So how can association sustain the benefits of project management, and avoid the problems?

Generally speaking, project management in many associations needs to be brought back into the fold. Although every organization has a unique set of circumstances, there are common high level actions to be taken:

• Expand the current definition of project management to take a more holistic view of projects from the very infancy of an idea, through business casing and approvals, through the traditional domain of project management, to a deliberate post implementation review.
• Tier your projects based on criteria that are important to your association, and right-size the project management process so that not all projects are created equally. The discipline and rigor applied to each initiative needs to be commensurate with the relative importance of the initiative.
• Provide basic training for all the players in project management including sponsors, internal clients, and end users.

Project management has come a long way, but we need to take deliberate steps to ensure that it continues to add value. Successful PM should create just enough process to meet objectives and present itself in the form of useful tools rather than bureaucracy.