Judgment: The Skill That Refuses to Be Automated
Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.
When I was a practicing project manager, long before I began training others, one of my biggest challenges was simply finding information.
I searched through email chains looking for decisions that had already been made. I dug through project folders hoping to find the latest version of a document. I attended meetings, not because I had something specific to contribute, but because someone else in the room probably knew something I did not. At times, simply staying informed felt like a significant part of the job.
Back then, knowledge was often difficult to find and even more difficult to share. Important information might exist only in someone’s notebook, in a project binder stored on a shelf, or in the memory of a team member who had been involved from the beginning.
Experienced project managers were valuable partly because they had accumulated years of lessons learned, but also because they knew where information could be found and who needed to be asked. They had developed networks, relationships, and a sense of how the organization really worked.
Today, many project managers face almost the opposite challenge. Information is everywhere. Dashboards update continuously, documents are searchable, and project teams can share information almost instantly. Meeting summaries can be produced within minutes, while AI and other tools can organize discussions, …
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"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; and I am Marie of Roumania." - Dorothy Parker |
