WHAT WILL BE THE ROLE IN THE FUTURE OF A PROJECT MANAGER?

Estimating

Anonymous

Greetings. For purposes of academic discussion, I would like to solicit your insights as to what do you think will be the role in the future of a project manager. The future could be 10 years heceforth. Many thanks.

Posted: Feb 15, 2005 2:09 AM

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Mike Cooper PMP Principal Project Manager (retired, sort of)| New England Project Services Westford, Ma, United States

Project management is not rocket science. Doing it is hard, because it involves working with people.

I've been involved in project management for over 20 years, and what I see as important today was equally important 10 years ago and 20 years ago, and I believe will be equally imnportant 10 years from now.

I sum up the fundamentals as:

lead the people
manage the work
manage stakeholder expectations

Some environmental issues may change, such as working in a more matrixed environment, working with more suppliers, across more cultures and time zones, but the basics of sound planning, tracking, communcations, won't change.

Posted: Feb 15, 2005 12:37 PM

Anonymous

I like to think I'll be leading a vast workforce of robots whose estimating abilities are 100% accurate.

Posted: Feb 17, 2005 5:18 PM

Mark Price Perry Business Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT International Orlando, Fl, United States

Dear Anonymous, you posted a posed a nice discussion question and I hope to read and learn from others. I agree with Mr. Cooper's reply and would only add that in ten years, perhaps continuous improvement, organizational maturity, and product of the project accountability will be key skills as well as a key role of the project manager. Project manager skills have increased over the years in terms of management of the project effort and are well positioned to further increase in terms of continuous improvement of processes and best practices, contribution to organization maturity, and knowledge of the customer's business vis a vis how well the product of the projects actually meet and live up to the business case benefit statements and justification for the project. Project managers can contribute greatly in this area, perhaps just as much or even more than functional management. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International

Posted: Feb 18, 2005 12:44 AM

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WHAT WILL BE THE ROLE IN THE FUTURE OF A PROJECT MANAGER?

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