Models can’t save your project if nobody uses them

At the moment, project management is quite paradoxical. On the one hand, the discipline has matured. Most organisations have an official or unofficial project model, a common language and access to classic techniques such as risk analysis, business cases and stakeholder analysis. On the other hand, project managers’ day-to-day work still presents the same challenges year after year: too few resources, too little coordination and support, and projects that are becoming increasingly complex.

This raises an obvious question: if the models and tools are available, why do so many project managers still feel left to their own devices when it comes to making the projects work?

For the project manager, this is not an abstract problem. When roles, decision-making processes and methods are not clearly established, uncertainty creeps into day-to-day management. It then becomes the project manager’s task to secure resources, align line management and the project, interpret unclear priorities and compensate for the fact that the organisation may not fully share an understanding of what the project work entails.

That is why the greatest challenges identified in the survey relate not only to tools, but to organisational frameworks: resources, support and complexity.

The second-biggest challenge – a lack of coordination and support across the organisation – points in the same direction. Many projects today are cross-functional. Progress therefore depends on senior management, line managers and the steering group actively supporting the project, not just in words, but in deeds.

When support is unclear, or priorities change without a shared understanding of the consequences, the project manager functions as interpreter, diplomat and buffer. This is an important part of the job, but it becomes problematic if the organisation expects the project manager alone to compensate for a lack of management buy-in. In other words, project management becomes much stronger when senior management not only asks for updates but also takes joint responsibility for the framework.

The 2026 Mannaz project management survey also highlights an interesting trend in the use of specific techniques. Risk analysis, business cases, stakeholder analysis and goal hierarchies are among the most commonly used approaches, but they are far from being applied systematically in all projects.

At the same time, we see that more experienced project managers use these techniques more frequently than most of their counterparts. This can be interpreted in two ways: either it takes experience to use the tools effectively, or their systematic use builds up experience and judgement over time. Most likely both are true.

The point is this: techniques rarely work if they are only used occasionally. They only create real value when they become an integral part of the project manager’s practice – and thus a habit.

Perhaps this is precisely where the next step in project management lies. It is not in yet another wave of methodologies, but in a more mature organisational discipline, where models, techniques and managerial behaviour are more closely interlinked.

For when a project manager’s greatest challenges remain the same, it is rarely because project managers lack the will. More often, it’s because the organisation hasn’t made it easy enough to succeed. That is precisely why the most valuable conclusion from the 2026 Mannaz project management survey is not to invent something new, but to apply what we already know more consistently and in closer collaboration with senior management.

Are you already a strong project manager? Or would you like to know how you can become even stronger?

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