Categories: project data
Over the last couple of months I’ve looked at some of the tech trends affecting us as project delivery professionals working in an online world.
One of the technical challenges I haven’t talked about yet of using collaboration tools is how you archive the data effectively. Archiving tools are available, but they are yet another system to integrate within your technology landscape. There’s nothing to say that their development will keep up with the constant evolution of the SaaS marketplace; in fact, I think it’s fair to say that they aren’t.
Forrester reports that only 15% of businesses actively capture and archive data from collaboration sites (Hayes & McKinnon, 2015). The old approaches to data management and records compliance just don’t cut it with new communication channels, even where interoperability makes it possible.
This problem is going to get worse before it gets better. Regulatory bodies will catch up with the increase in data being stored across collaboration tools and online and will demand that companies manage their archives more effectively.
Organizations will be forced to adopt more robust methods of managing archives with the associated cost of data management that comes with this. Archiving strategies need to be built in conjunction with the adoption of online tools and with flexibility in mind.
All the trends I’ve talked about – like AI, robotic processing automation and interoperability - bode well for both the manufacturers of project management software, and (one would hope) the people using them. Better data, better collaboration, and better end-to-end systems should increase the likelihood of success on projects because it all contributes to better decision making.
And I believe collaboration tools are already improving the results of teams where they are being used – I certainly see that in the conversations I have with my mentoring clients and the project managers I work with every day.
However, the great results we expect from tech will only come about if the tools being applied meet a genuine business need. You can’t layer tools into a broken, uncommunicative team and expect them to suddenly work together, just like that. The team culture has to be ready and open to change, the infrastructure has to be there, the management desire to want virtual and online working to succeed has to be there – and people have to see the benefit.
The business need that drives all of that is likely to overlap the areas of technology, collaboration, and culture. The way people work online—both in and outside the project environment—is not perfect, and we can expect to see more evolutions and innovations in the years to come, both in terms of tools and the way in which interactivity is encouraged and fostered.
I hope that we will eventually look back and realize that this was the time that organizations made the shift to the collaborative project environment. While the societal change may feel fast, in organizational terms, it is infiltrating slowly. Project leaders are essential in supporting innovation and effective collaboration in all its forms.
This article includes a few points that were made in my PMI book: Collaboration Tools for Project Managers. Given what we’ve been going through and seeing so far this year, it felt appropriate to try to pick out some comments on tech for teams and where that might be taking us – because it seems to me that virtual working is here to stay.
