Increasing competitive pressure has forced companies to produce increasingly high-performance products and services.
Quickly and effectively monitoring projects under development – and related activities – is crucial to maintaining high standards or correcting anomalies in time.
Moreover, the increase in the complexity of the environment, the organisational evolution of companies and the revolutions in Information Technology are just some of the changes that have affected organisations in recent decades, which have slowly equipped themselves with structures to respond effectively to the market with a view to continuous evolution.
If the most significant feature of the new realities seems to be the flexible structure and lean production, the winning aspect is knowledge, i.e. the ability to ‘learn’ in order to adapt faster to market volatility to maintain a competitive advantage.
The importance of corporate knowledge is not a recent discovery. In hierarchical models, it was the prerogative of management, the only one able to determine choices and change business models. Now that response times must be minimal for organisations, widespread knowledge becomes a fundamental and indispensable lever.
To explore this topic in more detail, we met Angelo Cauceglia, lecturer at the International Master in Project Managementat Rome Business School, who told us:
“Knowledge is certainly one of the winning keys to creating a successful project: the ability to interpret the variables at stake, the context in which one is going to work, and the working group. A united but heterogeneous team, also in relation to age, is a flywheel because differences are always a value both in terms of experience – knowledge of the dynamics, of the time, of the subject matter of the market – and of initiative because one must also have the courage to dare, to look beyond and to be innovative.
The team must be cohesive and result-oriented because all phases of a project – planning, execution, monitoring, control and closing – can present critical points. It is at these moments that project managers are called upon to play the primary role of problem solving, because we must not lose sight of the importance of creating value for the company, the organisation and society when managing a project.”
The Project Management Institute (PMI®) is the leading international professional association for project management. Founded in the 1970s and spread to over 200 countries worldwide, it provides internationally recognised PMP (Project Management Professional) certifications for professionals in the management of complex projects and highly qualified professional training.
Much has been and is being debated about the role of the project manager today: a new management actor whose task is to organise, direct, control and plan project resources and who oversees the project life cycle.
“In this scenario, it is important to master the subject matter, but it is not essential to be an expert in the field because the project manager must be able to understand the roles and skills required to do the most with what is available and, therefore, be as realistic as possible at each stage of the project.
The skills of a project manager remain somewhat linked to technical and methodological knowledge, but are veering significantly towards behavioural skills, towards what are called soft skills. I like to recall a definition that sees the project manager as an orchestra conductor: he does not need to know how to play all the instruments, but his skill lies in being able to coordinate them all for the execution of a harmonious melody. We are not talking about instruments but about ideas, about people each with their own character, their own temperament and why not their own professional frailties and insecurities. The project manager is a leader who must be able to anticipate the need for resilience, to adapt quickly to changes and to gather sufficient information to be prepared to deal with any critical issues. He is a coach who dedicates time and energy to listening and to the growth of each team member, a growth that automatically reverberates on the project itself.”
With the advent of the new managerial philosophy of project management, as mentioned, substantial changes have been noted in the structures of companies, in their strategies, in the way they operate and more generally in the way they manage resources, especially human resources, through a more flexible approach that is less tied to rigid and recursive procedures.
This is the direct consequence of the ‘Agile Manifesto’, a mindset, an innovative methodology born from a document drawn up in 2001 by 17 US engineers specialised in software creation with the intention of defining key values of ‘agile development’.
Twelve fundamental principles representing the culture of change in harmony with business needs, as stated by Alistair Cockburn, a computer scientist among the Manifesto’s co-signatories, and inspired by the Code of Ethics for Professional Conduct and the concepts of responsibility, respect, loyalty and the empathetic exercise of leadership.
“The agile approach to project management also means having the courage and ability to stop machines where necessary and not waste resources, concentrating on other more useful, more convenient activities.
Therefore, the moment you realise that the goal you had set yourself can no longer be achieved or is no longer attainable by following the path you had mapped out, you have to change your approach and possibly even change the goal.
In 2023, we have to abandon the idea of advance global planning. In the context in which we live, the VUCA world – an acronym for ‘volatility’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘complexity’ and ‘ambiguity’ – we need to think in terms of flexibility: in the management of resources, also in recognising or not recognising the ultimate usefulness of a project.
Intellectual honesty is a lever that must always be used, whether we are talking about a traditional or agile approach. One of the things that I find most fascinating in the evolution of the discipline is to understand that managing a project does not mean managing a silo, but it means managing an element that will be part of a larger system.”
“For the management of a project, be it simple or complex, it is necessary to have a solid cultural background: a scientific, engineering or economic-financial education is an excellent starting point, to then move on to post-graduate courses, masters in project management, and also think about obtaining certifications issued by national and international institutions. I myself am an accredited teacher at ISIPM – Istituto Italiano di Project Management. We are so focused on verticalising our skills that we have lost sight of the horizon. Here, I believe that students who want to be passionate about project management, or companies that want to hire project managers, must understand the importance of heterogeneous preparation, leaving behind the idea that specialisation is the competitive advantage that can ensure the success of any initiative. It is necessary to study but, above all, to familiarise oneself with the idea that becoming a project manager means accepting a path that starts from a low-profile entry and then takes on more specific roles. Over time, one becomes a leader, a coach without ever losing enthusiasm and sight of the final goal. I believe that companies must begin to understand that project manager is not a label, but a job description to be contextualised in a structured path.”
Born and raised in Southern Italy, where he obtained a Master’s Degree in Business Communication with a thesis on Economics and Management of Enterprise Systems at the University of Salerno, he has had the privilege of building his professional growth path through fantastic experiences abroad, from Saudi Arabia to Chile, from the United States to Holland and Belgium, investing almost all his time working on large-scale projects. A dedicated professional, MBA, passionate about organisational dynamics, with robust experience in large companies, he has always believed that if something deserves to be done, it deserves to be done well, going beyond the concept of the best compromise towards the right compromise. Senior Consultant for Plat4mation B.V., he is also Lecturer in Project Management and Business Strategy at Rome Business School and accredited at ISIPM – Italian Institute of Project Management.
