By: Carlos J. Pampliega

Introduction

In our fast-paced, digital-driven world, a key issue has surfaced for businesses: How can we effectively utilize the power of digital technologies to revolutionize our project management practices and nurture new, dynamic business models? 

This question is at the heart of a digital transformation that impacts not only how we interact with stakeholders but also how we view the world of project management. 

Join me for an enlightening presentation at PMI’s Virtual Experience Series 2023: 15 June, where we'll dig deep into this subject and explore the potential that awaits us in digital project management.

Digital Project Management

The frequency of digitalization and digital technologies in scientific literature serves as a clear indicator of the crucial role they play in our increasingly interconnected world. When combined with the power of cloud computing and AI, these digital tools have the potential to significantly streamline project management processes, boosting productivity and efficiency along the way.

However, the transformation we're discussing here isn't simply about transferring existing processes into a digital format. It's about harnessing the power of digital technologies to fundamentally change the very essence of project management and the business models that it supports.

Several real-world examples highlight the potential of digital project management in fostering new and innovative business models. The increasing ubiquity of digital technologies, paired with the massive amounts of data gathered by various devices and applications, is driving a need to rethink their business practices through a digital project management lens.

In essence, the secret to successful digital transformation lies in pinpointing the best opportunities to implement digital tools and understanding how they can dramatically alter our business models. However, even as we dive headfirst into the digital age, we must remember the importance of maintaining the foundational principles of project management, such as collaboration.

Interested in Learning More?

As we continue to explore and adapt to this digital landscape, it's important to remember that digital project management can have a profound effect on our project management processes. By effectively leveraging digital tools, we have the power to optimize our work, enrich the customer experience, streamline operations, and even devise new business models, leading to enhanced outcomes.

Finally, we'll examine the evolving role of project managers in this digital age. With digital technologies altering the landscape of business models, we'll understand how project managers can effectively navigate this change and lead their teams toward successful digital transformation.

I promise you; it will be an enlightening session that will leave you with actionable insights you can directly apply in your professional life.

Are you intrigued? 

Want to delve deeper into the exciting realm of digital project management? 

I would love you to join me on 15 June at the PMI Virtual Experience Series event for this presentation and participate in the question and answers with me and the rest of the PM community. We'll engage in meaningful dialogue about the future of digital project management and explore ways to drive transformation within our organizations. 

I can't wait to see you there!

"The future is coming faster than you think", Mark said in his workshop at the PMI Global Congress-EMEA. Mark Stevenson (@Optimistontour) is a futurist, as his blog description says, and an expert on global trends and innovation. Also, he is the author of the bestseller ‘An Optimist’s tour of the future’.

Continuing what Isabel Aguilera told us on the first-day keynote, Mark clearly presented various technological and global trends and the influence that these were having on business. The title of the workshop was significant: "Alerting Organizations to the Future".

The title of the workshop is very well chosen because it blends two concepts that invite reflection: Alert and Optimism in the Future. On the one hand, he aims to give a message of alert about changes in the businesses that bring with them technological advances and innovation. On the other hand, all these innovations bring changes with them, but also new opportunities.

"Dinosaurs disappeared because they didn't have a space program."

This is what happened to many companies that did not see what technological advancements supposed for their business and did not design a plan to redefine it and their services. When a company is not sure about what it produces and what consumers really need, it becomes a dinosaur with few expectations to survive over time. There are many examples caused by some disruptive technical advance that suddenly changed the consumer's needs: the almost total disappearance of discs with the emergence of the digital music market; publishers of newspapers and news companies; the industry of photography and film; the sale and rental of videos; and many others.

Mark raises a number of questions about all these dinosaur companies that come to our minds:

• What INDUSTRY did they believe they operated in?
• What did they believe they were providing?
• Did they recognize their COMPETITORS?
• How did they see their CUSTOMERS?
• What was their attitude to CHANGE?
• What was their attitude to new TECHNOLOGY?

Most of these companies in danger of extinction had a wrong conception of the reality where they were operating and the service they were providing: when someone bought a disc, they were not really buying a vinyl or a CD, however, they were buying an experience. Many of the successful companies reach the size of dinosaurs while they are taking care of operations, competitiveness and management of your business. However, they leave the service they are giving users aside: the experience of listening to music, being informed or remembering an image from the past.

It only takes a technological change that enables another way to satisfy these needs and the whole company will disappear if it is not able to see it in time and change. The problem is that not all companies are able to deal with these changes, or in the majority of cases, they do not even want to see them: "It is difficult to convince someone that something is changing when their salary depends on nothing changing".

Disruptive technology

A disruptive technology is an innovation that creates a new market and value network that will eventually disrupt an already existing market and replace an existing product.

Clayton Christensen’s book, "The innovator's dilemma", explains the attitude that companies should have on innovation and the dilemma that arises in the case that they want to change their services to incorporate technological advances.

Christensen's book suggests that successful companies can put too much emphasis on customers' current needs, and fail to adopt new technology or business models that will meet their customers' unstated or future needs. He argues that such companies will eventually fall behind. Christensen calls the anticipation of future needs ‘disruptive innovation’,

As the title states, the innovator's 'dilemma' comes from the idea that businesses or organizations will reject innovations based on the fact that customers cannot currently use them, thus allowing these ideas with a great potential to go to waste. Christensen goes into great detail about the way in which 'successful' companies adhered to customers’ needs, adopted new technologies and took rivals into consideration, but still ended up losing dominance in their market.

"Nearly every social and technical and business infrastructure we have can´t survive"

So this is the future and what to do about it!

Mark, who has returned from the future with an optimistic message, invites us to do a bit of self-criticism and reflect on ourselves and whether our services incorporate the technological advances and innovation that are within our reach. (An anecdote: in the workshop, only two people had a 3D printer).

How it looks to you today?

"Your customers don,t want it".

"Your sales people can´t sell it".

"Even if they could, the margins are too small".

Disruptive innovation also means new business opportunities if we incorporate them. Sectors such as banking, pharmaceutics, education, training, services, energy, etc., show tentative changes produced by technical advances that will bring a paradigm shift.  And social structures will also be inevitably affected as much by all these technological changes. Democracy itself and political institutions have remained immutable for decades while voters have a huge capacity to decide through their phones instantly.

How do we see disruptive technology today and how is it affecting our business?

And tomorrow,

...will we look like dinosaurs?

The first day of the PMI Congress EMEA was dedicated to the new challenges posed by globalization and the impact on business.

In the opening session, Isabel Aguilera, considered by the media as one of the most influential international executives, made an inspiring presentation on the challenges faced by companies and their project managers. Technology and technical advances have changed the landscape and paradigms that governed till our days in companies on adapting to the market and competition.

Technological Challenges

Technology and the digital revolution produce continuous changes in the scenario in which we live and operate. And these changes occur so quickly that it seems that the "ground moved beneath our feet". In this scenario, project managers feel a bit like the white rabbit in "Wonderland", which did not stop running watch in hand: "I'm late, I'm late,..."

Forget that sentence taken out of context on adaptation and companies that survive. This is no longer useful, it is not enough to adapt, according to Aguilera. The transformation of business is not enough. Adapting to new needs posed by the market only assures you the second place in a race where only the first wins. To lead the market, we need a real change of paradigm that incorporates the benefits of technology and cooperation in a globalized world at the service of people, whether they are consumers or workers.

The first day of the PMI Congress EMEA was dedicated to the new challenges posed by globalization and the impact on business and the community of professionals dedicated to managing these disruptive change projects: technological challenges and problems of a globalized scenario.

First, companies face new technological challenges. In this sense, the sessions focused on presenting projects related to new sources of energy, sustainability and ecosystems.

I attended Javier Serrano’s presentation on the ITER project for the development of nuclear fusion energy, a project of international collaboration that would lead to an impact hard to value in terms of costs and benefits. How to assess a megaproject with more than 35 years ahead? What is the actual value for humanity resulting from its development?

As Michael Roberts reported: "President Reagan wanted this to happen because I saw the potential positive impact of American and Soviet engineers living and working together for some period of time." That is a good reminder that ITER — and many other similar megaprojects — is a dual experiment: it's not just science and physics, but also an experiment in international collaboration.

In addition to the technological challenge posed by developing a new source of energy, such projects have their own management challenges derived from the amount of involved Nations and thousands of workers in business partners located all over the world. The challenge posed to manage this type of project is given a few times each century, but will be a major occurrence in the decades to come, thanks to the technology feasibility for large-scale undertakings which have brought paradigm changes to vast social and scientific communities, and, in some cases, to the entire population of Earth.

Virtual Leadership 

Except for the previous project scale, companies around the world continuously confront similar challenges arising from the collaboration with distributed or virtual teams. A project professional of today lives in an increasingly virtual world, resulting in the need to lead virtual projects. The dynamics of a remote team require project managers to communicate with their teams differently.

The workshop I attended on Leading Virtual Teams, facilitated by Penny Pullman and Evi Prokopi began putting the problems we have to overcome to work with people located outside the work Center on the table: lack of commitment, poor communication, low motivation, cultural differences, language...

Technology enables us to bridge each of these differences, and the workshop was useful to present the experiences of many colleagues on how to work better with virtual teams. All this experience is collected in Penny Pullman’s book ‘Virtual Leadership, Practical Strategies for Getting the Best out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams’.

The next day will aim at leveraging the power of sharing information between PPPM professionals across industry, function and geography.

We will be here to tell the tale.

Let's meet the team!

Be sure to check the PMI EMEA Congress 2016 event page for new posts every day, follow along with the PMI Congress Insights blog and follow us on social media using the hashtag #PMICongress!

The PMI Global Congress 2016 - EMEA offers three days of unprecedented professional development and a great opportunity to expand your network of contacts. The Congress is aimed at enhancing the set of personal skills and influence to boost the strategic goals of the Organization through the promotion and advancement of the project manager profession.

The Congress is an opportunity to reflect on the reality and practice of project management. Experts from different sectors will present practical solutions and case studies on the challenges posed by the evolution of projects and businesses today.

The program of the Conference, whose main theme is Accelerating Progress, Improving Performance, will focus on these themes:

Day 1: Globalization and its impact on the community of PPM

Day 2: Industry location and connectivity

Day 3: Organizational influence and impact

Not able to join us in Barcelona?

You can still be involved!

Kristin Jones, blogger at The Critical Path, a ProjectManagement.com site, leads the Congress Community Team to bring the news and talks to those who cannot attend. This is a new experience in the community for this year's Global Congress - EMEA. The Community Team will cover all the presentations and will be live to share the best of the Congress: Kristin Jones, Yves Cavarec , Catalin-Teodor Dogaru, Joanna Newman , Carlos J. Pampliega, Laura Samsó 

You'll have the opportunity to experience the Congress right along with the attendees.

"Good things happen when you become involved with PMI"

I’m honored to have been invited to participate in this exciting communication project, of which I have my particular expectations.

On the one hand, the Congress is a great opportunity to meet professionals and companies dedicated to projects. In short, it is the networking event par excellence for PMI on an EMEA level. But there are many reasons for networking.

As I commented in the following article, one of The real reasons for Networking was to discover ways to help others (who may one day be able to help you). In this sense, our work next week as members of the Community Team is very focused on adding value to colleagues who follow us, our network of contacts. We will share with them valuable first-hand information from the Congress. This is what we meant when we mentioned in that article Growing within the Network: bringing real value to our network of contacts. This is a good opportunity to bring value and information to all my network of contacts on social networks, but also to make new professional contacts in person.

As we said in the previous article, personal branding on social networks must be consistent, i.e., be a reflection on real life, then the Congress is the best showcase to meet colleagues and companions with the same concerns and similar problems when it comes to projects. We can learn from all of them and surely, everyone has something to contribute to others.

On the other hand, the PMI Global Congress EMEA is the biggest event to learn and discover new challenges and trends for the project management profession and for companies.

In today's complex and volatile environment, the success of the Organization depends on the proper alignment and integration of projects and programs with the strategic objectives of a greater size. In this sense, Project Managers have a complex picture of changes before us in which we must act as catalysts, implementing innovations that directly affect performance and competitiveness.

PMI gives us the opportunity to discover under its main protagonists’ guidance, how this is affecting the organizations, what trends are defining the needs of the market and what makes mature companies in project management be more competitive. The extensive PMI network provides an overview of the market and companies in various sectors around the world.

I will personally attend sessions related to the construction and civil work sectors, new trends in leadership, change management and the impact of project management in the strategy of companies through project management offices.

I invite you to join the Community Team staff during these intense days and share all this knowledge with your network and contacts.

Let's meet the team!

Be sure to check the PMI EMEA Congress 2016 event page for new posts every day, follow along with the PMI Congress Insights blog and follow us on social media using the hashtag #PMICongress!