Future of Asset Management? Easy. Future of Project Management? Not So Much.

 

Predicting the future of Project Management is far more difficult than doing so for Asset Management. Double-entry bookkeeping, the basis for today’s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, has been around for hundreds of years, since around the time of Machiavelli (a coincidence?), and hasn’t changed very much over that time span. Essentially, the accountants helping the pilgrims settling their affairs prior to boarding the Mayflower wouldn’t be that out of place in a modern accounting firm, save for the computerized versus pen-and-ink ledgers, and (maybe) clothes worn. This being the case, it’s a relatively safe bet that GAAP will, in another five hundred years, be eerily similar to accounting practices today. Conversely, none of those early settlers would have any idea what you were talking about if you were to ask about their Work Breakdown Structure, or Cost Performance Index. They simply would not understand you.

But, if you think about it, why would it be otherwise? After all, the whole reason double-entry bookkeeping came into existence was primarily for purposes of taxation, with its attendant management insights fulfilling something of a secondary role. Taxation has been with us since the dawn of civilization, and can be reliably predicted to stay with us right up until governments cease to exist (and, in the case of the Death Tax, a little bit afterwards). Another aspect adding to GAAP’s longevity is the fact that virtually all of its precepts are widely-known (hence the “Generally” in “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”), if not out-and-out codified in law. With its foundations so solidly established, Asset Management is practically immortal.

Let’s compare and contrast these characteristics with those of Project Management via a simple thought exercise. What would the characteristics be of one company with outstanding talent within its Accounting team, barely competent (or even inadequate) capability in its Project Management Office, versus another company with the opposite talent profile? I think it would look something like this:

All of which brings me to another issue somewhat germane to PM and its future. If you had developed an algorithm that significantly increased the odds that you would win a large lottery’s jackpot, would you be interested in sharing that formula with others, or would you keep it a secret so as to maximize your own payouts? The answer is obvious, which leads to a follow-on question: If you had an insight into PM techniques, one that gave an advantage in achieving the benefits attributed to Company B in the above table, how eager would you be to share that outside of your own organization? Such information is considered, by definition, company sensitive, in that it is part of the structure that grants a competitive advantage. On the other hand, when has any organization throughout history gained a competitive advantage due to the discovery of a superior accounting practice? Before you answer with the Hostile Takeover phenomena, I would assert that such tactics do not stem from a novel evaluation of a given company’s assets to test if they are “undervalued,” as much as it’s a strategy to eliminate a competitor from a specific market.

Which brings us back to being able to accurately predict the future of Asset Management versus Project Management. New and reliably profitable techniques don’t get presented in the Asset Management realm because, with the exceptions involving avoiding taxes and a few others, they don’t exist, and they don’t get presented in the PM world because, if they really work, there’s little incentive for the authors of those papers to give away the metaphorical winning lottery numbers. In summary, the future of accounting is easy: I think it’s safe to say that it’s going to be fairly similar to the way it is now. The future of PM? Nobody really knows, because the ones who hold that future in their hands aren’t talking (outside of ProjectManagement.com’s blog pages, of course).