2025: What skills do Project Managers need?
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My prediction for previous year (2024) was correct:
Do you want to know what 2025 will bring for IT Project Managers? Let me share what I see happening in the IT industry right now. Why will big companies continue layoffs in 2025?That's because here's how a company works: A company always plans for growth, even if it's a slight growth of 1-2% of annual revenue. But usually, it's much more than that. And there's a long-term plan and a yearly plan for growth. A growing company usually attracts investors. Investors provide money to support that growth. As a result, this company increases the recruitment and talent acquisition departments to fulfill the needs of human resources. All these people go to new projects and initiatives to generate new income streams. Likewise, the organization hires additional managers to onboard those new people and use them for new projects. (Usually, if you aim for growth, you don't overload your existing managers. That's because it creates a risk to your core business.) The fact is most companies have grown slower than expected in the last few years. Some say it's a typical definition of a recession. That's why companies will have to adjust for slower growth this year again. As a result, they had to cut down on all those "growth" projects aimed at development and innovation, but they kept people involved in the core business. Usually, you can't do anything about a layoff. A layoff occurs when a company must fire people due to unplanned external economic factors. But here's a catch: Companies will also start firing people from core business projects this year. They will want to increase the efficiency of their workforce. And you must safeguard your career as soon as possible. 3 Factors that Scream “Efficiency is the Key in 2025”Unfortunately, an economic decline is creeping into 2025. Again, it means no exponential business growth. And here's a critical part for project managers! Most companies will play safe this year. They plan for minimal profit growth but no increase in headcount. How will they achieve that? The answer is optimization! That’s why project managers who are:
These project managers will likely be the first on the termination list. Factor #1: Hybrid Project Teams and Inefficient ProcessesHere’s the truth. Most project managers had failed to manage their work-from-home projects during COVID. As a result, 86% of companies reported having outdated project management processes in 2024. Following that, big companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon started the return-to-office strategy. The rest of the world will slowly follow their lead. Nevertheless, roughly 60% of project professionals still work remotely. And about 38% of projects work with distributed teams around the world. Here’s the real problem: We went to work-from-home with inefficient processes. In 2025, we’ll shift back to more mixed co-located and remote teams. As a result, project managers will face a mix of old and new unresolved challenges. That’s why tailoring new processes for these hybrid teams will be your #1 problem. Solving this problem will improve process and team productivity and efficiency. This leads us to another trend in the project management world… Factor #2: Hybrid Project Management Approaches and TailoringThe next factor is all about agile frameworks in 2025. Even the top agile evangelists started to talk about how Scrum mutated over the last few years. Pure Scrum is not the goal this year. (Have you heard already that PMI and Agile Alliance have formed a strategic partnership?) I’ve always been preaching it: Scrum (Kanban) is not enough in the IT industry! Even if your title says “Scrum Master,” you must wear the PM's hat. The Project Management Institute (PMI) reports that about 50% of all projects use hybrid project management approaches. Hybrid means that they combine agile and plan-driven project management ideas. What does it mean for an IT project manager? Most importantly, there is no standard hybrid project management framework. So, every organization will still develop a custom-made approach to combining PM and business processes, transitioning from a plan-driven to an agile phase, etc. There’s a challenge and opportunity here: On the one hand, there are not that many project managers who know how to do it. On the other hand, if you develop the right skills fast, you can lead this optimization. And if you combine it with the first factor, you can nail two opportunities together. That’s because the required skill set is the same for both. However, on top of that, you can expect the overall performance optimization. Factor #3: The Most Straightforward Way for OptimizationCan you guess it? What will any executive or PMO officer recommend to improve project delivery and productivity? I hope you guessed it correctly: “We need to adopt AI tools.” AI tools are currently at the top of everyone’s mind. Those who don’t adopt them will stay behind. AI tools can NOT replace a good project manager at this moment. However, they can remove the need for entry-level and assistant project managers. Why would you pay a full salary if you can get a subscription for 20-60 USD per month? But again, there’s an opportunity as well! AI tools will eventually enter your organization. Nevertheless, someone should properly integrate them into the existing project management approach. (No, project management itself won't change.) For example, one popular use case is generating an automatic status report or a stand-up meeting update. AI can save hundreds of hours over a year on these routine reports! However, for this feature to work, your team needs to track their work correctly, and you need to structure the project in the PM tool properly. Therefore, every such use case will require a skilled project manager to tailor a new process or workflow. Then, you’ll need to integrate AI outputs with other processes and tools. (Otherwise, you’ll pile up lots of disconnected things. And it will eliminate the benefits of AI productivity.) And here is good news. You don't need technical skills to use AI tools. Instead, you'll have to double down on your project management knowledge and skills. That's because you'll need to be a connection between PM concepts and AI technical capabilities. Successful project managers know that leading such transformations requires more than basic management skills. You also need stakeholder management, organizational change management, and leadership skills. So, let’s summarize it:
However, project efficiency is not a simple concept. You may think you are doing well, while your boss thinks you don’t have what it takes to stay in the company. In the next email, we'll explore 3 unobvious reasons why you may lose your job during the next wave of layoffs. Stay tuned. Talk to you on Thursday! But before you go!Please hit the reply button and share your thoughts. What will be the biggest challenge for project managers in 2025? Thank you in advance! P.S. Looking forward to hearing from you! Please reply to this email now:) |