Back to the Project Management Future

Michelle Stronach has over 20 years of experience in the project management field, with experience creating successful PMOs and implementing project, portfolio management and IT governance frameworks. Michelle truly appreciates the value of feedback and welcomes comments on her articles. https://twitter.com/mlstronach

 

It’s almost 2015, and my how time flies! Looking back, project management has come a long way since the '50s, but where are we going in the future? Better sharpen your pencils because our vocation is about to get even more professional.

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."
– Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future (1985)

It really can't be 30 years since Back to the Future was released, can it? And yet, here we are coming up to the year 2015, the year when fictional Marty McFly and his girlfriend go with Doc Brown in his flying stylish DeLorean time machine to help save their future children. Wouldn't that be nice, to solve all your problems before they even occur?

What fun to compare real world 2015 with the movie's predictions from 1985. Okay, so maybe flying cars and hover boards are not yet mainstream, but they do actually exist. The movie does accurately predict some current-day trends like blockbuster 3D movies, hands-free gaming and sophisticated communications. It's kind of freaky how well the movie writers' envisaged evolving trends when you consider where technology was at in 1985.

So how does this relate to project management you ask? Well, it's all in the timing.

For most of the Part I and Part II storylines, Marty and friends bounce back in time from 1955, 1985 and 1915. The…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.