Ike Nwankwo, PMI: The global economy will need 25 million new project managers by 2030.

We know that there are specialized professionals for project development; however, it is not entirely clear what their specific role is in business systems and under which models such professionals are engaged. Last week, the ‘PMI Forum’ aimed at project managers was held in Zagreb, organized by the PMI Association for Project Management Croatia, with the main theme ‘Projects that create the future’.

At the ‘Forum’, Ike Nwankwo, a member of the Board of the global Project Management Institute, explained in an exclusive interview for Lider the transition from previous economic models to the so-called project economy and what is expected today from project managers and business leaders.

Nwankwo is the General Director at Distinct Management, an independent project management consulting firm focusing on information technology, construction, and business transformation. For over 25 years, he has managed portfolios and delivered multimillion-dollar projects and programs across various sectors for a number of multinational companies throughout the United Kingdom and Africa.

What is the project economy and how important is it in today’s capitalism?

– The project economy is an area where experts with the necessary skills and capabilities turn ideas into reality. In the project economy, companies provide value to their stakeholders through successfully completed projects and delivered products, and all these initiatives bring financial and social value.

The project economy emerged at a time when people realized that technology had made former best practices too slow and static. It revealed the downsides of traditional hierarchies that were once tolerable but can now be fatal to business processes. New generations of employees who possess knowledge have become less interested in lifelong employment and more interested in engaging tasks that allow them to upgrade their skills and gain new experiences they can carry with them anywhere.

In the future, workers will increasingly be engaged, grouped, and regrouped according to their knowledge, experience, and abilities that they can bring to projects that deliver greater value to all stakeholders in the chain. At the moment when directors began to structure companies according to project portfolios, much more flexibility was introduced into methods of hiring, education, task assignment, engagement, and retaining capable and productive workforce.

What are some common methods for measuring the success of projects and their managers?

– The clearest indicator of project management success is the quality of the final result and how smooth the journey to the goal was. Project managers simultaneously ‘juggle’ several tasks – from budgets and deadlines to stakeholder engagement and team morale boosting. All of these are factors that, if not given the appropriate amount of attention, can cause the entire process and system to collapse.

In our field, we are constantly learning, on every project, how to make the next one even better. Therefore, we encourage business organizations to allow their project managers time for learning and advancement, without punishing every mistake. In this way, organizations optimize their project management practices, develop agility, and readiness for future challenges.

Almost 90 percent of businesses in Croatia are small and medium-sized enterprises. What is the best way for them to integrate project management into their operations?

– The beauty of project management is precisely that it can be integrated into any type of organization. Good project management does not require expensive equipment or infrastructure for implementation but rather people who are willing to learn and apply theory in practice. Project management is actually a life skill just as much as it is a professional one.

We all carry out some everyday projects, from planning weddings to taking children to school. There are many workshops and courses for small and medium entrepreneurs, such as the ‘Kick-Off’ program, where solid foundations of project management can be acquired for free, which later need to be built upon.

In Croatia, there is a high demand for project managers compared to the supply in the labor market. Is this a global challenge as well, and how can it be solved?

– Absolutely. Our research shows that the global economy will need 25 million new project managers by 2030, which is as much as 2.3 million professionals annually. To reach this goal, we must completely rethink the development of employee skills.

Today, the main project skills are building relationships, collaborative leadership, strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, and commercial awareness. All of these can be considered soft skills or power skills, as we call them today. In the past, these skills may have been seen as secondary compared to harder technical skills, but they are now crucial for achieving change, which is why a new focus on these power skills is needed from secondary education to workplace learning.

You can read the entire conversation with the member of the Board of the global Project Management Institute in the new digital or printed edition of Lider.