Advancing Your Project Management Career in 2024
Transcript
STEVE HENDERSHOT
AI is ascending. Global economic growth is stagnant. And the need for resilience and a flex-first mindset is relentless across industries. Those are just some of the challenges companies are navigating this year. Understanding these trends provides a roadmap for how project professionals can advance their careers and help teams deliver value for the rest of 2024. What skills do they need to get ahead? How can they adapt their ways of working? Let’s find out.
In today’s fast-paced and complex business landscape, project professionals lead the way, delivering value while tackling critical challenges and embracing innovative ways of working. On Projectified®, we bring you insights from the project management community to help you thrive in this evolving world of work through real-world stories and strategies, inspiring you to advance your career and make a positive impact.
This is Projectified. I’m Steve Hendershot.
Project teams will be tested again in 2024. But even in the face of global economic inertia, project professionals will have opportunities to generate momentum with future-focused initiatives ranging from construction to energy. And everything will overlap with digital transformation, heightening a demand for teams in all industries and regions to continue to tap into emerging tech. Most notably, companies are going all in on artificial intelligence: PwC estimates AI could contribute up to 15.7 trillion U.S. dollars to the global economy by 2030.
So today, let’s explore the must-have skills and hot sectors shaping project activity in regions around the world. In our roundtable discussion, we’ll hear from Azeez Onasoga, VP of technical operations at renewable energy company Arnergy in Lagos; Rathi Vijayaraghavan, a senior project manager at Capgemini in Bengaluru who specializes in IT projects; and JD Harrison, discipline lead for program and construction management at the engineering and construction firm CDM Smith. He’s based in Tallahassee, Florida, in the United States, but is working on a major infrastructure program in New Orleans, Louisiana.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
STEVE HENDERSHOT
All right, thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Let’s talk about job trends in 2024 and start our discussion with a look at what’s driving opportunities for project professionals in your sectors and regions right now. Rathi, what are you seeing?
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
As far as IT is concerned, we have various opportunities in [the] renewable sector right now because people are very serious about sustainability and starting so many projects about it. So there is a wide range of opportunities in that area, as well as manufacturing and fintech. And as far as IT, there are so many AI projects. So if we go ahead and understand what exactly the AI is and level up our skills as a project manager, the opportunities are endless.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
That tees up Azeez nicely since you walked right into his renewable energy sweet spot. Azeez, what are you seeing?
AZEEZ ONASOGA
For renewable energy, project management is actually divided into about three areas: the project development phase, the construction phase and then the operations phase. Where the opportunities lie in the renewable energy industry is the project development phase.
You identify and quantify the business opportunities. The project is happening mostly in underserved communities, rural areas, and then you need to get stakeholders involved. You also do site assessments. Our sector is largely regulated, so you need certain permits before you [can] embark on project management activities. That’s where you also consider activities like environmental impact assessment. You also do energy yield assessment and economic evaluation of the designed solution that you’re offering.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
That’s great. Now, JD, there’s a lot happening in construction and infrastructure in the United States, some of it spurred by funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed in late 2021. That government program is turning into actual projects, so where are you seeing the most activity?
JD HARRISON
Throughout the industry. I mean, when you think of infrastructure, we make sure goods and people get to where they need to be. We make sure the lights are turned on and that the gigabytes travel at light speed, all right? And so when you think about that, you’re looking at data centers, water, wastewater, highways, airports. Things like that that are in demand all the way from the contractor through to the owner to the architect engineers. So [project managers] are desperately needed. Right now we’ve got some big challenges for those folks with five to 10 years’, 15 years’ experience—where we really need those folks, because what happened is they joined Facebook, Meta, Google, and they didn’t get into the infrastructure, the heavy civil structural-type work. So there’s great opportunities there for folks.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
That’s interesting, JD. How can project professionals take steps to fill that void? Are there any major obstacles?
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
I’m the classic example of starting off at IT, and I moved ahead to [the] construction and engineering field, and then I came back to IT. Over the 19 years of experience, I have spent most of the time in construction and engineering. So as a woman, there was some challenges I faced in that industry. It is men dominating [the] industry. The diversity is nil, we can say, comparatively, in India, as I’m talking about India. So you’ll see very few females who are interested in joining, but when they join, the sustainability is very, very, very tough in those kind of industries.
JD HARRISON
I think that’s very interesting, and you bring up a great point about diversity. When I started in the industry, there was very few females. I mean, when I went to engineering school, there was maybe 2%, 5%. But now I’m really excited. I’ll continue to be excited about our industry, but really excited about the diversity that we’re getting in our industry. I would say in our engineering and architectural offices, from my observations, 40% to 50%. There was a young geologist that worked for me about 20 years, 25 years ago, and we had lost touch. And I recently contacted her on LinkedIn and found out that she’s now president of her own company. We had another opportunity for a field engineer to come into a very challenging water, wastewater project. And she didn’t have the water, wastewater experience, but she did have the technical background, scheduling, project controls and stuff. And she started off as a field engineer, and now she’s a great senior CM [construction manager].
One of the keys though is, to me at least, to have the technical background or at least have the focus to learn the technical aspects. Because you can be a great project manager and leader, but if you don’t understand what the organization—and this is my opinion, of course—is delivering from an infrastructure standpoint, it’s a challenge. You need to understand the engineering involved, the construction operations involved. You need to have a good sense for what’s going on in our challenging space.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Speaking of challenges, what do you see as the top threats to project success this year?
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
The common challenge we face here is working with cross-functional teams, combined with the remote working. The stakeholders from business, front end, back end, and testing team and QA will be co-located or formed as a team to work on a project. So the challenge as a project manager, what we face, is that to bring all the stakeholders into a common ground. So everybody speaks the same language or, more necessarily, that business as well as the technical, they are aligned and to the same understanding.
And the second challenge: working as a remote and hybrid mode. As a project manager, we need to be getting hold of the resources. We need to understand their personal schedule so that we don’t fall short of the project schedule. It has come to a state where project managers are getting hold of it, but still much of learning is required to understand the global dynamic structure of remote working. So these are all the challenges which I’m aware of. Maybe Azeez can add on to it.
AZEEZ ONASOGA
Cost is a major challenge for us in this region. The volatility of exchange rate in this side of the world makes it very difficult. Most of the materials that we use here are imported, so having to deal with all of those volatile exchange rates, and when you eventually get those materials in, they’re not competitive. It becomes difficult for the project developers to get off-takers. The cost of equipment, the cost of material acquisition, because of the challenges that we face here, it’s huge. You don’t want to lose, so in the renewable energy industry, when you put solutions out and you factor all of the cost of production, and then in an economy where inflation is very high because all of those macroeconomic issues that are in this region, it reduces people’s purchasing power. So when you [are] a project developer or a solar solution provider, it becomes difficult to get users. So those are some of the challenges that our project management will face in the renewable energy industry.
And then, because of those challenges with the economy in this region, there’s a lot of movement of our talent. People want to go to where the pasture is greener, and that creates limitations in our talent pool. People are immigrating out of the region. So it leaves us with few talents to implement projects. Because of all of these challenges, businesses, projects, organizations often have difficulty surviving.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
JD, what about you? What challenges are you seeing in construction and infrastructure in 2024?
JD HARRISON
The biggest challenge for 2024 is there is so much work going on right now. Getting things completed on time and getting things started for 2025 is going to be a major challenge. There’s very few places in the U.S. where there is not billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, of construction going on. The challenge is to continue at the pace we are and try to ramp it up where it’s needed—strategically thinking about where you need to apply the capital that you have and what your priorities are. Especially with competing priorities. The city I’m in right now, they’re doing a great job. They’re bringing in a lot of the key stakeholders so they can manage and work through that. So that’s what I see, is that stakeholder management. Because if everybody gets their project built to 50%, nobody gets anything. But if you can start getting jobs finished and getting things done, then you get ahead. So it’s getting those priorities set so that you make sure what you need to get completed is complete. And those things that aren’t that top priority, maybe you put them off [to] ‘25 or ‘26.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
So what are skills that project professionals need to develop or possess so they can tackle these challenges successfully? What do project professionals need if they want to thrive in the next year? Azeez, let’s go to you.
AZEEZ ONASOGA
Number one is the commercial skills. Beyond the technical skills, project managers that are able to identify opportunities, call it need analysis. I’ve interviewed two project managers, and I can say both of them performed decently, but I had to go with the one that has a little bit of commercial economics competence, aside from the technical [skills]. It’s an emerging market, so project managers that will survive in this terrain now should be able to identify opportunities. And then the project economic evaluation, feasibility analyses, be able to tell why this energy mix is better than the other. In this project selection, design selection, it’s important that project managers in renewable energy are able to do those evaluations. And knowledge of regulation and permits is very key in this part of the world and in that industry because energy is highly regulated.
Project managers are also expected to be conscious of their environment, conscious of their social impact. ESG [environmental, social and governance] is one of the skills that if you [have] as a project manager now in this industry, and perhaps in this region, it will really count.
JD HARRISON
Three of the top that come to mind is [first,] really good leadership skills—and that’s leadership of yourself and leadership of your team to help bring the vision together so that you’re all focused. Because there’s so many different things that can pull you out. And then understanding data management, being able to take that data and have the folks look at it the right way and present that data so you can make solid decisions. And the other part is just strategic thinking. To think, “Okay, where is the project team going to be here from a year from now, two years, three years? What can get in our way? What are the resources we need to bring? How [do] we work together?”
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
I agree with both Azeez and JD. As a project manager, the key skill I am looking at is influencing. You have to talk to the stakeholders, and you need to get the data input for your reporting—what exactly they are working on, risks they are facing—because some people, they work in isolation, and they will not be giving you data.
With respect to IT, I’m seeing a lot of talks between waterfall and agile. There is a competition going on whether we have to use waterfall or we have to use agile. A good project manager should have sense wherever waterfall is necessary, [if] you have to use that. Wherever you don’t have the vision or you don’t have the scope of work very clear, you have to combine agile as well as waterfall. The adaptability is a skill I’m looking at for a project manager in this dynamic environment so that he can quickly adapt, and he can ask his or her team to understand the scope of work, and he can influence to get the output he desires.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Speaking of, adaptability was part of that last answer. We’re all adapting to AI these days. Rathi, how has AI changed IT project management?
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
I would say it is data-driven, the changes it has brought in. Predictive analytics, that’s one space where a project manager struggles to understand the historical data to estimate for his or her projects. With AI, it is getting easier to understand the historical data of similar kind[s] of projects which the organization delivered previously. And when a project manager uses these analytics, he or she will drastically reduce the time frame of delivering or estimating the time or cost.
Apart from that, AI is really helping in reporting and the dashboards. Having said that, there are drawbacks: that the people have to feed the right data, then only the AI can give the correct report or correct insights from the data. It is the initial stages of the transformation, and it will take some more time to totally change or totally transform it. But what I summarize is that AI is a boon to all the project managers if you upskill yourself, and with the help of AI, you can be a better project manager.
AZEEZ ONASOGA
For [the] renewable energy industry, AI now has been deployed at the project development phase. AI helps you to do some risk assessment. So with AI, we are able to dig into existing data [on] the level of risk, historic events that has taken place in certain areas, before you put the first brick on the floor. So AI has really helped that risk assessment and, therefore, helps to make a better business decision.
The renewable energy industry—solar, to the precise—relies a lot on energy from the sun. There are meteorological irradiation data that existed before now. So some tools are able to plug into those data to help with energy yield forecasting, able to help with solar tracking systems. So when you know already the trend in terms of irradiance, you are able to size your solution appropriately and have it run optimally all year round.
Leveraging data using AI, we’re able to get all of those patterns and able to come up with the best of designs. That’s long term. But even [in] the short term, we’re able to also use existing data on daily patterns to also determine the position of solar panels, for instance. That’s what we call solar tracking systems. So we’re able to tell at [a] certain hour of the day that this is the direction of the sun, where irradiance from the sun is highest. AI is able to help to control those racking system[s] and get your solar panel at the best tilt angle, such that you optimize and you get the best yield.
Once the project is live, we are still able to leverage AI. It helps you with load forecast and calculations because at that point, the solution that you had deployed had started generating its own data. So you are able to use those pattern[s] to do computations around load forecasting, calculations and automation. For instance, you’re able to do load shedding. Once the data shows that the load outweighs the energy that is stored, you’re able to balance your energy using AI.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
JD, anything to add there?
JD HARRISON
All I know is if you’re not using AI right now, you should. I use AI at least weekly on programs, for my career and on a personal standpoint. It helped me be more productive, effective and stuff. So, getting engaged with it as quickly as you can if you’re not already using it.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Let’s end the discussion by looking ahead. What are you most excited about as project professionals for the rest of this year—and beyond?
JD HARRISON
I’ll get started, if that’s okay. Just really the future of where we are in infrastructure and how things are changing and the opportunities for everybody over the next decade or so. When I graduated from school, in order to work on a billion-dollar program, you had to go to New York or California, which is what I did, and travel the world. Now with all the infrastructure needs, you can graduate and, depending on where you’re from, you can stay in maybe a 500- or 600-mile radius and just get so many opportunities.
There’s a lot of challenges ahead of us, but it’s a great career to be in, project management, infrastructure specifically. I am just excited for my granddaughter and my kids and the future of how everything’s changing and how we’re working together. I think we set an example of how people can work together to accomplish things.
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
Yeah, I agree. As a project professional and in the personal front, I am excited to see how AI works in different industries. Most of the slowness in project management AI will be able to solve, but how quickly the project manager adapts to the change, that makes the gamechanger. Global challenges will be there, but there are much more opportunities ahead of us. So if we focus on those opportunities, we can make [the] most of it.
AZEEZ ONASOGA
I’m aware there’s a lot of investment into the economy in this region, largely because of the resources, solar energy that is available here. You have a lot of foreign investors in this region. I’m excited to see how all of those investments translates to the growth of project management in the renewable energy sector.
And interestingly, with the dwindling economy, I know that all hands will be on deck to find innovative way[s] to reverse the situation. I know that investors and project management in [the] renewable energy industry will not just fold their hands and watch their investment just go down the drain. So I’m excited to see that innovation that is inevitable in that industry. The transfer of skills, too, is one part. I know that a lot of project management professionals in the industry will move. Because that has been the trend. A lot of them move out of the region, and then fresh talent come up. So just looking forward to who is the next smart kid in my project team. So those are some of the excitement that I anticipate for 2024.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
Excellent. Thanks very much all of you for joining us today.
JD HARRISON
Yes. Thank y’all very much. Very good conversation.
RATHI VIJAYARAGHAVAN
Thank you all.
AZEEZ ONASOGA
Thank you, team.
STEVE HENDERSHOT
And thank you for listening to Projectified®. If you like what you heard, you can listen to more episodes on your preferred podcast platform or visit PMI.org/podcast. And please subscribe to the show and leave a rating or review—it’s always great to hear from you. Hope you can join us next episode!