Innovation or Productivity – What’s The Most Vital in Project Management?

When it comes to projects, productivity and innovation are seen as the pushing factors for prosperity and growth. However, whilst both are linked as concepts, they also have fundamental differences. Innovation refers to new ideas and how they are implemented in order to generate value for both consumers and users. They also work to introduce value-driven change at the centre of any system. Productivity is about the final ratio for a project between the final results and the cost or time spent on the project.

Both of these traits are actually incredibly important any project and can both be used to measure the success that has been achieved. If it weren’t for innovation then you would not have the appropriate new ideas needed for the project, there would be nothing to implement and therefore create those all-important deliverables. However, a project the goes over budget, timescale or both is not meeting, all of its criteria for success so it could be considered that this may, in fact, be the more vital point for project management.

Innovation in Project Management

If you were to search for articles about innovation in project management, you would discover that is it an incredibly researched topic. This is understandable. However, as you will learn on any project manager courses innovation on its own is just a small part of the much bigger picture that makes up the entire project management plan.

It is fair to say that innovation is what drives your project at the start. You can hire people having pmi acp certification who can innovate your company. You need motivated team members who are able to give their full attention to this stage of a project. This is vital if you are to produce the ideas and concepts that will help you to drive the project forwards to the result that you are looking for.

Productivity in Project Management

When productivity goes off track in your project, this can lead to the final deadlines being delayed or going over budget. You may be considering the success of a project in terms of these two factors as well as whether you have actually managed to achieve the desired outcome from the project in terms of the product or service. If this is what you would consider project management success,  you then you could consider your project to have failed to some degree. Project management skills really come in to play here, when trying to ensure that both budget and timescale are met. However, it is all too easy to encounter problems along the way that will hamper this.

Conclusion

There really is no right answer to the question of whether innovation or productivity is the most vital to project management. They are both incredibly important and a project manager must pay special attention to both of them. If you’re unsure on how to manage both at once, or if you’re struggling with time management, then it could be worth updating your project management training. That way, you can be sure you have all the required skills to focus on both.