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FMI Project Management Survey

FMI project management survey: Perfect PM elusive

It is amazing that financial management skills are cited as one of the most lacking traits in project managers - for a contractor project managers control most of the things that produce profit and cash!

There are many reasons why project managers typically have poor financial skills starting with the normal separation of accounting and operations inside the company. Many contractor owners and executives actually don't think the project managers should be involved in financial details very much - this is one of the dumbest thought processes out there and will continue to produce poor results.

Project managers need to be educated constantly on how everything they do impacts the bottom line - we did one such presentation recently on cash flow & project managers for the Dexter+Chaney user conference and also have training modules geared towards teaching project teams profit dynamics, construction financial basics and even presenting a brief roadmap for integrating accounting and operations.

At the end of the day the contractor is trying to (1) make a profit, (2) generate cash and (3) utilize assets effectively. If the project manager does not understand how their actions relate to one of these three things then how can you possibly expect them to perform well?

Jack Stack makes some fantastic points about getting a team focused by teaching everyone The Great Game of Business - this book is well worth reading for all contractors.

Most of my approach toward improving performance with the project team has to do with more closely integrating all areas of the company and getting the whole project team to really focus on "dollarizing" their actions - especially during the project pre-planning process.

Posted by David on July 25, 2006 01:38 PM|Permalink

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