While you can find tried, tested, and true areas of project management, millennials are bringing fresh perspectives – leveraging technological advancements and placing additional concentrate areas like economic, ecological, and social factors.
Alex Shootman, CEO at Workfront, a cloud-based enterprise work and project management solution provider, said learning how to use millennials is essential since “digital natives now rule, and can boost in power and influence on the next several years.”
“Just like any immigrant and native within a society, you can find differences, and those differences can change businesses,” said Shootman. “Differences include that digital natives observe the workplace as egalitarian vs. hierarchical, they like telecommuting and flexible hours along with the chance to constitute work remotely, (i.e., coming from a cafe on a weekend or during vacation).”
“Natives like multitasking or task switching and prefer to master ‘just-in-time’ simply what’s minimally necessary.” Shootman said millennials “interact and network simultaneously with a lot of, even hundreds of others. Egalitarian, flexible, task switching, just-in-time skills and highly networked. This is not the current workplace.”
SEE: Millennials are doubly bored at the job as middle-agers, report says
Why the main objective about the role of millennials in projects?
“By 2020, millennials will make up half the worldwide work force, and by 2030, they’ll be the cause of 75%. Millennials’ aversion to hidden agendas, rigid corporate structures and knowledge silos in conjunction with a willingness to understand more about new opportunities will fundamentally change the nature of work or severely cost businesses,” said Eric Bergman, second in command of Project Management Books Online at Changepoint, a professional services automation company. “Gallup estimates millennial turnover costs the usa economy $30.5 billion annually.” Bergman believes organizations will focus more extensively on employees as well as their needs in order to address the negative impact of churn on productivity, quality, and service.
Exactly what does this mean for project activities that support business goals?
Bergman declared that a year ago, businesses realized their survival hinged on embracing digital transformation. Now, changing to shifting expectations means delivering IT capabilities that complement business priorities. Even the most agile, tech-forward businesses are rewriting their playbook industry by storm evolving expectations.”
Marianne Crann, director, human resources at Changepoint adds “Millennials are disrupting traditional business models. We have seen this in HR for a long time. The good news is, everyday processes have to be updated to allow for new generations of talent. They work differently and have different expectations. Businesses that discover that sweet spot-the one which attracts talent without detracting through the success of the business-will gain happier staff and happier stakeholders, regardless of generation.” Changepoint has gone into greater detail on millennials and project management of their new 2017 trends report.
At GlassSKY, a company committed to the empowerment and continuing development of women, founder Robyn Tingley believes millennials differ of their way of timelines, collaboration, and communication. “Millennials have a greater sense of work/life balance than Gen Xers,” she said. “This does not mean that they won’t devote more time once the situation demands it, or react to correspondence after hours, nevertheless they will most definitely expect that is the exception.” Tingley declared that much more than other generations, millennials are drawing boundaries more clearly and that this new state of mind reaches odds with all the old ‘all nighter’ mentality of project management deadlines. “It’s making project leaders rethink deadlines, how to schedule work and wins, key milestones and what’s truly realistic and achievable whenever your key players clock out earlier than the best choice, and earlier than anyone within the older generations expect,” said Tingley. “It entails making decisions has to be place on steroids…if your downline will be productive for 8 hours, you simply can’t have them spending 2-3 of the each day in meetings presenting powerpoints and flow charts to obtain consensus around change requests and scope adjustments.”
When considering right down to collaboration Tingley said millennials excel: “They are true team players and like to solicit inputs and views and are natural connectors.” Plus they expect tools to help keep pace. “Static whiteboards that can not be seen until you please take a snapshot, SharePoint sites, Excel spreadsheets, and corporations that do not have adequate video conference solutions are dinosaurs in their eyes,” said Tingley. “Project managers need to embrace and support modernized software that can handle collaborative brainstorming, real-time updates, multiples readers and users, integrated video, voice and more.”
Regarding communication, Tingley said millennials are “the true tech generation; gadget-friendly, always on, highly responsive tech connoisseurs, and they also communicate in a nutshell bursts of emojis and splintered spelling. Email just won’t work to align teams, manage inputs, and drive performance.” Using the rise of virtual workers and geographically-distanced teams, Tingley predicted that project management apps can become the new norm. “The future just may entail millennials working at the local restaurant, uploading a visible chart they simply drew or even a photo they snapped of something inspirational, along with the entire team is able to see it and produce about it, click to vote yes/no, drag it to a higher two-quarters out to get a future phase, etc,” she said.
How do millennials see their role in projects and effect on business goals?
“The millennial generation continues to be dubbed the ‘selfie generation,'” said Daniel Malak, who works for Motionloft, a company of hyperlocal pedestrian and vehicle traffic sensors. “I like to think it’s more the ‘self-starter’ generation. Young professionals know that in settling school loans, advancing of their career, and establishing relevant experiences for growth takes a decisive attitude towards accepting and leading new projects.”
Malack, a millennial, believes his generation is interested in not just meeting expectations of an project, but exceeding them as well. “Millennials are nimble and may adapt faster to changes better than others,” he stated. “Younger associates can oftentimes be a little more going to deliver, and that presents an interesting situation by which projects become opportunities instead of hurdles…deadlines are managed with the implementation of recent communication methods, which may both expedite the project and improve the net profit as well.”
What should companies detract out of this?
Millennials include the future, bringing newer perspectives and more innovative approaches. Companies need to harness their contributions and recognize the potential they possess.
Technologies are almost wired to the DNA with this tech savvy group in such a way the previous generations may not completely understand and appreciate. As a result millennials a hybrid solution by themselves and a powerful source of projects.
Millennials really should not be automatically mistaken as ‘not as experienced’, or unaware. They’ve appear through a business climate that is more diverse, complex, dynamic, and yes, more stressful than other generations. As a result their experiences and contributions highly valuable. Project teams should leverage their varied insights for improved outcomes.
When companies can harness the total combined potential of previous generations and millennials, the results may offer a far more sustainable solution than depending on only 1 or the other.
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