Quality Trend 2 - There will be a trend towards Profound Knowledge.

Ultimately, organizations led by people who are guided by the System of Profound Knowledge are likely to be much more efficient and successful than organizations which continue with the prevailing style of management. Profound Knowledge systems integrate increasing knowledge as part of the system. To this end, no longer is quality management relegated to production and no longer is project management only an IT initiative. Quality and project management are infused into everyone position within every department within every organization. This is equally true for both public sector and private sector organizations. We are seeing training and development initiatives as well as consulting assignments focusing on how to develop quality measures to all work, projects and learning. This includes details on how to transfer this knowledge to others so that it stays resident in the organization when staff leaves. This is becoming critical as more and more long-term staff retires.

Quallity Trend 1 - Quality Management is not dead – it continues to evolve

Quality Management never really died. It evolved. Rather than being relegated as a position title or a department, it has been infused into the way everyone works in every single position within their organizations. Quality is about products and services. It is about people and processes.

Quality management has become a critical element contributing to the successful development of innovations. It is now integrated into project management. Successful projects have clear quality processes, tools and templates. Quality management is well, alive and living in organizations today and in the future.

The Future of Project Management - Trend 8

Risk management will become standard practice for all projects

Project teams will conduct regular risk assessments at the beginning, mid-way and at the end of a project to proactively identify what might prevent success in the management of a project as well as to have contingencies in place to manage a risk, should it occur.

Proper risk management implies control of possible future events, and is proactive rather than reactive. It will reduce not only the likelihood of an event occurring, but also the magnitude of its impact. Organizations that consistently follow a risk management process on all of their projects will see a reduction in their management by crisis. There will always be some things that will occur but most of these, through sound risk management, can be managed, rather than reacted to.


Concluding Remarks
Many of you will read these trends and believe that you are not “senior” enough in your respective organizations to ensure these trends are effectively implemented in your organizations. This is not at all true. One of the great strengths of leaders is their ability to use influence and critical thinking skills to bring about positive change. Each of us can choose to be either a leader or a follower. We must decide. Our organization’s future may depend upon the right decisions being made today. Hopefully, knowledge of these trends will help you stay ahead of your competitors and help you contribute to your organization’s future success.

I look forward to hearing your comments,
Michael

The Future of Project Management - Trend 7

Organizations will increase the use of Project Health Checks and Project Audits

There will be more project health checks to quickly identify the interim issues, concerns and challenges being experienced by projects. This will reduce fire-fighting and management by crisis by quickly identifying the root causes of the problems. This forensic view will identify the actions required to realize the project’s opportunities and provide assurance to the organization that the project will meet the required schedule, budget and customer requirements.

There will be more project audits completed at the end of projects in order to identify the lessons learned that will help future projects gain knowledge from the project’s successes and challenges. This knowledge will be incorporated into project data repositories to ensure the lessons learned can easily be accessed by project managers.

The Future of Project Management - Trend 6

Organizations will use Best Practices and Knowledge Transfer to successfully launch projects

Organizations that follow best practices will be at a competitive advantage to those who do not apply a structured process to each project. Project management best practices include a disciplined approach to planning, executing and learning from projects.

As part of the move towards greater use of best practices we will also see:
•Use of competency assessments to select the best project resources for any given project.
•Incorporation of project management best practices into all aspects of project management infrastructure including tools, templates and techniques.
•Incorporation of portfolio project management to make sure that projects are prioritized and resourced to align with corporate strategies.
•Increased training for project sponsors to improve their understanding of their roles in helping projects succeed.

Organizations will find value in recording and documenting “Lessons Learned” on projects as a means of passing along the things that worked or did not work on a project. This kknowledge retention and transfer will be a major benefit to organizations because it will contribute to continuous learning and avoidance of repeated mistakes.

The Future of Project Management - Trend 5

Project management and quality management will unite as critical job skill requirements

Project and quality principles will be infused into everyone’s roles within an organization. As the principles of project management fuse with quality management requirements, organizations will expect a quality-based approach to the management of projects. This will help them to successfully execute projects time after time.

To achieve this, organizations will need to apply quality management processes to all aspects of the project management infrastructure including: project management tools, project management templates, project management methods or techniques as well as project management competencies. These project quality management systems will improve project management by providing quality standards for project processes, tools and templates. As well, it will cause a shift in the competency requirements for project management roles.

All this will have enormous implications for project management training as organizations begin to search for curriculums that combine both quality management and project management knowledge bases.

The Future of Project Management - Trend 4

Traditional performance management systems will be overhauled to better reflect work performance on projects

Generally speaking, most performance management systems are out of touch with how work is performed today. They undermine project delivery success because they fail to measure employee performance on special projects that are outside the realm of day-to-day job responsibilities.

This problem with performance management systems can greatly hinder an organization’s ability to successfully deliver projects because employees are less likely to consider their work on projects of equal importance to their measured job performance. Furthermore, functional managers may add fuel to the fire if they disapprove of an employee’s project work or are inflexible about work deadlines.

Because of this, we will see organizations starting to overhaul their performance management systems to make sure it measures employees’ total work performance. These new breed performance systems or “Total Performance Management” systems will be designed to capture feedback from functional managers as well as project managers and will measure total work performance.