The State of IT in 2022: Why IT Teams Need Flexible Project Management

July 6, 2022 - 7 min read

Matt Allen

2022 is shaping up to be another year full of change and challenges for IT departments. This has created a diverse landscape of projects for the IT PMO to manage. We have an excellent introduction to IT PMOs that breaks down what an IT PMO is, the benefits of an IT PMO, and how Wrike can help you enable a successful IT PMO within your organization. It’s a foundational guide to how an IT PMO can help an organization align and deliver against strategic objectives.

The IT PMO is a very important piece of the puzzle. Ultimately, it needs to prioritize and enable project work that IT teams can execute to align with your business initiatives. Over the course of a three-blog series, we want to take the next step into the IT PMO. We will dive a bit deeper into IT projects enabled by the PMO and address the following topics:

The state of IT and flexible project management for IT teams in 2022
Enabling transparency in IT operations and product development
Ideas to kick-start successful IT project execution

The challenge: The state of IT in 2022

Much has been said and written about the COVID and post-COVID world in which IT teams have led with uncanny success. Seemingly overnight and throughout 2020-2021, IT teams transformed from that “black box cost center” to a “business-enabling value center” as they brilliantly enabled their entire business to stabilize and succeed while their workforce moved remote.

As we transitioned into more permanent remote, hybrid, and in-office configurations, these same teams have been tasked to chip away at the inefficiencies within their hybrid models. Some companies have found great success, while others are struggling. This has led to questions about the effectiveness of hybrid and remote teams becoming all the more common in 2022.

In parallel, Q2 2022 has presented organizations with flashes of economic uncertainty, amplifying concerns about an upcoming recession. We have begun to see the initial reaction as companies seek opportunities to reduce costs through OpEx/CapEx spending.

These COVID and economic realities have presented a new standard of expectations for IT teams, which can be further confirmed through common trends evident within IT leadership surveys in 2022:

IT and business teams need to collaborate more efficiently than ever.
Agile has experienced tremendous growth, but Waterfall is still pertinent today.
IT teams must move from purpose-built solutions to collaborative software.

The post-COVID realities are a lens that helps us focus on underlying problems that have been present for some time:

Flexibility is paramount when responding to our dynamic world today.
Inefficiencies still exist between IT and the business.

Good IT teams can simply adapt to the challenge. Great ones can use it as an opportunity to not only adapt but establish new precedence for flexibility, collaboration, and transparency with the entire organization. Let’s further explore a couple of solutions to help make our IT teams great.

Solution #1: Enable flexible projects for IT teams

Even with the move to SaaS and the cloud, the world of Information Technology remains complex. IT project management is full of scenarios that challenge internal standards or methodologies, and this only compounds the need for cross-functional integration with other business units. It’s important to have an approach that can be prescriptive but also flexible for situations where your project requires new or unique approaches.

Let’s first look at some of the common challenges with projects that IT teams face internally. Then, we’ll discuss how collaborating with the business further exposes weakness in our links.

Agile

IT teams all look for ways to imprint company culture into their approach to Agile projects. Some look for fun and creative ways to estimate a story’s size, while others choose more empirical methods. When it comes to product development, Agile methodologies align quite nicely — but what about other teams within the IT department, like Operations or Support? These teams often run into challenges when trying to align their work (such as data center migration) with Agile methodologies. A hybrid approach can often become a reality. Processes and projects need the flexibility to enable teams to complete their work effectively rather than dissecting and forcing work to align with a prescribed approach.

Waterfall

Product development teams generally lean more toward Agile as their methodology of choice for IT project management, but opportunities for Waterfall projects are still present within IT today. For example, projects within IT Operations, Support, or other infrastructure teams and projects can often use Waterfall or a hybrid mix of Waterfall and Agile. SaaS and Cloud environments are also redefining the role of an IT engineer and administrator today as they spend more and more time on capability enablement compared to common historical practices such as infrastructure provisioning. Once again, an approach that maintains the flexibility to execute work efficiently becomes ideal.

Ultimately, no single methodology or framework can be perfect for the dynamic nature of the various projects within an IT department. In this day and age, your teams need the flexibility to execute their work in a way that makes sense. They need to enable efficiency while honoring the due diligence required with security, reliability, quality, etc. And all of this is just internal to the IT department. What about cross-functional engagement with the business where, in addition to IT-led projects with standard business collaboration, IT can also participate in the various projects executed throughout other departments?

Solution #2: Foster seamless collaboration for all work within an organization

Long gone are the days when IT teams could use purpose-built products that become ineffective when used for other purposes, like participating in business-led projects or enabling Enterprise Service Management (ESM) within the organization. Today’s IT teams need to speak the same language as the entire company, interact on the same platform, and seamlessly move work among the many teams required in the modern workplace.

Great IT teams cannot slip back into that “black box” mindset where what they are doing, their measures of success, and their results are proprietary to their department and disconnected from the rest of the organization. Transparency into Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), common dashboards with consistent measurement criteria, and reporting that can handle any department enables a common language for both the IT PMO and/or organizational PMO.

Modern projects should quickly allow anyone from the company to execute the work without needing to learn specialized tooling along the way. Employees should be able to collaborate effortlessly, and leadership should have a consistent view of their PMO successes or challenges.

But wait…what can be done now?

In an article focused on flexibility, a rigid cliffhanger just doesn’t feel right. Here are some thought-provoking questions you can begin discussing today to take note of where you stand now vs. where you can go:

Are we fitting our IT project management approach to the work or our work to fit the project approach?
Are we truly interacting in a way that promotes efficiency across all teams?
Do other departments have seamless visibility into our work and vice versa?
What tools do we use to engage outside of IT on business initiatives?
Are the tools supplied for Enterprise Service Management truly for the enterprise?

The state of IT isn’t without challenges in 2022. There is a continued drive to adapt to the post-COVID workplace, uncertainty in the economic climate, and several trends driving the need to work closely with departments outside of IT.

As discussed, enabling flexible project management and fostering seamless collaboration between all departments are great ways to begin rising to all of these changes. But what are some ways that IT and other departments can achieve this synergy? Stay tuned, as we’ll discuss some practical examples in Part 2 of this blog series, where we explore enabling transparency in IT Operations and Product Development teams.

Matt Allen

Matt is a Strategic Client Architect for Wrike. An ITIL-certified professional, he has 25 years of IT experience including architecture, service management, engineering, information security, leadership development, and quality assurance. His tenure includes experience with small enterprises through the Fortune 50. In his current role at Wrike, he provides IT thought leadership across industry events and mentor groups, and helps drive product innovation.

#PMO #IT #Thought Leadership

Project Management 10 min read

The Ultimate Guide to IT PMOs

Companies with large IT departments and projects have complex needs that require advanced solutions. IT project management offices, also known as IT PMOs, offer oversight, guidance, and tools that will make your organization more productive and make it easier to scale. But what exactly is an IT PMO? What are the core IT PMO objectives and how can your IT department adopt best practices? Here’s everything you need to know to get started. What is an IT PMO? An IT PMO is a project management system that delivers high-quality results in the most efficient ways possible. Any project that involves information technology, no matter the size or urgency, will fall under the responsibility of an IT PMO. All PMOs involve a combination of goal setting, strategy, and organization. These qualities are essential when it comes to IT because of this department’s unique needs. Issues such as standardization and reducing task repetition across departments are all resolved when teams use an IT PMO. Businesses may opt to have an overall organization PMO and an IT PMO. This makes it easier to drill down on the specific technical aspects of IT that only experts fully understand. An IT PMO has experience working with a wide range of IT-specific tasks. But, more importantly, they have enough of an understanding about the challenges, potential obstacles, and resources required to complete nearly any given IT project. They can also keep up with IT project management trends while maintaining established initiatives. This leads to more accurate forecasting and smarter planning. And when trial and error isn’t an option (which is the case for most businesses), combining the powers of a business PMO with an IT PMO can ensure alignment between overall business goals and specific IT project needs. The most common uses for an IT PMO include updating tools and software. It’s also used for scaling workloads without increasing team sizes. And when new regulations or compliance issues arise, IT PMOs can strategically slip these tasks among ongoing or long-term projects without significant disruption to delivery timelines. What are the objectives of an IT PMO? The main objectives of an IT PMO include: 1. Policy creation Policy creation for project management means creating big-picture guidelines for all IT projects. These guidelines dictate expectations for what is accomplished and how it should be executed. There may be separate policies for more complex or sensitive tasks, which is another reason why having a dedicated IT project management team is so beneficial. 2. Team training New team members and third-party contractors may need help developing the skills needed to complete their assignments. An IT PMO will not only schedule and set up team training, but they may also provide one-on-one consulting wherever needed. 3. Resource allocation and distribution IT PMOs ensure that each project has exactly what it needs while maintaining a balance of resources across all other active projects. If there are competing needs, it’s the IT PMO’s job to prioritize them. And when unexpected problems arise, the IT PMO will be responsible for shifting resources in order to keep everything on track. 4. Process development A large part of why it’s important to hire experienced IT professionals to command your IT PMO is because they’ll largely be responsible for outlining workflows. These processes will range from small tasks, such as submitting deliverable approvals, to large ones, such as onsite hardware installations. 5. Standardization To keep teams aligned with clients, legal, and HR, there will need to be some standardization in place. Not only will the IT PMO find a way to consolidate these various sources of input into one cohesive list of practices, but they’ll also be in charge of monitoring and adjusting as needed. 6. Adherence to protocol Whether it’s safety standards or intellectual property development, IT PMOs ensure adherence to protocol by monitoring performance across all active department projects. This also means providing solutions to possible breaches before they happen. 7. Improved collaboration and communication In general, an IT PMO is the head of all projects, which means they can oversee important day-to-day team needs. Improved collaboration comes from having strong guidance and a clear path forward. What’s more, improved communication relies on having a system in place that makes sense with how IT operates. An IT PMO will provide both. 8. Detailed reporting and data insight One of the most important functions of an IT PMO is to continuously improve their department. That can mean everything from improving how they work to the products they produce. Would an IT PMO benefit your company? If your company has ever had issues with project delivery, decision-making, or resource management, an IT PMO would be beneficial. Without an IT PMO, projects may not be delivered on time or on budget. Or, if they do meet those initial benchmarks, quality might be wavering from project to project. An IT PMO uses the power of data insight and organization to predict the success of a project, given the other obstacles departments may already be facing. That includes certain task dependencies, employee workloads and scheduling, and roadblocks from one project that may domino into others. IT PMOs also help with decision-making. They have a clear understanding of what the business needs and what the IT department needs better than anyone else. They also have access to facts and figures that can help C-Suite executives better understand which goals are realistic. And as experienced IT consultants themselves, IT PMOs can provide advanced insight on reports that general PMOs might miss. In regards to resource management, an IT PMO is trained to work with what they have to achieve their goal. For example, this means working with the teams they have while limiting hiring, saving money long-term. This also means having a more accurate understanding of how long certain IT tasks realistically take and scheduling them accordingly. What is an IT PMO organizational structure? An IT PMO organizational structure outlines the flow of communication and command within the department. It’s often depicted as a flow chart. There are various ways teams can organize their IT project management teams, but the most common ones often include the head of the organization at the top, followed by the PMO, with each department division underneath. Interdepartmental IT PMO organizational structure will often flow from IT directors to IT managers to IT project managers. An organization can choose between placing business PMOs and IT PMOs side by side or deferring to the IT PMO as head of their department while still under the larger organization’s PMO umbrella. What are IT PMO metrics? IT PMO metrics are used to measure the success of an IT project. The information used is quantifiable and aligns with established goals. The metrics themselves may vary project to project. They also vary business to business depending on what information they have access to and what they’re striving to achieve. In general, IT PMOs can count on using PMO metrics that cover three essential categories: strategy, process, and deliverables. IT PMO metrics should be defined both for the department as a whole and for each new project. The metrics are used for creating smarter goal benchmarks for improvement later on. They also gauge progress against past performance. IT PMO metrics, in particular, offer additional insight into how the department functions in comparison to other departments so that executives can be sure their relative success is on par with the rest of the organization’s standards. What are the IT PMO best practices you need to know? 1. Focus on hiring talent that is highly skilled and collaborative. While the former has historically been the only top recruitment priority, studies and anecdotal evidence found in modern texts such as Brotopia by Emily Chang provide a strong case for myth-busting the ‘lone wolf’ ideal in IT. 2. Have a continuous growth mindset. Not only is an IT PMO responsible for daily operations and big-picture goals, but they are also responsible for implementing helpful changes along the way. These changes can be small or large, but they must all align with strategy, be monitored for effectiveness, and be adjusted as needed. 3. Educate other departments and executives on IT projects. Helping other decision-makers understand what your department does and how it affects the greater ecosystem of your organization can go a long way towards improved collaboration long-term. The key is to strike a balance between empowering your audience and talking down to them about the more technical aspects. 4. Be proactive at every level. Look ahead for ways to improve repeatable tasks. Forecast potential project delays or resource depletion before they come up. Anything the IT PMO can do now to mitigate risk and delays will pay off in dividends almost immediately. 5. Choose starting where you are over reinventing the wheel. Many IT departments have some level of project organization established even if they don’t call it that. It’s easier to adapt systems that are working well rather than force the entire team to take on entirely new habits. Perform a teamwide diagnostic before implementing new practices when switching over to IT PMO leadership. What should you expect from an IT PMO tool? Simply put, you should expect an IT PMO tool to make your projects faster and easier. You can templatize past successful projects for new work. This will decrease the time spent planning recurring tasks and projects so teams can focus on higher ROI activity. You can also find ways to automate notifications such as task dependencies so that your team is always on top of what’s due next. An IT PMO tool can even automate administrative tasks and streamline team communication. Collaborators will chat directly within the tasks themselves so that everyone who participates can view the history and get caught up. You can also loop other voices in simply by using @ mentions. Additionally, your IT PMO tool will have visual graphs, charts, and task allocations. This makes information easier to understand at a glance. IT PMO tools such as Wrike also offer personal dashboards so that each team member can focus on information that’s most relevant to their role when logging on. Reporting and data analysis across all active projects is another key benefit of an IT PMO tool. You can quickly pull reference numbers in meetings, provide statistical backup for client calls, and make better, more informed decisions on the fly. How to set up and maintain your IT PMO with Wrike Brands like Dish, Fitbit, and Solera use Wrike as their set up and maintain their IT PMO. Here’s how they do it: Onboard and train users. The executive teams at Dish said that their expectations for adoption were exceeded thanks to the support they received from the Wrike team. Establish your one source of truth. Wrike offers IT teams a space for organizing projects but it also offers advanced data reporting capabilities so teams can make better decisions. Share timeline reports. Communicate with business PMO and key stakeholders using timeline reports that clearly and accurately set expectations for project deadlines. Centralize project management. If you have projects being managed under a variety of different tools, Wrike can help consolidate all active and new assignments while also providing a clear view into interdependencies. Try dynamic timelines. Fitbit used Wrike to plan, prioritize, and assign work without taking away necessary resources from other projects. Full transparency across all assignments means you’ll know how these changes will affect the IT department and the company at large. Defend against burnout. Wrike gives users like Fitbit the ability to view and strategically use employee availability so that managers can assign tasks based on skills needed and their other active projects. Optimize processes. Solera uses Wrike’s request forms, Calendar function, and project status reports so the entire global team can keep track of what’s going on at any given moment. Take advantage of Wrike’s helpful project management features to get your entire IT department aligned with your goals. Sign up for a free two-week trial and discover why world-renowned IT companies trust Wrike to manage and execute their projects.

Project Management 7 min read

What Are the Essential Soft Skills for Project Managers in Hybrid or Remote Environments?

Much has changed about the way we work in recent times, with many of us leaving the office behind for good. Nowadays, roughly 25% to 35% of employees work from home, taking advantage of the benefits of remote work, such as skipping the commute. The flexibility of working remotely is attractive to many people, particularly those with childcare or pet care needs. Others prefer to have a foot in each camp, working remotely for part of the week, and at the office for the remainder. Today, almost one in two ‘remote-capable’ workers say they currently work in such a hybrid arrangement, and more than half anticipate moving in that direction in the future. There is still a certain amount of flux in this area, as both employers and employees seek to find the right balance in terms of time off- and on-site. Studies have shown that while some 83% of workers say a hybrid model is optimal, it does place a new responsibility on leaders to give employees resources and support tailored to their needs. In the world of project management, this can mean adapting the way we work to ensure collaboration, cohesion, and productivity across the board. Focusing on soft skills for project managers is one of the main ways companies can keep teams connected, wherever they are in the world. How to project manage in an evolving environment Project management is challenging at the best of times. Research indicates that despite a lot of hard work, only a quarter of all projects are delivered successfully. There are many factors that affect this, from unexpected delays to budget changes. Working remotely or in a hybrid model adds an extra layer of complication that project managers need to overcome. Many of the challenges will be familiar to us all these days: keeping teams connected and collaborating can be a struggle when some members are in the office and others are at home. Maintaining a strong company culture is tricky too, as employees experience disparate working experiences and develop varying priorities. Talent retention is also a hot topic at the moment – a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in March 2022 – which means that keeping staff motivated and engaged is another major priority. So how should leaders in remote or hybrid project management tackle these problems? One solution is a shift in management styles. For decades, our skills have been honed to best serve face-to-face situations, in an office or on-site. Now, we need to adapt to better suit our new way of working. That means, in part, developing soft skills for project managers. What are soft skills – and why do they matter? Hard and soft project management skills are terms you’ve probably heard many times, at leadership meetings or during the process of recruitment. In a nutshell, a hard skill is your ability to carry out a specific task, while a soft skill refers to the way you work in order to perform that task. Soft skills are sometimes referred to as interpersonal behavior skills, because they mostly relate to how you interact with your colleagues. Most people gain them through experience rather than education: there is potential for learning in every interaction we have with each other. This makes soft skills transferable, which means you can take them with you and apply them in different situations, jobs, or even industries. Many people will put soft skills like dependability, teamwork, and problem-solving on their resumé to help catch a recruiter’s eye. In project management, hard skills like organization, planning, and delegating are necessary tools of the trade. Included under this umbrella would be technical skills in a specific industry, whether it be construction, marketing, logistics, or any other sector you find yourself in. While vital to effective delivery, hard skills are only one part of a project manager’s toolbox. Five top soft skills for remote or hybrid project managers Project manager soft skills are often more important in practice, as they dictate how a leader communicates and collaborates with their team. These are the human-to-human attributes that will help to support, encourage, and inspire success among colleagues. They’re essential at all times, but now more than ever, as we manage rapid change in the way we work. Here are five key soft skills that will help you deliver successful projects in remote or hybrid project management: 1. Robust adaptability Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is among the highest priorities for leaders in every sector this year. A study by EY shows that adaptability in the workplace — the ability to learn and unlearn — is critical to navigating new and novel situations, like managing a hybrid or remote workforce. It’s natural to feel discomfort with change, but tackling an evolving situation with a positive attitude and proactive approach makes for a valuable project manager in today’s climate. Embracing the opportunities that come with shifts in the status quo can lead to previously unimaginable advances or discoveries in the field of project management. 2. Heart-led leadership A project manager’s role is to bring together many different contributors and marshall their individual efforts towards one united goal. Strong leadership is even more important when team members are separated by time, distance, and circumstances. However, the days of tough love are over: nowadays, companies are looking for ‘heart-led leaders’ who show vulnerability, humility, transparency, and empathy in order to effectively support and engage their team. It’s about forging a real connection, not just issuing instructions or delegating tasks. 3. Advanced communication It goes without saying that communication is key in project management: without it, deadlines would be missed, budgets would be exceeded, and delivery would be jeopardized. With team members working in the office, remotely, or a hybrid of the two, communication as a skill has never been more useful. Collaborating, sharing resources, and increasing productivity are made easier with tools like the Wrike Remote Work Template, but often, it’s the individual communication style of the project manager that dictates the success of the message. Ensuring clarity, maintaining empathy, and keeping channels open are key. 4. Artful agility Roadblocks are a fact of life for project managers, and most are very familiar with working around them. Problems with a project can come from any direction, including stakeholders, colleagues, and external actors. Remote and hybrid work can add extra complications, so the ability to side-step issues, rethink plans, and course-correct quickly is a valuable one. So too is solution-based thinking, which will help the team move smoothly through a project’s life cycle, reaching its goal faster. This all makes agility a soft skill that’s very much in demand right now. 5. Emotional intelligence There was once a time when ‘feelings’ were considered irrelevant or even harmful to a business environment. Thankfully, that has changed, as we’ve come to understand that emotions can be used to energize, motivate, connect, and influence. Recognizing and harnessing this power makes emotional intelligence one of the most valuable soft skills for project managers in the modern workplace. This is particularly true of teams in multiple locations, when managers will need to look beyond metrics to see what is truly motivating an employee to do their best work, whether they’re pushing open the office door or logging in from home. Use Wrike to stay on top of remote or hybrid project management These soft skills for project managers are key to making a hybrid or remote workplace work for you. They work best, though, in a collaborative, efficient environment – the kind made possible by Wrike, the most powerful work management platform available to project managers. Built for teams and organizations in an office, hybrid, or remote environment, Wrike helps you plan, prioritize, and execute projects flawlessly, no matter where you are in the world. Real-time commenting, instant @mentions, and online collaboration software help everyone stay on the same page, communicating fluidly and progressing seamlessly. Customized workflows, adjustable Kanban boards, and powerful reporting keep stakeholders informed of each stage of your process – making your hard work visible to those who matter. Try Wrike for free today, and let our industry-leading platform show you the future of project management.

Project Management 10 min read

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The State of IT in 2022: Why IT Teams Need Flexible Project Management

The challenge: The state of IT in 2022

Solution #1: Enable flexible projects for IT teams

Agile

Waterfall

Solution #2: Foster seamless collaboration for all work within an organization

But wait…what can be done now?

Matt Allen

The State of IT in 2022: Why IT Teams Need Flexible Project Management

The challenge: The state of IT in 2022

Solution #1: Enable flexible projects for IT teams

Agile

Waterfall

Solution #2: Foster seamless collaboration for all work within an organization

But wait…what can be done now?

Matt Allen

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What Are the Essential Soft Skills for Project Managers in Hybrid or Remote Environments?

A Guide to Managing Agile Meetings

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