Pragmatic project management frameworks

Pragmatic project management frameworks

Today’s business landscape is littered with project management frameworks or methodologies. Many of these promise to solve business management challenges … and are aimed at helping leaders cope with the pace of organisational change in a controlled manner.

All too often these frameworks impose excessive process and inflexibility, coupled with resource intensity to become unwieldy and non-adopted. Their introduction is poorly planned and executed too. This leads stakeholders and their teams to sabotage the method, reverting to old practices or finding ways to game and avoid the framework, ultimately impacting the organisation’s ability to effectively manage change.  

 What is required is a far more pragmatic framework for managing projects, programmes and portfolios … BUT does such a thing actually exist?

Pragmatic as defined is “solving problems in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist now, rather than obeying fixed theories, ideas, or rules”. This then implies that a pragmatic framework should be one that can flex to organisational project needs yet still provide an acceptable and consistent level of control.

In my opinion, such a framework needs to be designed in partnership with the wider organisation and then expertly introduced through a clearly conceived adoption strategy. One where the business leaders and teams are pulling the framework from the outset and the method fits into their business as usual activity because the benefits are so obvious and the payback guaranteed.

The framework needs to be sensible and applicable to business leaders project management challenges without adding overhead … then they will use it!

History has shown that in business, adopting a pragmatic approach to problems is often more successful that the idealistic one.

Perhaps defining, developing and launching a pragmatic project management framework is realistic then and becoming a priority for organisations that want to exploit new market conditions by remaining nimble and adaptable.

To find out more or to share your views … get in touch or respond to this post directly.