The Future of Project Management - From IIR ProjectWorld Workshop

Dan Rasmus was at last week's ProjectWorld in Baltimore. He documented a session called "The Future of Project Management." This is co-posted from his blog.

I conducted a workshop on the future of project management at IIR's ProjectWorld conference in Baltimore last week. Here is the brainstorming based on Microsoft's future of information work scenarios:

Proud Tower

• Project Management = science
• Rigid processes, only need to know what you need to know
• Single methodology
• Strong government influence on practice, but company ultimately decides on competitive issues
• Scope, cost, schedule (pick one)
• Very reliant on internal resources and capabilities
• Schedule is driven even if not realistic
• Low level of forgiveness for failure
• Control + Good Model = company existence
• Low innovation and freedom of thought
• Quality= Doing what the boss says

Continental Drift

• Project Management = discipline
• Reduced Innovation
• Government dictated methodology
• No outsourcing
• Resources only extend to region
• No worry about language (assumed)
• Divergent standards around the world (practices by region)
• Duplication of many companies doing the same thing
• Reduced specialization at the individual level – more “Jacks of All Trades”
• Projects are low risk
• Highly secure environment
• Less variation among projects
• Many compliance projects
• Virtualization of organization takes place within trusted core
• Quality=do what is least risky

Frontier Friction

• Project management=art
• All about people, trust and relationships
• Resources: use who and what is available
• Need to learn to negotiate with power (when power isn’t constrained by common law)
• Dependent on the luck of the skills that are in the pool
• No certifications or standards
• Skills taught by mentoring
• Quality = do the right thing

Freelance Planet

• Project Management = experiment (adventure)
• Team recruitment=Ocean’s 11 model (people I know and trust)
• Highly networked teams
• Only as good as your last job
• Strong peer pressure to succeed (last job reflects on team too)
• Either very honest or very dishonest, no room for gray
• Many projects, smaller in scope
• Projects are interesting
• No big firms (can’t gain critical mass among branded individuals)
• Negotiating with teams for credit, pay, etc.
• Methodology is determined by team, by project
• Communities of practice
• Less economies of scale
• Prima Donnas
• Meritocracy
• Highly personal knowledge, shared only with trusted individuals (including very private Associations)
• Learn by doing on teams (Take responsibility for your own learning)
• Quality= do what offers the most learning within time and budget constraints that delivers what the customer says they want (so my contract will get renewed)