Project methodology and success

Methodology and success: How to successfully introduce a new project methodology?

23 March, 2022

In today’s world there are diverse project management methodologies and approaches available to organizations: predictive, adaptive, hybrid, agile, among others. There are even organizations that conceive their own project management methodologies to ensure that they are successful.

Organizations – especially their leadership team – should have a precise understanding of what it means to introduce any new project methodology within their culture. This and other organizational changes are not simple events but complex processes and, as such, are going to confront internal forces that may have been determining factors in organizational achievements up to when this new change is presented.

In their search to become more competitive, it is a standard practice for organizations to explore new administrative practices. Some of these practices may make a lot of sense and help an organization to grow but it takes time for these new practices to be beneficial in any way. In any case they may also require adjustments so as to facilitate their being incorporated into the organizational culture.

The following are the steps we suggest in successfully implementing a new project management methodology:

Analyze and understand what the new methodology would represent within the organizational structure.
Define the vision, expected benefits, and the implementation plan for the new methodology.
Define the organizational structure –including its governance model– that would carry out the implementation plan.
Define the evaluation and recognition scheme for the participants in the implementation including the members of the governance team.
Apply both preventive and corrective steps to ensure the successful implementation of the new methodology.
Be ready to reconsider the implementation of the new methodology if you observe that it will not achieve the proposed and expected benefits.

When instituting a new project management methodology in the organization, it is important to document everything that made it possible. However, if the case was that the proposed methodology did not gel with the corporate culture, it is just as important to document why it did not work.

You also might find interesting:

Interpersonal Skills: Human vs. Technical