One Pagers

Leaders believe their organizations have conditions for success, while teams experience friction & uncertainty.

Leaders often believe they have established the vision, priorities and conditions needed to respond to change, while the people closest to the work experience something very different: uncertainty and friction that makes it difficult to respond confidently when circumstances change. This disconnect represents a “change-readiness gap:” the distance between an organization’s aspiration to adapt & its capability to realign people, decisions, structures and work as conditions change.

Complexity is no longer the exception. It is the defining condition of modern project work.

This year's Pulse research, drawing on 2,534 respondents across 35 countries, reveals that 97% of project professionals managed at least one complex project in the past year, and 81% report that projects have become more complex in recent years.

The distinction that matters: a complicated project can be solved with expertise and effort. A complex project requires the ability to sense, adapt, and respond as conditions shift in ways that weren't anticipated at the outset. The professionals who do this well aren't outliers, they have made a deliberate shift in how they see their role.

Infrastructure projects cannot afford to leave relationships to chance.

Large-scale infrastructure projects are delivered through a dense network of contractors, suppliers, and public bodies. Yet while cost, schedule and technical risk are governed rigorously, the relationships connecting these organizations are often left unmanaged. Research from PMI, MIGSO-PCUBED and University College London, grounded in 60 in-depth interviews with senior infrastructure leaders, sets out five evidence-based actions to design interorganizational relationships that drive project success.

From AI resistance to 45 shared use cases.

Discovery Limited, a South African financial services and healthcare group, got ahead of AI-adoption resistance with a PMO-led campaign that included free PMI courses, a prompt library and a use-case catalog. The campaign culminated in a competition for success-story sharing, and the winning use case turned a six-week UAT effort into a two-day sprint with nearly 400 test cases generated by Copilot.

Only 7% of project professionals apply all four M.O.R.E. behaviors. Those who do triple their success rate.

In 2024, PMI established the first shared definition of project success: delivering value worth the effort and expense. In 2025, PMI identified the four behaviors (Manage Perceptions, Own Success, Relentlessly Reassess, Expand Perspectives) that set top performers apart. The M.O.R.E. Playbook brings those behaviors within reach of every professional, with 40 example practices, PMBOK® Guide mapping, case stories and practical prompts.

PMOs are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between strategy and execution.

PMOs are becoming a key competitive differentiator as organizations translate strategy into execution. Drawing on a global survey of more than 1,900 PMO and senior leaders and over 40 expert interviews, this research highlights where PMO capabilities lag behind senior leader expectations, across three essential areas: customer-centric approach, strategic alignment and value management, and data and technology integration.