I thought the best presentation at this year's Leadership conference was the keynote address by Mark Mullaly. He discussed at great length how to quantify the value of project management from the results of a study he and his team performed on 65 companies. He quantified project management value in terms of satisfaction, alignment to business practices, process improvements, outcomes and ROI.
The study measured project management value using both tangible and intangible metrics. And although Mark concluded that it was more difficult to show a positive relationship amongst project management levels using tangible value determinants, correlations were more evident when using intangible value as a measurement tool.
I spoke to Mark immediately after his presentation about the difficulty in convincing stakeholders, particularly executive sponsors, of the value of project management using intangible value. He agreed it was a challenge to address intangible value, but with the caveat that this was true also of tangible value. He suggested to me that higher-level managers were usually more concerned with intangible value because they knew how intangibles offer such tremendous, long-term leverage for a company's success--forward thinking.
I agree. Executive, leaders, senior stakeholders know deep down inside that it is the intangible value that ultimately drives their projects and company forward. That's why I changed my mind after speaking with Mark. It's really at the lower stakeholder levels that the tangible case needs to be made. And if intangible project management value can be demonstrated at the top, like executive sponsors, their buy-in will help us make the tangible case for project management value well down into the organization.
Editor's Note: Find out more about the study mentioned in this post.
The study measured project management value using both tangible and intangible metrics. And although Mark concluded that it was more difficult to show a positive relationship amongst project management levels using tangible value determinants, correlations were more evident when using intangible value as a measurement tool.
I spoke to Mark immediately after his presentation about the difficulty in convincing stakeholders, particularly executive sponsors, of the value of project management using intangible value. He agreed it was a challenge to address intangible value, but with the caveat that this was true also of tangible value. He suggested to me that higher-level managers were usually more concerned with intangible value because they knew how intangibles offer such tremendous, long-term leverage for a company's success--forward thinking.
I agree. Executive, leaders, senior stakeholders know deep down inside that it is the intangible value that ultimately drives their projects and company forward. That's why I changed my mind after speaking with Mark. It's really at the lower stakeholder levels that the tangible case needs to be made. And if intangible project management value can be demonstrated at the top, like executive sponsors, their buy-in will help us make the tangible case for project management value well down into the organization.
Editor's Note: Find out more about the study mentioned in this post.
Leave a comment