Obsolete Jobs and Accelerated Agility

 

This very interesting and profund post by Douglas Rushkoff calls into question our current fixation of creating more jobs.  As he states:

"We're living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That's because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need... Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff."

With Obama ready to get approval for the jobs package and America and most of the rest of the world in an economic and jobless slump, this is a very provacative statement to make in light of our current situation.  Nevertheless, the lingering economic slump and ability of corporations to maintain and in many cases, increase profits despite high unemployement does require us to call into question the current viability of our economic systems and the foundations of work, employment and careers.  Add to this the rapid technological and productivity changes of the past decade, and this only accelerates the need for self reflection and re-examination of our careers.

While I'm not completely sold on Rushkoff's proposal for a more colloborative and community based economic system that uses a form of barter and/or local currency to exchange intellectual goods while our basic needs get met, I do agree that the concept of having a "job" is becoming increasingly obsolete.

For readers of this site who are project managers, is our own profession becoming obsolete as well?  I would answer "it all depends".

I think if your a "true" project manager, which by that I mean a person who truly leads and manages a team, has breath and depth of knowledge to be able to make decisions on the direction of tasks and work, and can effectively communicate to teams and stakeholders, then you will always be valuable.  But if your just a project scheduler, status reporter or task tracker, then you will likely become obsolete by technology and business process productivity improvements.

Furthermore, you will really need to be "agile".  I'm not just talking about becoming a ScrumMaster and doing Scrum, but really have the ability to adapt, evolve and reinvent your skills and management methods to technological, economical and social change.  This is big stuff.  I really see project management skills as being key to future survival, as it is not out of the question to foresee a future where we're all free agents, who bid on projects and have to form teams, draw plans, and execute projects with high quality deliverables quickly, then disband and move on to the next project.  This is how movie studios have been delivering movies for quite some time, and it would be quite a social and economic change for everyone to be working this way.

I think we're at the starting point of a signficant change in how we work and deliver projects and you will either be thrilled by it or scared to death.  I'd chose the former.