Australia's “Citizen Project Managers:” Smartsheet’s Inaugural Report Uncovers New Truths About Project Management
January 24 2023 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Data reveals that nearly one in five
Australians are taking on project management roles, despite about
eight in ten of these people having no formal project management
training
Smartsheet (NYSE:SMAR), the enterprise platform for modern work
management, today released its first annual Future of Work
Management Report. The company surveyed thousands of Australian
employees about project and process management at their workplaces.
The report found that over four in five Australians (83%) say
projects at their company are sometimes, often or always managed by
people who do not have a formal project management title or role,
which has created “citizen project managers'' who are stepping up
to fill the gap.
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Smartsheet’s inaugural Future of Work
Management Report reveals new insights about global resource
recession. (Graphic: Business Wire)
In a slowly reopening world under macroeconomic pressure,
Smartsheet’s survey shows that Australian organisations—regardless
of industry—are experiencing a resource recession in which they
must function with limited personnel, support, or employees with
the proper training or experience. Nearly one in five (18%) of
Australian respondents manage projects despite the function not
being within the scope of their job title or job description. 50%
of these respondents—the “citizen project managers” moving work
forward—claim they were at least somewhat unprepared for the first
project they managed and 17% were mostly or completely unprepared.
Further, nearly all (90%) respondents have seen or experienced
negative consequences from the challenges of working with an
improperly managed project team, including having to work more
hours, duplicating work and missing deadlines.
“Australia’s talent shortage means more employees are expected
to assume additional work that they are not trained or qualified
for,” said Nigel Mendonca, Vice President, Asia Pacific,
Smartsheet. “Instead of accepting burn out and poor business
outcomes, leaders have a unique opportunity to transform the way
work is done for the better by thinking innovatively when it comes
to project and process management.”
Although results show that we are in a resource recession, the
survey also revealed an opportunity for organisations to move
towards a resource revolution. To do this, leaders need to
shift away from the idea of measuring success against deadlines and
instead focus on their people and implementing the right
technology. In order to make this shift, the report found three key
takeaways:
- Support is sacred, and teams need more of it Although
the people doing the work recognise–and actively push for–support,
the report found that 45% of Australian respondents believe their
organisation doesn’t staff projects appropriately, with 31% saying
projects are understaffed. Just 43% feel their company is investing
as it should in tools and processes to address common project
management challenges. With so many doing project-based work today,
there’s a greater need for foundational project support, with
regards to both resources and tools, and senior leaders must
recognise that, too.
- The “middle work” is most critical to a project’s success
and to avoid employee burnout The middle work, or the tasks and
processes that make up a project, is where the project moves
forward, but it can also be where projects break down. Nearly
three-quarters of Australian employees expect their company to ask
project teams to accomplish even more with less in the near future
(73%), and over half of project professionals expect deadlines to
stay the same moving forward (54%). This shows that things aren’t
slowing down, regardless of whether teams have the resources or
tools to be successful. In order to overcome these challenges,
teams need to focus less on deadlines and more on the middle work
that will take the project from start to finish. Report data shows
that irrespective of deadlines, there is a clear connection between
effectively managed projects and job satisfaction, with almost half
(45%) of Australian employees reporting that when projects run
smoothly stress is lower.
- Repeated work is wasted work Projects are only as good
as the processes they’re built on. Since the middle work is so
critical, the best way to ensure the success of a project is to
take learnings and insights and turn them into scalable, repeatable
processes. The report showed that when projects have an experienced
project manager, Australian respondents felt that work quality was
higher (53%), more efficient (49%), within budget (42%) and that
there was greater collaboration between teams (41%).
To read the full Future of Work Management 2023 report and
insights for you and your company, click here.
About Smartsheet
Smartsheet (NYSE: SMAR) is the enterprise platform for modern
work management. By aligning people and technology so organisations
can move faster and drive innovation, Smartsheet enables its
millions of users to achieve more. Visit www.smartsheet.com to
learn more.
Methodology
The Smartsheet Future of Work Management Report survey was
conducted in September 2022 by Wakefield Research among 8,000
employed adults aged 18-74, who work at companies with a minimum of
50 employees, evenly distributed among the following markets:
United States, UK, Australia, and DACH (Germany, Austria,
Switzerland). All respondents self-reported that they engage, in
some capacity, in project-based work, as defined as “projects that
have a beginning and an end.” These project professionals—who
represent about 60% of the adult employed audience who work in
companies with 50+ employees—span a wide range of industries from
IT and business services, to healthcare and pharma, to banking and
finance, and construction and manufacturing and a wide range of
titles and levels within their organisations.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230124005148/en/
PR Contact Chrissy Vaughn pr@smartsheet.com
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