And ... if this pandemic lasts for many months

Dear Luis,

If anything the role of the project manager will increase and with that experienced project manager who can migrate from the physical PMO to the virtual PMO will be heavily sought after.

Before COVID-19 it was AI and machine learning taking our jobs. Now its the possibility of being somewhat automated out of the entire project management life cycle.

The processes and knowledge areas of a project have not changed. The involvement of stakeholders at all levels in order to get decisions made has not changed.

The only aspect of the process that has changed, for now, is how we communicate even as projects get stalled, shelved, put on the back burner or cancelled.

What I do see is an increase of certain project methodologies over others, primarily agile over traditional waterfall.

Projects may now be delivered in workable and functional stages instead of one big bang that may take many years to complete.

This would apply to constructional and infrastructural projects as well as software projects. This bite size approach may reduce the risk of projects be stalled due to such interruptions as virus pandemics and other contributing factors.

Also ensuring value for money is realised on each project and that their is a sound business case backing up each project that is implemented.

There are many cases of projects being implemented purely because 'everybody else is doing it' and as such a crowd mentality creeps into the project management sphere on influence.

Resources of time and labour will be more closely monitored and scheduling will become an ever increasing and important knowledge area of project management.

Daire

Dear Luis,

There is no substitution for experience and each project manager has their own approach to project management that incorporates the teachings of project management.

The one point I was trying to get across in the discussion about the the up and coming PMBOK Version 7 is that is it not going to repeat previous content, will build upon previous teachings and will add new trends and updates to project management.

As such SCRUM is one approach to agile that does not use a project manager and instead employs a scrum master. From my experience this works well in environment where no body knows what the final solution will look like and iterative and incremental releases will bring them closer to the final product by using up all the requirements and structuring them into a solution.

However project management did not evolve from software development applications so I do not see that being the main driver and reason for the further development of the project management profession.

It is important in management to be able to spot a gap or weakness in the way you doing something and be able to self analyses and come up with a new approach to doing something.

As such PMI PMBOK is not a rigid framework but instead a flexible approach to how to approach the implementation of projects

Daire

Dear Daire
Thank you for sharing your opinion with us

My initial question concerns:
In the SCRUM approach, the project manager has ceased to exist.
Can companies, based on online and pandemic work experience, conclude that project managers can be expendable?

Dear Luis,

In SCRUM the methodology does not call for the need of a project manager as everyone on the project team has any equal status and self organise in order to deliver a solution.

The scrum master ensures that the traffic is running smoothly and that there is not roadblocks.

If you question is will every project implementation be like SCRUM, I would say look at where SCRUM is being implemented and if this can be replicated in other sectors.

You will find that it is highly unlikely as to remove the hierarchy and structure that a project environment required means removing the organisation that requires a project be incubated in.

I can not seeing an infrastructure project taking place using a scrum master instead of a project manager and the scrum master needing to consult with the project team before a decision can be made. This would just slow everything down.

Projects involving the public sector require a hierarchy structure to take place to allow accountability to exist and that decision are made in a constructive manner.

Daire

Dear Rami
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion

In creating this topic, I just wanted us to reflect a little on the impact that confinement (if prolonged) will have on the project management profession

I am aware that, in addition to being difficult it would be a "shot in the foot" to predict the future

Luis

At this point in time, no one can predict anything. We live only day at a time.

RK

Luis,

I managed international projects remotely for many years and learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t (at least for my environments). I had successes and less-than-successful outcomes with teams, with most of the less-than-successful outcomes occurring on cultural way-of-working, risk tolerance, and corporate political concerns. In truth, physical presence was needed a lot more often than one might think, as the human interactions of vulnerability, empathy, and courage (to name a few) are not easily transferable with static remote communications.

In addition, problem-solving and brain-storming sessions (i.e., meetings and workshops) often require collaborative visualization (e.g., dynamic whiteboarding ) and team exercises to be effective. Let alone the need to examine the body language and facial expressions of your colleagues and opponents.

With that said, I foresee in the not too distant future the need for “realistic - virtual reality” collaboration tools, wherein we have a virtual presence in a virtual room, able to respond and read the participants no differently than if there was physical-presence. With such tooling, human interaction deficits would be largely mitigated.

With or without these tools, an empowered project manager is even more critical in remote environments as the elasticity of project variables correspond directly to the physical and cultural distance of the team members.

Luis,

I managed international projects remotely for many years and learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t (at least for my environments). I had successes and less-than-successful outcomes with teams, with most of the less-than-successful outcomes occurring on cultural way-of-working, risk tolerance, and corporate political concerns. In truth, physical presence was needed a lot more often than one might think, as the human interactions of vulnerability, empathy, and courage (to name a few) are not easily transferable with static remote communications.

In addition, problem-solving and brain-storming sessions (i.e., meetings and workshops) often require collaborative visualization (e.g., dynamic whiteboarding ) and team exercises to be effective. Let alone the need to examine the body language and facial expressions of your colleagues and opponents.

With that said, I foresee in the not too distant future the need for “realistic - virtual reality” collaboration tools, wherein we have a virtual presence in a virtual room, able to respond and read the participants no differently than if there was physical-presence. With such tooling, human interaction deficits would be largely mitigated.

With or without these tools, an empowered project manager is even more critical in remote environments as the elasticity of project variables correspond directly to the physical and cultural distance of the team members.

George
thanks for sharing your experience on virtual working. I am in agreement.

Especially the role of VR/AR is important and I am sure it’s application will now accelerate.

Not only for team meetings but also for training and more important for change management. VR has the capability to induce emotions in us and so to create lasting experience. You do not have to go somewhere to feel and understand. This opens up new venues to thoroughly change peoples perceptions and behaviors in ways not possible until today.

As to your point with whiteboarding, I already use it with zoom virtually and with excellent results.