Changing Nature of Project Management

The role and job responsibilities of an IT project manager have been redefined. It is necessary to make sure that the project is executed as per plan. In the current scenario, the project manager needs to be well versed in more than one area. These include the management of customers and resources that might be globally distributed. IT project manager jobs also call for the understanding of the marketing and business strategy in the current competitive landscape.


An IT project manager is expected to take on a task and then delegate it to the right candidates. These include the proper allocation of the resources, monitoring of the progress of the project and then seeing to it that the project ends on time. In the past, the projects had a rather long lead time and the customers and resources were all available locally thereby making the monitoring of the project rather easy. Subsequent years saw the use of the ‘waterfall’ project planning techniques, with the early stages dedicated to the acquisition of resources and the later stages aimed at the designing and development of the software application.


With the changing business scenario, the nature of project management jobs has also undergone a transformation. The life span of a business cycle is slowly dropping and most organisations do not have the luxury to take up a long time while adapting to the demands of the client. Decisions need to be taken quickly and therefore the business processes need to be speeded up. The priorities are changing and so are the products and the projects. A project manager thus needs to evolve and keep pace with the changing times. An IT project manager therefore needs to have an understanding of the business strategy that is being employed and also exhibit certain intelligence as part of their job.