YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
By 2030, the world economy will require 25 million new project management professionals, according to a 2021 report from the Project Management Institute.
PMI identified three reasons for the needed talent: an increase in the number of jobs requiring project management skills, a higher demand for project professionals in emerging and developing countries due to economic growth, and a high rate of retirement of existing project managers.
Project managers are found in various workplaces and industries, including information technology.
“If there’s a potluck in the office, we probably started it,” said Natalie Beissel, an IT project manager with FORVIS LLP.
Beissel’s quip about project managers gives insight into the profession, which is all about coordinating the many aspects of an endeavor: roles, schedule, communication, camaraderie and more.
Beissel said the IT project manager is essentially a translator between the highly technical work of software developers and the practical needs of product end users.
Beissel gave a fictional example of a project.
“What I really want to do is turn this coffee cup,” she said, citing the end-user’s goal. “Then a developer goes, ‘I can do that, and I can also fill it with coffee.’ But really, what I want to do is turn the coffee cup.”
That’s called scope creep, and it’s the natural tendency of the creative mind, according to Beissel.
Ultimately, the need – and funding – might come for an application to fill the cup, and that can be a new project, Beissel said. But it’s the role of the project manager to delineate the project the customer or end user needs and keep everyone involved on track.
Kim Roberts, who does IT project management for CNH Reman LLC, agreed with the translation comparison.
“I help coordinate what the stakeholder wants to do – what their end goal or objective is – with the developer that’s working on the job,” she said. “I make sure that all aspects of the job are accounted for, and that we develop what they need, when they need it – to deliver the product that they requested on time.”
PMI’s report finds that to close the talent gap, 2.3 million people will need to enter project management-oriented employment each year through 2030 to keep up with demand.
The largest and fastest growth in the United States will be seen in software development, with a projected 14% increase in tech project management occupations through 2030, the report states, noting much of the growth will come from the development of mobile applications, IT security and health care technology.
GDP impact
Riley Grotenhuis is a software developer with Midwest Interactive LLC. He acknowledged that an IT project manager is instrumental to the success of a project.
“At the end of the day, developers just want to write code and make stuff – and that’s not good for business all the time,” he said. “You kind of have to have somebody herd together all the developers that don’t know how to talk to people.
“Sometimes, we need a good in-between person who’s maybe a better people-person than I am.”
The project manager can untangle the lines of communication, and that’s no small task, according to PMI. Its Project Gap report notes that the talent gap in project management is likely to impact every region and could result in a loss of up to $345.5 billion in global gross domestic product by 2030 if jobs go unfilled.
The reverse is also true, however, should the project management jobs be filled, the report states, noting the share of GDP increase due to productivity improvements in project-heavy industries is projected to be greatest in Europe, China and North America.
Through 2030, North America is forecasted to have 128,000 job openings in project management, the report states, compared with South America’s 504,000 and China’s 1 million openings.
Variety in the field
Chelsea Begley is a senior account manager with digital marketing and design agency Mostly Serious LLC. Much of what the company does is develop custom websites for customers.
Begley said every project manager in the company brings their own individual spin to their role.
“What I have leaned into is the level of transparency that we provide,” she said.
Begley said she meets the clients where they are. Some want a lot of detail about the project, and some want to define their needs and then leave things to the design team.
“We almost have a language for every client or end user that we’re working with to do an IT project,” she said. “It varies so much what we need to communicate and how deep in the weeds they want to be.”
She noted she sees a project as successful when clients become active in managing the content on their websites.
“Websites are living, breathing representations of the organizations we support,” she said. “They need to be able to get in and curate that information in keeping with where they’re going with the business.”
While Begley works with outside customers, Roberts works with end users who are her colleagues at CNH Reman. Even so, Roberts says every project is different.
“Projects need to get done quickly, and we often wear multiple hats and have multiple responsibilities,” she said. “We don’t have the opportunity to devote all of our time to one task because we’re working on multiple projects at any given time.”
Roberts said the project manager’s role is to keep all balls in the air at the same time.
“It’s pretty valuable, and it’s going to be needed more and more,” she added.
Artificial intelligence large language models, like ChatGPT, offer project management tools that can break a project down to a series of tasks. When asked if AI poses a threat to the field, Roberts said she did not think so.
“My interaction is reading the room and reading the nonverbal cues,” she said. “How well is the individual accepting what we’re presenting? Do they understand the material? Are there questions they’re just not willing to ask verbally? Seeing them in person, it’s possible to have a side conversation, and that’s something AI can’t do.”
Springfield’s scene
Tiffany Russell is president of the Southwest Missouri chapter of PMI. In the role, she helps support a variety of project managers around the region – IT and otherwise.
Russell, who works as senior manager in enterprise project management at FORVIS, said the organization provides opportunities for networking, educating and credentialing in the profession, which she noted is industry agnostic, including construction, manufacturing, health care and IT.
“It’s a wonderful organization, not only to learn, but to better support and nurture our work across a variety of fields,” she said.
Russell said in a post-pandemic environment, project management delivers value by coordinating and communicating project missions, especially as many team members work remotely.
“This chapter provides the medium or platform to have those discussions so that we can share those cross-industry findings and our awareness can be broader and greater,” she said.
Russell said membership has grown by nearly a fourth, to currently 148 members.
She noted she got involved after the pandemic to help sustain the chapter, which was in danger of shuttering.
“I’m proud to say that as I’m rounding out my presidency, we’ve achieved not only that sustainability but allowed it to grow in our membership as well,” she said. “That’s something I’m most proud of as I work with the organization to successfully complete the mission.”
Moseley’s Discount Office Products was purchased; Side Chick opened in Branson; and the Springfield franchise store of NoBaked Cookie Dough changed ownership.
