Challenges in Selling Project Management to Senior Executives and Overcoming them

Project management team face lot of challenges in selling project management to Senior executives.

Here the Project managers are the sellers and the Senior executives are the buyers.

What  are the reasons that makes it difficult to sell project management to Senior executives ?

The Reasons are

Project Managers sell Tactically while senior executives buy strategically. This leads to a bigger gap / mismatch between What Senior Executives need and the arguments used by the Project Managers for convincing them. Focusing on Project Management tools, techniques, technology  etc. will not work with senior executives as they look at big picture.

        Project Managers are Operational in approach  and focus on specific tools and features of Project management. But senior executives are interested in Strategic tools that add value to business.

                Project Managers need to be sensitive to the difficulties caused by Changes in Organization culture. Implementation of new project management processes results in significant changes in the Internal work environment. For example project management implementation may require to use sophisticated technology that has to be implemented enterprise wide

                Project Managers use a common approach without understanding specific needs of various divisions in the organization. Project Management needs to be dedicated and managed at corporate level so as to follow a Consistent approach across various divisions within the organization.

Each senior executive has a different mindset to Project Management. Project managers  use the same approach in selling project management without understanding different buyers mindsets.

Political undercurrents  in corporate culture also makes  it difficult to sell project management. The project managers need to be alert on any organization changes that may affect the delicate project dynamics

Senior executives often feel Project Managers are already practicing Project management and they need training  to achieve organization goals.

Project Managers often argue, Project management helps in effective, planning tracking monitoring and control. Instead they should explain how Project management will  lead to HIGHER ROI and enable organization to move up the PMM (PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATURITY) Ladder.