Let me quickly state that I don’t really know what the consensus definition of Project Management 2.0 is, but I do have a feeling based on my very 1.0-style experience. In the 90’s, I worked on a number of fairly large scale SAP Projects in a variety of roles, including Project Manager, and supervisor of several other projects. The standard tool was Microsoft Project. It was used for:
- Planning a project (initial scoping)
- Selling it
- Periodic reporting to Steering Committe during the actual project
What’s missing from the above? Well, how about using it to help the actual daily work of project team members? Project team members did not even have access to MS Project, it only existed in a few copies on the PM and Team Lead’s computers. Information flow was one-way: feed the beast to be able to occasionally print charts that look impressive (scary) enough that Steering Committee members won’t question it.
Ok, I am admittedly sarcastic, but the point is: Project Management 1.0 was all about planning, reporting, and it served Management but did not help actual Project Execution.
My expectation of PM 2.0 would be that it helps all team members involved who can share information, collaborate on it and actually get clues from the system on where they are, where they should be, what their next step is, instead of just feeding the beast. Is this the real promise of Project Management 2.0? I hope to find out from an excellent set of panelists that I have the honor of moderating at the Office 2.0 Conference next week:
- Andrew Filev (Wrike)
- Bruce Henry (LiquidPlanner)
- Mark Mader (Smartsheet.com)
- Guy Shani (Clarizen)
- Dean Carlson (Viewpath)
(This article is cross-posted on Zoli's Blog)
Nicely put Zoli. When compared to project governance, project execution requires a lot more coordination and a different working context; regardless of the methodology used.
In order to track to that pretty MS Project promise the detailed tasks, unexpected problems, new priorities, design changes, technology refreshes, maintenance and dynamics of people all need to be stewarded to become "non-events". Lets not forget the teams that are working on more than one (unrelated) project at a time too!
Three is good company. A good leader aligns people and processes with agile, easy to use tools that focus on activity management and execution.