The Future of Project Management
Posted by Brad EgelandIt’s 2009…do you know what Project Management is doing for your company? What will PM look like in 2010, 2015, 2020? I’m not trying to write another ‘1984’ here, but what will it be like? Will everyone have to have PMP certification to even send in an application? Will every organization have a PMO? Or will none of them have a PMO? Let’s see what we can predict for the not too distant future in a few hundred words…
Certification
PMI is a great organization and PMP certification gives a stamp of approval to a PM who has acquired educational credits, led projects for the required number of hours and passed a test. But it doesn’t measure your skills in actually running a project and your success in customer satisfaction, etc.
It is my belief – and you can bash me if you want – that hiring companies place too much emphasis on this certification. I have nearly 18 years of PM experience, yet no PMP certification. I was going to get it around 2004 as it was part of a hiring agreement that I would get a $10k bonus upon obtaining certification. That bonus was important to me, but the PMP certification really wasn’t as I was very busy and preparing for the test was not something I felt I could spend my time on right then. But, for the bonus, I was going to do it, of course. Then the company closed down and so did my motivation to get the certification.
I’m probably biased because I don’t have the certification, but I think too much emphasis is placed on it by hiring companies…I think it trendy to put it in the job requirements. In the next 5-10 years, I think a push for this type of certification will only increase, not decrease. That said, if there are any of you hiring managers and CIOs out there who need a very experienced PM and don’t care about the paper certificate, you know how to contact me.
PMOs
Will PMOs be the norm in 5-10 years? Will they be necessary? I think so. A well-run, well-organized, well-stocked, and well-documented PMO can definitely help an organization as long as that organization is large enough to need a PMO. Smaller IT shops running mostly internal projects can probably just get by with a few project managers and some documented processes. And these PMs would need to be stationed within each business unit, not a centralized unit.
However, if the organization is large enough with enough project activity going on, then a centralized PMO with a proven leader at the helm is essential. It helps ensure that someone is fighting for the following:
- PM training for PMO resources
- Common, repeatable processes and documentation
- Project prioritization (project portfolio review)
- Project resource assignments
These are essential to ongoing project success in larger companies. I believe, therefore, that the PMO will see an increase of installations within larger organizations that are experiencing a significant amount of project activity. The current economy, of course, will play a big role in the growth of PMO activity, so we’ll wait and see how quickly this happens.
Greener PM
I still stand by my stance that remote and paperless project management is and should be the trend of the future. In running my projects mostly remotely over the past three years I have decreased my own carbon footprint enormously. I produce almost no paper for my projects relying on electronic documents and communication methods to very successfully manage my projects. I’m not driving to the office very often so I’m not adding to pollution and wasting resources that way either. And by not requiring a physical onsite workspace, I’m not taking up space and resources needed by positions that are required to be onsite (HR, accounting, finance, maintenance, etc.).
This won’t work in small organizations where all resources are already in one building. But with larger organizations, they’re likely already dealing with a very distributed workforce anyway…so remote project management is just another step in that direction.
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7 Comments to “The Future of Project Management”
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Dennis Stevens says:
There is a huge distinction between “the PMP doesn’t show you are an experienced project manager” and “the PMP is not valuable”. If I am hiring a project manager who is not a PMP (or who never earned a PMP), I am likely going to question her commitment to the craft of PM.
I know some really good PM’s that aren’t PMP’s. I know some PMP’s that aren’t really good PM’s. So I agree that there is not a direct correlation.
The PMP provides assurance of common language and expectation of processes. The discipline to acquire the PMP shows an attention to detail and an interest in the profession.PMP certification will continue to rise because it is valuable to the organization.
Ian D. Nock says:
To start with I would like to say I am biased because I do not have certification even though I have managed small, medium and large scale projects for many years, but I will come to that.
All qualifications, at the very least, are there to show that you have some capability in the absence of experience, whether it is a first degree or PMP. In those cases, the first degree requires a number of years of dedication and focus, passing multiple pieces of work and examinations, the PMP is something obtained over a number of days to weeks with a short exam at the end.
It is very clear in most fields that the first degree that someone has is pretty much irrelevant once someone has worked for two, five or even 10 years, as their experience speaks more than the paper does. The same is true of the PMP, although its value is commensurably less in time terms in my view.
So it is appalling that so many people put so much store in the PMP (and similar) qualification and ignore a person’s demonstrable experience. I wish the world would wake up to this, as the main beneficiary of these ‘commercial’ qualifications are organisations that provide the training and examination.
Another point to make – is it more likely that the in-demand PM is the one who has the experience and abilities required by companies to do the business, and who rarely finds time to be able to acquire these paper qualifications, and the other side of the coin is that it is the PM who has the time to acquire paper qualifications is more likely the one who is NOT in demand by an organisation because he does NOT have the experience or skills that a company needs?
Josh Nankivel says:
I agree completely with Dennis. I found value in earning the PMP, and I know project managers who don’t want anything to do with the PMP who are great. I can’t say whether or not there is correlation in the aggregate or not between PMP certification and competence. I can definitely say there isn’t any causation. Becoming a PMP may be beneficial because you’ve learned the standard (if you actually learned it, and didn’t just go to a boot camp), but it doesn’t give you experience or competence.
Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com
Dennis Stevens says:
Ian,
If a manager needs to hire an experienced project management and is using a PMP as as the only selection criteria, they have a high likelihood of being disappointed. While PMI requires the applicant to represent 3-5 years of experience, this is the entry level of being a professional project manager.
I don’t think very many managers or HR professionals are under the impression that a PMP represents the same thing as 10 years of experience. So the threat that you perceive is not real.
Saying that there has been no benefit to the community through creating a common language, supporting User Groups, hosting Global Congresses and facilitating virtual communities is absurd. Much of what you have studied, learned from your mentors, and read about on blogs and such, are the result of an effort, largely led by PMI, to create a common language and set of processes for Project, Program and Portfolio Management. PMI has raised the body of knowledge and the level of awareness of the value of PM’s – to the benefit of people who do this for a living (like you).
Again, the PMP is the starting point. It is an indication that someone intends to be a Project Management Professional. Slamming it because someone doesn’t have one is not beneficial to anyone. If you have the knowledge and experience, go take the test and get the PMP.
As someone who spent three years volunteering on a standard, earned a PMP in 1998, and is an OPM3 Certified Consultant, I am troubled by the PM that not only doesn’t contribute anything back to the community – but that actively works to discredit it.
Karine Simard says:
I think certifications are a good (not the best or the only) indicator of the commitment someone’s put in their trade. However, as many have said already, it should NEVER be the only criteria.
I’ve met plenty of software developers who rocked, yet they didn’t have a CS degree. They were just geeks who’d been coding since junior high.
The same goes for project managers. While the cert looks good on the resume, what counts is your accomplishments as PM. However, we must be realistic: keyword-scanning HR and recruitment specialists are not interested in accomplishment. They’re interested in getting the resume with the most keywords.
Elyse says:
Several interesting points in the post. Thanks for sharing it with the community!
I think there are several key points. First examing PMP certification. Being a PMP, I’m aware of the value of the certification. However, certification is not the only avenue. If an individual has 20 years of project management experience, has an Masters in Project Management perhaps PRINCE II certification, or even contributes by teaching adjunct PM courses at the local graduate school. It is key to consider the whole picture for the individual.
For PMO’s I think the future will see less PMOs that are the audit and control (“policeman”) model. If PMOs are going to bring value to the business, it will be through being a transformation change agent and resource excellence center. Frankly, we all need to kick it up a notch from templates and educational courses.
I’d welcome hearing the suggestions of others,
Hope this helps,
Elyse
http://www.anticlue.net
Deepu Sugathan says:
I am a bit surprised that the discussion about the future of project management is overwhelmingly about PMP (certifications). I think PMP provides value in that it certifies that a person knows what could be an ideal way of managing projects. This is helpful in that it encourages your practices to be skewed towards the ideal practices recommended by a bigger group of practitioners rather than something formed by just your experience. No matter how experienced a project manager is, it is important to have the academic knowledge of commonly accepted best practices as one person alone can very rarely acquire such refined knowledge on his own. It also provides a common language for the profession which makes it easier for professionals to move between organizations. So, PMP is important, but the key is the capability to apply that knowledge in real situations and that comes with a certain amount of experience. So, a PMP-certified experienced project manager is the right choice.
Now, the future of Project Management should be about how it can provide the best value for any organizations. PMOs and Portfolio Management is not the answer to that, unless it is an intermediate solution directed towards taking the organization to a state where it looks at change more holistically and creates projects as part of implementing the business change agenda. All the successfully completed projects means nothing unless it provided measurable value to the business, as planned. Measuring value and defining projects is not a project management function, but a change management function. Project management just makes sure that the change plan is implemented as defined. So, I believe that in the future we will finally realize that and plan to continually change rather than acting like change happens only once in a while. We would not have such a steady stream of projects if we were not continually changing. If we were continually changing, then we need to operationalize change management and project management should be a sub-function of that. Project Management is now assuming the other functions because of the void in organizations to manage change effectively.