Emerging Project Management Trends to Prepare for the Future in 2022

Over the years, we’ve watched the world of project management undergo drastic changes that have seen us move from the age of sticky notes, Kanban boards to complex project management SaaS tools that work right where you’re at. As such, it’s only wise to learn as much as possible about the changes headed our way so we’re better able to restructure and benefit from the emerging trends in project management.

In that light, here are a collection of the upcoming trends hitting the project management world in the year 2022, detailing:

• The impact of these changes
• How project managers can cope with them
• How organizations cannot just survive but thrive as well

1. Increased emphasis on remote-first project management

For a long time now, remote working has been making waves all over the world. With distributed project collaboration at present, the freedom to work on your own schedule, and lower real estate costs for businesses, what’s not to love?

But all this while most businesses haven’t given remote working the attention it deserves.

Until now.

Like we’re all aware, the new normal has changed the business landscape and most businesses are either working remotely or not working at all. So, what does that mean for the project management world?

Why?

In order to create truly resilient workspaces, companies will now rank remote-friendliness as a prime consideration for any project management software they’re adding to their stack. In fact, the remote collaboration will easily get significantly more attention all through this year, given the improved project performance, it’s been proven to deliver.

The Impact:

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to see that most companies and project managers will take a significant swing towards project management solutions designed to work from the cloud. Legacy, offline, and in-office project management techniques are going to take a huge hit.

How to cope as a project manager:

As a project manager, prepare for it; be ready to bring up the remote-friendliness question first with higher management; look critically at your project management stack and evaluate how well it did during this little test run so you can visualize how well it’ll do in a fully remote situation. And start exploring how you can effectively coordinate your projects from a remote standpoint.

How organizations can cope:

As an organization, incorporate remote-first culture as early as you can; remote project management works only if the entire team is on the same page even when working behind screens.

Remote working is here to stay and is here to change how we work. As an organization, you want to have the power of remote working for you, all across your toolkit, not against you. You can use a tool like Kissflow Project to keep your teams ready for remote work.

It’s an ideal project management app that’s designed to incorporate ideal project management principles from the ground up, so everyone on your project team can do their best work while working across screens.

2. Increased influence of AI and automation

Artificial intelligence has turned its sights on the project management world, with broad applications. Mainly in the project management software niche where AI-assisted tools now process information and make it readily available for teams, it’s easy to see an increased application of artificial intelligence even this year.

Why?

Artificial intelligence helps augment the human factor so teams can focus on more meaningful and creative work in the project management process.

The Impact:

This year will see a surge in AI elements being deployed to solve repetitive problems in the project management process; from this year and onwards, we’ll be seeing a huge AI explosion that’ll see algorithms taking a significant part in basic operations that can be automated. In short, what can be automated will, so teams can focus more on what can’t.

How to cope as a project manager:

Project managers need to keep an eye out and stay on the cutting edge of any info related to the coming disruption, so you can become a messenger of change, and not get crushed by it. It might be time to start taking a holistic view of your project management systems and processes to start taking stock of processes that could easily be automated, as well as seeking out project management tools that can fill in the gap.

How organizations can cope:

Now, you can be sure of one thing—you’re not going to be replaced by bots yet or in the near future. AI hasn’t come close to the talking, breathing ideals movies show us. All AI can do well is help augment your emotional intelligence so you can do your best work easier and faster. Make it happen.

3. Project management will get a central place in the business world

According to the Project Management Institute, 15% of projects executed by companies, don’t hit their targets or fail entirely. And much more disturbingly, most organizations report a shocking 70% project failure rate. Now, while that might have been accepted for so long now, things are about to change.

Why?

In the aftermath of the present pandemic, companies–from five-person startups to Fortune 500 corporations that have been affected–will be back in full force, racing to cover the ground that has been lost due to the extended lockdown. Now, it’s easy to see every member of these companies around the globe being at the center of this charge, but in the midst of it all, the project manager will play a peculiar role.

-> Chech out the top 7 project management tools for startups and entrepreneurs.

The Impact:

In essence, the project manager is about to get significantly more important as a key play in the entire organizational structure. In order to actually generate results, project managers will have more responsibilities laid on them to deliver results faster and with more accuracy than we’ve previously witnessed.

How to cope as a project manager:

If you’re a project manager, this calls for a change in the way things are done; throwing out old, inefficient, ‘how-it-has-always-been-done’ systems and processes and replacing them with newer toolkits that are designed to get things done faster and more efficiently.

How organizations can cope:

For organizations looking to pick up and not get left behind, simply putting more responsibilities on project managers won’t achieve anything. Rather, deliberate efforts must be put in place to train your organization’s project managers to take on more responsibilities and consistently deliver more results.

Closing Thoughts

With foresight, it’s easy to see that the year’s packed with changes—drastic and gradual changes alike. And as a rule, don’t fight change, since it’ll happen with or without you; build, redesign, restructure and update your project management systems and processes, so you won’t only survive, but thrive as well during the soon-to-come shakeup.