10 Reasons Why You Need Project Management Skills

In today’s fast paced business environment, organizations are faced with aggressive competition. More than ever, organizations are going head to head and looking for a competitive edge. The demand for operational effectiveness and efficiency becomes essential to organizations such as these. So what do organizations do when they need to save time, save money, and improve quality? They call on Project Managers. Through the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques designed to help organizations succeed, Project Managers are optimizing business processes and are becoming essential in the competitive business landscape.

We’ve outlined the 10 reasons you need project management skills so that you can better understand the highly coveted skills of a project manager.

1. Increased Efficiency- Project Management provides a “roadmap” to project success. As you become experienced with project management methodologies, you will be able to foresee challenges and so you will work smarter not harder, resulting in greater productivity. Being able to foresee an upcoming problem allows an organization to prevent disasters and stay on-track for successfully completing a project.
2. Improved Customer Satisfaction- Completing projects within assigned deadlines and within a designated budget will result in satisfied customers. Customer satisfaction is a guaranteed way to ensure good reviews and promotes new client referrals. Since new clients drive revenue, sales and profits are directly affected by project managers doing their job in guiding a project to successful completion.
3. Effectiveness in Delivering Services- In the language of business, a Project Manager can function as a translator. They help the client and business communicate aligning project strategy with customer goals and budget.
4. Improved Development and Growth- Positive results and feedback from inception to project completion will enable project team members to seek ways to improve performance. As a Project Manager tracks projects to completion and is able to measure the effectiveness of each team member, it is possible to track effectiveness and find areas that require improvement. Teams can use this data to optimize their workflows to ensure time can be saved where possible.
5. Competitive Edge- Gaining a reputable standing because of efficient project management is beneficial in and out of the organization. Top performing organizations enhance their reputation within their given industry and are more inclined to gain more business because of their reputation.
6. Expand Services- Project Managers improve performance and save time. This added time and revenue can be redirected towards expanding services that can create greater opportunities for a growing business.
7. Better Flexibility- Efficient project management allows a business to map out strategies as to how a project will be completed. This roadmap will provide a plan of action. When an element in the plan changes, it is easy to see, what parts of the project will be affected, making it possible to pivot or reorganize when necessary.
8. Increased Quality- Enhanced efficiency will directly affect quality management. A greater quality product will result in better perception of the organization and will help the agency stand-out from the competition.
9. Increased Risk Assessment- Efficient project management assists in better identifying risk components and triggers, which aids in understanding the impact of risk on customers and the bottom line. If risks are not assessed, it is possible to get caught in an avoidable pit-fall that can become expensive or can risk the quality outcome of a project.
10. Increased Productivity- Properly managed projects assign tasks to every available resource, where clearly defined deadlines, milestones, deliverables and objectives are actively monitored and reported.

Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.)

University of San Diego’s Professional and Continuing Education is a PMI® Registered Education Provider. As a R.E.P. we have been approved by PMI® to issue professional development units (PDUs) for all our project management courses.