The Pulse of the Profession® in-depth report outlines the DNA of today’s project teams

We live in a project economy where organizational change is increasingly taking place through projects. An organization’s project portfolio drives disruption, innovation, and expansion. In this scenario, the teams that plan and execute projects must also embody the enhanced roles that they have been entrusted with.

Since the nature of work has changed, the team structure and dynamics must change too. PMI research shows that managing changing priorities is the biggest project delivery challenge. It translates to accelerating the need for more risk-resilient, fail-fast teams that are capable of gracefully pivoting when customer demands shift.

Here are some key findings reported in this edition of the Pulse of the Profession®:

• 42 percent of projects are characterized as having “high complexity,” a trend that has been growing over the past five years.
• Core teams of high-complexity projects have on an average 24 members versus eight for low-complexity projects.
• Half of all project professionals are involved in cross-functional project-based work.
• Project professionals worked with 6.1 teams on an average in the past 12 months, with this number expected to increase.
• Nearly one in four projects in the past 12 months followed agile practices.
• Less than a third of project team members have traditional project titles.
• 15 percent of respondents said lack of talent with the right skillsets was the single most important factor responsible for project failure.
• Half of teams who already work with AI expect to work on even more AI teams in the next year .

To understand the future of teams, download and read the full report.