Project management skills in a digital era

Well said Sergio!

We seem to be descending into an era of gibberish where one must precede as many words as possible with terms like 'digital', 'agile' and other buzz-words.

But what does it all mean? Not very much at all.

You know @Graeme, unfortunately we are in an era where if you do not use words like "agile" and others with anything you write or said you are consider bad, ugly, dirty and in my case old fashion man.....My concern is when this type of things go from the PMI itself. I firmly believe that using buzzwords jeopardize the work of lot of people that are working with that from long time ago but most all of people that are trying to find a job and are facing things like "are you a digital project manger?" "are you an agile project manager?" etc. etc. God, or any other force that people believe governs the Universe, Save Us....

Hi Sergio,

As usual, you are a voice of reason! I love expressive words (oh, by the way, I can’t go to my “basement” without thinking of you), but like you, I recognize that marketing infused buzzwords often create a false historical narrative regarding the subject matter.

However, I recognize the need for our profession to leverage the hype surrounding the buzzwords of our time (e.g., transformation, disruptive, digital, strategy, AI, etc.) as it promotes our profession in the context of what the C-Suite is consuming. With that said, we must balance that with the “historical basement-level” perspective, otherwise, we are likely to misstep when we enter the dimensions of what a given buzzword describes.

So, thank you for the balance and perspective you provide - we need it!

Thank you very much for your words. Sorry but I disagree about buzzwords is an opportunity for us. I think exactly the opposite.

And beyond the plain English is the problem to use those without knowledge. For example, while I understand I can make a mistake in my next comment due to English is not my first language, whay to use something like "agile project manager"?. You are not something project manager. You are a project manager that follow an estandard or guide (PMI´s PMBOK for example) in quit diferent environments. So, when you calify the role in this way you are shrinking the market using a fallacy. Something from my personal experience. Each time an organization hire me to help in implementing things like agile I spend my time explaning what agile realy is which is not what they think or expect it is. I prefer to take the risk about they say to me "ok, we will not follow with you" instead or being DOA (dead on arrive).