Predictions for Project Management Trends in 2009 - Part II

In Part I we looked at following three trends for 2009 [Source: Blog posting by Rudolf Melik in Talent On Target]:

- #10 The increasing correlation between project management and operational excellence

- #9 The CFO and the project manager friendship

- #8 The rise of the Project Workforce

Now let's look at the next three trends.

# 7. Dispersed customers, projects and teams kill politics

The flat world and access to a global talent pool has significantly changed the inner workings and team dynamics of virtually all organizations. There are many disadvantages to working with remote dispersed team members, which most of us are doing today. We tend to be happier, more loyal to the team, learn faster, and accomplish more as a team when we work physically close to each other. On the other hand, there are less emotions and politics with a dispersed team; people tend to pay more attention to getting the work done, than playing office politics; and their performance ultimately dictates how they are evaluated. In today's increasingly dispersed teams office politics is certainly on the decline.

# 6. Finding the right talent gets a lot easier

It is much harder to find the matching resources you need when you limit yourself only to looking for talent in a local market. The flat world, Internet collaboration technologies have made it possible for organizations to tap large remote pools of talent at very competitive rates. For example, at Tenrox, we are increasingly leveraging specialized programmers working (probably) from their homes in Russia, Eastern Europe and at outsourcing shops in India. These resources are not replacing our full time staff; they complement our team by working on projects on a need basis. It allows Tenrox to remain flexible, not to over-hire, and yet quickly staff projects when required. With better collaboration technologies, improving quality of global resources, and our own improved knowledge of how to manage such projects, this process is becoming a lot easier and rewarding to execute.

# 5. Emphasis shifts from project management to workforce management

The project management discipline has traditionally emphasized the science of project management. Project managers and contributors are encouraged to follow strict templates, guidelines and steps to ensure a project is executed successfully. However, in spite of the increasing number of certified project managers and great project management tools, projects continue to show high failure rates, or high rates of disappointment by being too late, cost too much, or not fully meet their intended objectives. Numerous studies have looked at why projects disappoint. Many of these studies often conclude that better project management, communication, stakeholder involvement and change controls would have reduced failure rate. However, as books like Built to Last suggest while best practices and better tools help there is nothing more important than picking the most qualified and best-fit resources to run the project (what Jim Collins called having the right people on the bus). Having the right people on the team makes everything easier; in fact, less process and less enforcement is needed since great team members innately know what needs to get done and just do it. As a result, more and more organizations are investing in cataloging their resources, understanding their resource’s capabilities and interests, and using more sophisticated workforce planning tools to find the best resources for their projects.

In the last and final part of this blog we will look at the top 4 project management trends in 2009.

Predictions for Project Management Trends in 2009 - Part I

[Source: Blog posting by Rudolf Melik in Talent On Target]

2008 was an eventful prosperous year for the project management practice, project management service and solution providers:

- Several independent vendors merged with larger entities; many more new small companies with innovative technologies emerged on to the scene. Given the poor macro picture, the amount of M&A and startup activity in this space shows how much interest there is and how much more there is to do, to improve in project management.

- What do you mean you don’t do on-demand?! On-demand adoption surged in 2008 and is now the standard way to deploy project management software. In fact, the tables have turned. Vendors that do not offer on-demand solutions look out of place, out of touch with the market.

- Project management continued to gain credibility as a legitimate profession that is very much in need given today’s complex project, workforce, market realities and regulatory requirements.

- Working remotely, virtual offices, working from home, are now almost as accepted as working from the office in an increasing number of industries and work types. It is now common to find work arrangements that account for some work being done from home.

The stage has been set for some very exciting changes in the project management world. In a three part series, I discuss ten potential project management trends that may be more prominent in 2009.

# 10. The increasing correlation between project management and operational excellence

It used to be that senior company executives such as the CEO, CFO and board members would generally stay away from project management related decisions. The expectation was that CIO, COO and other operational executives would “take care of” ensuring that the company has effective project management practices. In fact, most executives generally regarded project management as something the “techies”, field level workers and mid level managers should worry about.

In today’s highly competitive flat world, the “Chinese wall” between executives and operations has broken down. In 2009, we will continue to see increasing sponsorship, collaboration, and direct involvement of senior executives in project management initiatives. Senior executives have come to appreciate the direct link between effective project management processes, best practices and tools and operational excellence. This task is no longer delegated away and deemed to be a tactical activity. Senior executives and board members view project management improvement initiatives as a strategic investment.

# 9. The CFO and the project manager friendship

An increasingly project-based service-oriented economy has led to more complex customer engagements and billing arrangements. By instituting charge backs, even internal departments have to justify their costs, deliver services efficiently, and earn the business of other entities within the same organization. Consequently, for CFOs measuring project value and recognizing revenue in compliance with various GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) cost accounting and revenue recognition regulations has become an even more daunting task. The intricacies of estimating project value have created unprecedented ties between financial executives and projects managers who have to collaborate to produce incontestable project value assessments that can withstand the various forms of potential financial and project audits the organization may be subjected to. Given the current trends, the CFO/project management alliance is likely to grow stronger in 2009.

# 8. The rise of the Project Workforce

As explained in my book The Rise of the Project Workforce (www.projectworkforcebook.com) more and more individuals choose the projects they want to work on rather than the company they work for. Similarly, more companies are adopting the Hollywood model for a larger percentage of their workforce. In this model a project team is quickly assembled to execute a well defined objective; the team is just as quickly discharged once the project (the movie) has been completed. This flexibility makes both the company and the workforce more agile in a rapidly changing competitive marketplace.

In Part II we will look at the next three trend predictions for project management in 2009.

Networked Leaders...

Following is extracted from an article by Joseph S. Nye - being posted for some insights into "soft power":

In an environment of mobile phones, computers, and Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it is commonplace to say that we live in a networked world. But different networks provide new forms of power, and require different styles of leadership.....

Networks come in many shapes and sizes. Some create strong ties, while others produce weak ties. Think of the difference between friendships and acquaintances. Valuable information is more likely to be shared by friends than among acquaintances. But weak ties extend further and provide more novel, innovative, and non-redundant information.

Networks based on strong ties produce the power of loyalty, but may become cliques that re-circulate conventional wisdom. They may succumb to “group think.” ......Weak ties, such as one finds on the Internet, are more effective than strong ties for providing the necessary information to link diverse groups together in a cooperative manner. In other words, weak networks are part of the glue that holds diverse societies together.....

As leaders increasingly need to understand the relationship of networks to power, they will have to adapt strategies and create teams that benefit from both strong and weak ties. Information creates power, and more people have more information today than at any time in human history. Technology “democratizes” social and political processes and, for better and worse, institutions play less of a mediating role. In fact, the basic concept that is sometimes called “Web 2.0” rests on the idea of user-based content bubbling up from below rather than descending from the top of a traditional information hierarchy.

Institutions like Wikipedia and Linux are examples of social production that involve very different roles for leaders than do their traditional counterparts, Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft. Now governments are experimenting with similar means to create and distribute information, but they still have a long way to go.....

In business, too, networks are becoming more important. In some cases, one can orchestrate a complex network simply with carefully specified contracts. But the friction of normal life usually creates ambiguities that cannot be fully met in advance. In describing the success of the Toyota and Linux networks, the Boston Consulting Group concludes that the hard power of monetary carrots and accountability sticks motivates people to perform narrow, specified tasks, but that the soft power of admiration and applause are far more effective stimulants of extraordinary behavior.

Traditional business leadership styles have become less effective. According to Sam Palmisano, the CEO of IBM, hierarchical, command-and-control approaches simply do not work anymore. They impede information flows inside companies, hampering the fluid and collaborative nature of work today....

A study of a major “bricks and clicks” company (one that combines offline and online operations) found that distributed leadership was essential. In the Internet environment, the traditional view of a leader being decisively in control is difficult to reconcile with reality. Instead, effective leadership depends on the use of multiple leaders for capable decision-making. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch writes that “business success increasingly depends on the subtleties of soft power.”......

Aerospace Industry Outlook for Asia Pacific Region...

Click the following link for a good presentation, on prospects for Aerospace Industry in this region, from the recently concluded 2009 Asia Pacific Aviation Technology CEO Summit:

http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/cpo/161652470

Business Intelligence in Best-in-class companies...

[Source: Ann All's Blog]

In a recent blog on cloud computing, I wrote that asking folks to define an emerging technology is one way of gauging its popularity. In general, the squishier the definition, the hotter it is.

Another popularity gauge is how many (roughly equivalent) terms are used to describe it. A good example is operational business intelligence, aka pervasive BI, transactional BI, real-time BI and near real-time BI.

A thorough Intelligent Enterprise article discussing Aberdeen Research findings on the BI practices of best-in-class companies deals with the multiple term issue early on. The article notes:
No matter what flavor or definition is used, at the heart of the matter, organizations are beginning to focus their attention on leveraging existing data to enable and optimize daily, hourly, minute-to-minute, or even up-to-the-second actions.

Best-in-class companies are streamlining their decision-making processes, which is the overriding goal of operational BI. Indeed, Aberdeen says such companies experience decreases in both the time that elapses between business activity and the delivery of information to decision-makers and the time between business activity and actual decisions or other resulting actions.

According to Aberdeen, other key characteristics of these best-in-class companies include improvements in customer satisfaction and customer retention and improvements in data access and availability for end users.

Best-in-class companies differentiate themselves from more "ordinary" peers with their ability to master five practices: process, organization, knowledge managment, performance management and technology. As I read through the in-depth explanations of these areas, it occurred to me that a number of them had been featured in my blogs, in my interviews with experts and elsewhere on IT Business Edge.

For example, in the process category, Aberdeen notes that best-in-class companies are more inclined to automate their data processing and analysis activities. Charles Nicholls, the CEO of SeeWhy Software, in October made a similar point during my interview with him. Drawing a parallel between BI and aviation, he said:

When I get onto the plane, I feel very good that there are two pilots who know what they are doing. However, they are not actually flying the plane. They do the takeoff and they do the landing, but everything else in between is done by the autopilot. The autopilot is making very gentle corrections in course and speed, and it flies the airplane much more accurately than the pilot can. It's completely objective, and doesn't get confused, and that kind of thing.

Nicholls told me that companies are increasingly choosing to separate their data from data logic. He said:
So analytics can trigger business process management systems and trigger the process for retaining customers, or retaining stock, or those kinds of things. Therefore the nature of what we call BI -- for the sake of a label -- is changing. It's not just about producing reports, but about creating these kinds of autopilot systems.

Automation can affect decision-making in a dramatic way by eliminating the reporting process entirely, said Nicholls. In his example, a service representative might be immediately notified via e-mail or other means if a customer halted an online application for a mortgage, triggering an outbound call to that customer. Nicholls said:
This particular case doesn't involve a report or a dashboard. ... This is an example of how you can build BI into your daily processes. If you think about displaying information daily, a dashboard is just an electronic version of a report. If you think about an operational process, it may not be that relevant to have that dashboard, because then you are relying on a person to look at it. It doesn't give you the big performance lift.

In the knowledge management area, Aberdeen points out that best-in-class companies are ahead of their peers in providing training and other resources to BI end users. Often, this includes the establishment of a BI center of excellence or competency center.

I blogged about the importance of user involvement in BI initiatives in June and asked BI expert Lyndsay Wise, principal of WiseAnalytics, about it in an interview earlier this month. She told me that a lack of user training can derail a BI initiative because users won't adopt BI if they don't feel comfortable with it.

For super users and IT, I think they may think (BI is) more intuitive than it actually is. With BI search and different areas in which BI is starting to become more intuitive, by developing interfaces that look and feel the same way a person might surf on the Internet, hopefully in the future it won't be as much of an issue.

Since usability is still an issue for many -- if not most -- companies, Wise recommends getting business users more directly involved in BI initiatives. She said:
More super users within the business so that not only are end users not always going back to IT, but also those issues of whether something will work or how well it will work are determined by the business. Once the business adopts BI and likes it, they'll see other uses for it and want to use it more.

Cost Optimization Framework...

[Source - Express Computer]

Gartner recommends that IT and business leaders use a cost optimization framework as a template when evaluating cost optimization initiatives.

Gartner’s Four Levels of Cost Optimization framework is based on the four discrete levels at which IT organizations can help their enterprises optimize business costs. The two lower levels—IT procurement and cost savings within IT—are focused on the reduction of cost within IT, while the two upper levels—joint business and IT cost savings, and enabling innovation and business restructuring—involve IT and the business teaming up to reduce operating costs.

“Whether it’s due to an efficiency play, response to competitive action, meeting the needs of a powerful customer or dealing with an economic downturn, a sudden, renewed focus on IT costs can sometimes lead to ill-considered management responses,” said Barbara Gomolski, Managing Vice President at Gartner. “However, experienced IT leaders know that cost-cutting campaigns seldom leave the organization positioned well for IT-innovation-enabled and new-value-creation-based expansion.”

Where appropriate, each level of this framework explores cost optimization issues by technology, domain, technology role, supporting facts and quantifications, estimates of savings and risk, and, in some instances, vertical industry. The broad definitions of the four discrete levels are given below (listed from lowest to highest):

• IT procurement: True partnerships with IT vendors mean that each party benefits in the good times and makes joint sacrifices in times of economic uncertainty. Each year, IT organizations spend billions of dollars for hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications services. The manner in which IT organizations approach procurement issues will affect how much they can reduce spending to meet business goals.
• Cost savings within IT: A priority for many IT organizations will be to identify opportunities to reduce baseline IT costs, not just move them to another budget center. Where IT organizations focus is where they will be successful with cost savings.
• Joint business and IT cost savings: Consider that the average IT budget is roughly 3% of revenue, while total operating expenses are 80% to 90% of revenue. If the enterprise is looking to reduce costs in 2009, IT managers should try to join IT with the business to reduce costs in business operating expenses.
• Enabling innovation and business restructuring: As economic uncertainty passes, cost optimization will refocus on efforts to implement long-term process improvement and enable business structuring and innovation.

Gartner recommends that the framework is used as an organizing structure in which to track cost optimization programs as well as communicating the impact of cost optimization to the business.

Mapping out cost optimization efforts to the framework can help to determine whether an organization’s overall initiative is out of balance (all cuts coming from cost savings in IT, for example) or whether an organization has mixed IT costs with an appropriate amount of optimization techniques (such as innovation and business restructuring) that can prepare an organization for a return to growth.

“As the immediate needs of the business change in relationship to the macroeconomic climate, more optimization focus will be transferred to the higher levels of the framework, reflecting efforts to enable a return to growth,” said Kurt Potter, Research Director at Gartner. “As organizations focus on the higher-level cost optimization areas, they will recognize and communicate higher levels of business benefit, aside from cost-cutting.”

Organizations should differentiate between cost optimization and cost-cutting.

“IT cost savings often result from optimization, but IT cost savings are not a given when optimizing business processes,” said Mark Raskino, Vice President and Gartner fellow. “In other words, optimizing the business may require spending more on IT in order to meet the service-level expectations of business and IT in the future.”

Arbitrary cost-cutting often delays optimization, because investments that would normally yield better results in the long-term are delayed. These are the challenges that IT and business leaders are facing in the current period of economic uncertainty.