Evaluate Session
I would like to start off with the book Innovation Project Management by Dr. Kerzner, he is an expert in the area of project management and has written many books on project management. I was lucky enough to be able to be a contributor to this book released in 2019. If this talk piques your interest in innovation project management, I would recommend purchasing this book to read in much, much more detail about this topic.
What it is
For innovation to occur leadership and project management need to be connected. Innovation gives us endless possibilities and project management makes it happen in a pre-determined timeframe. Simply stated it is a perfect intersection of the unknow and innovation and the known project management. Innovation project management is changing the corporate culture to support ideas and create projects that will move the company forward. More and more companies are establishing innovation labs, centers and organizations to be more creative. Project management needs to adapt and adjust to support these initiatives.
Business Need
The business need currently in my opinion is that there is a large need for technical and innovation project managers. Meaning that I see the need to have people with a technical education or background that have the desire to also be a project manager or innovation project manager. Everything is moving fast and faster around us and now we are living in a pandemic which has changed the way we work overnight. We need leaders that can manage the technical side and the project management side all while having a passion for both areas.
Innovation
There are many forms of innovation and all our jobs demand it. I will focus a little more in the front end of innovation and the early innovation, technology and feasibility of products. This in my opinion can be applied in many different areas and easily to the service industry. We need to move away from traditional project management and work to integrate innovation along with the project management discipline. Dr. Kerzner points out in his book, Innovation Project Management that the Project Management Institute and the Product Development and Management Association will need to partner together to create standards around innovation project management. I am also happy to let you know that PMI and PDMA are in discussion right now to see how we can partner together to bring innovation and project management together.
Take Aways:
- What innovation project management is.
- New way of thinking.
- Practical examples
PMI Talent Triangle: Technical Project Management
Event practitioners affirm that the Project Management practice is adopted and implemented in their organization as it is where most of their concepts and principles emerge from. Event Management has all the characteristics of a project, which makes Project Management (PM) techniques an important subject in the Event Management Body of Knowledge. The aim of the study is to develop a business process map for the benchmarking of PM practices for EMOs in North West (NW) England. The objectives are: To establish the concepts and principles of EM; whilst critically reviewing existing and most common PM methodologies adopted across the world; to access the adoption of current PM practices (processes, tools & techniques) by Event Management Organisations (EMOs) in England using the existing methodologies as benchmark (for comparing if EMOs adhere to PM practices); A process map would be developed to appreciate the findings from research carried out in this study.
A qualitative method was used to achieve the overall aim and objectives in this research. A qualitative case study methodology via a semi-structured interview technique was employed as data collection tool due to the exploratory nature of the research, with data collected from 6 case studies purposively sampled to Event Managers, Event Practitioners, Project Leaders, and other Professionals of the Event industry (private sector), and EM Departments of Local Authorities (public sector). A comprehensive literature review on past and present EM practices were used as secondary source of data collection.
The findings from the literature review were presented in a tabular format of comparison of PM methodologies, and process maps illustrating the processes within each of those methodologies were developed. The Single-case narrative technique was used to analyse and present the findings of each case, and the Cross-case synthesis technique was used to analyse and present the multiple cases on each interview question asked. The Comparative Analysis technique was deployed to identify each process within the case studies, comparing them with a typical PM process.
The research outcome of this study was a generic business process map showing event activities that represents all the cases investigated, using a review of literature as research basis and existing PM methodologies as benchmark. This generic business process map was derived by the use of typical PM processes from initiation to closure as a guide, to examine what event activities would be classed under those PM processes.
PMI Talent Triangle: Technical Project Management
