Trends highlight the need to keep projects aligned with organisational strategy

Dubai, UAE - 20 January 2015: ESI International the world's leading project management training company, today announced the release of its top 10 trends in project management for 2015.

The 2015 trends reveal that project managers (PMs) will be impacted by many changes this year including more hybrid environments, an increasing demand for talent management, and a growing need to more closely align project outcomes with organisational strategy.

"It is a common, yet faulty practice to speak of strategy and execution independently," said ESI Managing Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Alan Garvey. "In the coming year the trend will move toward a stronger focus on managing the critical links connecting the two. Organisations will increasingly begin to view strategic execution as a core discipline."

"The impact on project management is significant," added Garvey. "Project managers, who used to just be accountable for delivering project outcomes, will now also be responsible for how those deliverables impact the business. This shift will require a finetuning of their skillsets. At the same time the PM's role as a critical enabler of business strategy will emerge. It will be a positive development for project managers who can make that move."

ESI's top 10 trends for project management include:

1. Lofty expectations: PMs need to become adept at managing gaps between the constraints of cloud-based platforms and the business' expectations.

2. Out-of-whack: Talent management within the PM community comes back into focus.

3. Fuel for the hybrid: As the pace of change continues to accelerate, hybrid project methods will become the norm.

4. Too little, too late: The ability to find and hire top PM talent is dwindling.

5. Bottom's up: Organisations must build bottom-up processes to link project outcomes to organisational strategy.

6. Ignore them at your own peril: Project managers will continue to be ignored and not get the coaching and mentoring they are screaming for.

7. Run!: Project managers continue to sacrifice project transparency as they flee from conflict and avoid difficult conversations

8. Change is coming: The disciplines of change management and project management continue to merge as PMs become responsible for delivering project and business outcomes.

9. Knocking at the door: Project management and business strategy better align to the benefit of the organisation.

10. Culture shock: Organisational culture becomes a bigger consideration in risk management practices.

"2015 will be the year of the project manager," said Garvey. "Savvy PMs will identify their opportunities for career growth and will position themselves to improve their competencies in some critical areas. Bettering interpersonal skills, learning the discipline of strategic execution, and becoming well versed in change management practices should be on every PM's list of New Year's resolutions."  

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ESI's top 10 trends in project management is put together annually by ESI senior executives and subject matter experts.

Read ESI International's top 10 project trends here.

About ESI International
ESI helps people around the world improve the way they manage projects, contracts, requirements and vendors through innovative project management training, business analysis training and contract management training. In addition to ESI's more than 100 courses delivered in more than a dozen languages at hundreds of locations worldwide, ESI offers several certificate programmes through our educational partner, The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1981, ESI's worldwide headquarters are in Arlington, VA, USA. To date, ESI's programmes have benefited more than 1.35 million professionals worldwide. For more information, visit www.esi-intl.co.uk.

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© Press Release 2015