In Harvard Business Review, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, leading champion of project management and strategy implementation talks about how the development of the Chief Project Officer (CPO) role directly correlates with the rampant increase in projects over the past 30 years: “Thirty years ago 80% of the resources in organisations were dedicated to operations, and 20% to projects; today, that ratio has flipped”.

Throughout the last 30 years, resources dedicated to company projects have gone from 20% to 80%. However, in spite of this drastic growth, several companies are still without a senior leader whose primary role is to oversee all project activities. According to Harvard Business Review “the lack of clarity and ownership in the project space is one of the most common challenges faced by CEOs and executives”.

The absence of ownership combined with the increase of the number of projects companies are now taking on has the potential to result in project overload, burnout, reduced completion rates and wasted resources. A global survey conducted by Project Management Institute (PMI), uncovered that around $1 million USD is wasted every 20 seconds globally as a direct result of poor project management. This is equivalent to approximately $2 trillion USD per year.

The core responsibility of a CPO is to work with the broader executive team to make the companies strategic goals into a reality through programs, initiatives, and projects. Currently, according to the PMI study 31% of projects are not meeting their intended goals, 43% are not completed within budget and 48% are not completed on time. The study also showed the troubling rate in which executive leaders may be out of touch with the reality in which effective project management can affect strategy with 85% of leaders surveyed said they believe that their companies are effective in delivering projects that achieve strategic results.

A successful CPO should have the ability to create a more agile and project-driven organisation to ultimately deliver projects more efficiently with a higher success rate.

There is no doubt that the need for Chief Project Officers is growing at a rapid pace within organisations as more and more projects are taken on. Delivering these projects efficiently and effectively will have a significant impact on how they flourish within the project economy.

Projects generally don’t fail because of poor tech, they fail because of poor delivery. Avec remains committed to making delivery the focus of success by supporting  project teams to ensure that projects are being delivered in the most resourcefully, effective and efficient way possible.

Get in touch with the Avec team.