as either an enabler or sometimes as a team member. Having a strong PMTQ, and being technologically fluent, will be essential for anyone charged with making strategy reality.”

What is PMTQ?

TQ, or technology quotient, is a person’s ability to adapt, manage, and integrate technology based on the needs of the organization or the project at hand. TQ combined with project management is called PMTQ, and for anyone who is in charge of making a solid strategy in a world that is constantly remodeled by tech, it is the ultimate must-have skill. In order to develop PMTQ and keep it at a high level, an organization needs to make a commitment and to provide support from the staff from absolutely every level and every department of the company.

And what are the areas that PMTQ emphasizes within the organization? According to PMI, among others they include:

• Prioritizing the development of both technical and business skills
• Providing ongoing project manager training
• A formal recognition process for every milestone fulfilled
• Having a formal knowledge transfer process
• A formal process to sophisticate existing project management practices
• Having a defined career path for every project manager

Those that do well in these areas are named PMTQ Innovators, while those that perform poorly are referred to as PMTQ Laggards. According to the PMI study, on average – 50 percent of employees can be considered high PMTQ or Innovators while just 10 percent rarely or never practice the principles of the PMTQ, and they are Laggards. A great number of PMs in both groups recognize their project management skills and experience as a good foundation for managing AI.However, the Innovators are a bit ahead of Laggards: 74% of them say they’re confident their current skill set enables them to work with AI, while only 51% of Laggards are as confident. This confidence is also substantiated by numbers. The percentage of project investment wasted due to poor project performance is significantly different when it comes to Innovators (16.3 percent) and Laggards (8.5 percent).

How to Develop PMTQ?

To determine that, we should first define some basic factors of PMTQ.

First of all, the driving force behind it is definitely an always-on curiosity. This attitude reflects a constant search for what’s next and trying out new project delivery approaches or ideas, perspectives, and technology. For those who live and work by this rule, it is easy and quite natural to shift their way of getting work done. In fact, 60 percent of Innovative organizations indicate using hybrid project management practices, compared to 29 percent of PMTQ Laggards.

The leadership in an organization with a high level of PMTQ is all-inclusive – it doesn’t only effectively manage people, but also technology and people who are managing it. As much as 78 percent of PMTQ Innovators prioritize developing project management business skills, including management of people, while this true for only about 5 percent of PMTQ Laggards,

Another perk of PMTQ is that it creates a future-proof talent pool. What does it mean? Well, PMTQ Innovators recruit and retain project talent with the skills needed for the digital workforce. To do that in a proper way, they first must identify employees who can keep up with the trends and accordingly – adapt their abilities. 82 percent of PMTQ Innovators prioritize developing project management technical skills and 81 percent provide ongoing project management training. The numbers in the Laggards team are a bit different: 9 for the first item and 34 percent for the second one.

The Importance of Technology

The most important influence technology has on the business world is that it boosts productivity. And what are top technologies respondents that are enhancing productivity?

1. Robotic process automation: Technology that mimics and automates human tasks to support corporate processes.
2. Machine learning: Technology that allows computers to learn by employing pattern detection for improved decisions in subsequent situations.
3. Reinforcement learning: A machine learning technique that enables software to learn in an interactive environment by trial and error using feedback from its own actions.

Technology is the vital element that an organization requires in order to keep its competitive edge. Aligning Technology Management with business strategy is crucial for organizational stability and profitability.

When following the newest tech trends there are, an organization can provide to its staff numerous benefits. One of them is definitely quality automation so that people can stop doing repetitive tasks, and focus on what is fundamental for the business strategy. The vast majority of automated activities can be easily inserted in the collaborator’s routine, who are then engaged and trained to engage with their work in a new way. The idea is to make them more efficient and valuable to the organization, so their agility rise – and they are able to accomplish various tasks faster.

So, has your company started to innovate?