A recent UMT360 webinar attracted about 200 project management professionals interested in learning more about how today’s PMO can bridge the planning and execution gap. Judging from the responses to our poll questions during the presentation, nobody doubts that there is a gap. But it’s clear that many organizations are not quite sure what may be causing that gap, and what they can do to start addressing it.
When it comes to performance management, 44% of participants told us they have no idea what percentage of their projects are not realizing results. Not exactly a promising trend. Put another way, nearly half really don’t know how effective their investments are. It’s difficult to manage what you first don’t measure. Clearly, what’s required is more robust investment performance management that helps organizations clearly identify and communicate the state of each investment.
What percentage of projects in your organization don’t realize results?
We’ve known for some time now that a significant portion of enterprise investments are not achieving their expected results. The major factors for this lack of effectiveness includes the inability to identify the best investments and the lack of benefits realization tools to properly manage the financials of those investments. We’ve written about how this issue continues to plague the PMO. So it’s not surprising that 63% of webinar participants told us that there is some sort of gap (large or moderate) between strategy and execution at their organization.
How wide is the gap between planning and execution in your organization?
When asked about their current system’s ability to bridge that gap and tie strategy to project execution, only 14% are satisfied. A surprising 36% don’t have any solution that ties strategy to execution, and even more troubling, 14% don’t even attempt to tie strategy to execution. Clearly, based on our survey results, the lack of strategic execution tools and technology to integrate financial planning and automate digital investment management is hobbling a significant number of the companies in their efforts to bridge the strategy/execution gap.
Satisfaction with software’s capability to tie strategy to project execution
Fortunately, many PMOs are beginning to take action and recognize that there are solutions to help them address the gap between strategy and execution. Do you see this being an issue for your organization? If so, how are you planning to address it?
