PMI Project Management Conference 2017 - The Project Manager of the Future

Last week I attended the PMI's Project Management Congress in Hong Kong.  The PMI Hong Kong Chapter are celebrating their 20th Anniversary.

It was an excellent event with a range of speakers from different industries.  There was also an award ceremony for Project Management students which included Young Project Manager of the Year and Project of the Year.

I was invited to make a presentation on "The Project Manager of the Future" a summary of which is included in this post.

The pace of change is undoubtedly accelerating. We have seen tremendous changes over the last decade, but just imagine what kind of changes we will see over the next 10 years….wireless sensors everywhere, driverless cars, robots in shops, the list goes on.

"Digital" will have an ever increasing impact on our daily lives including from a work perspective, with many jobs, especially manual type jobs, disappearing forever, and new technology based jobs being created. 

Change is no longer linear, in many areas, especially technology, change is happening exponentially. For example, computer power doubles every 18 months in accordance with Moores Law.  Change will be particularly dramatic in the construction industry. We are starting to see the deployment of technology such as BIM, 3D Printing, Robotics, Drones etc and these are generating huge productivity gains in the construction industry. As this technology becomes more affordable we will see the pace of adoption accelerate.

Change is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact change represents a huge opportunity for the Project Management profession and here’s why.  Change is effectively moving from a current state to a future state.  The journey is best achieved by defining that journey as a Project and delivering it with Project Management techniques implemented by Project Managers.

As projects become larger, more complex and faster, Project Management skills alone will not be enough to deliver successful outcomes.  The Project Manager of the Future will need to develop additional, largely softer skills such as:

• Change Management
• Leadership
• Stakeholder Management
• Communications
• Listening
• Risk Management
• Data Analytics

This type of Project Manager will be in big demand!

When the pace of change was slower, delivering projects in a traditional way to a prescribed and clearly defined goal was ok, but not anymore. The problem with this very linear method of delivery is that nowadays the goal moves faster than you can deliver to it.  The Project Manager of the Future has to be better at understanding the direction of travel in any particular industry and steer towards where the goal is most likely to be in the future and be agile and flexible along the way. This requires a change in mindset.

In the future project success will be less about delivering to pre-determined time, cost & quality targets (though that is still relevant) and more about delivering outcomes which create benefits and competitive advantage for the business.  Achieving better outcomes and greater return on investment can best be achieved by challenging norms, leveraging technology & data and applying new thinking to problems so a shift from outputs to outcomes.

So in conclusion, what will The Project Manager of the Future look like?  Well, the good news is, it won’t be a robot! Quite the opposite.  These are the attributes I think will be increasingly important for Project Managers

GO DIGITAL

1. Embrace technology and use it to our advantage or risk being left behind.
2. Use digital data to share information, identify trends, identify and manage risk, and make informed decisions.
3. Develop a deep understanding of the vision and strategy of the core business you are supporting and identify ways in which the business could be improved through capital investment.
4. Move from rigid to more agile and flexible methods of delivery.
5. Establish Eco-Systems and co-create solutions with a wide range of stakeholders, many of which will be outside your industry.

STAY HUMAN

1. Develop soft skills including Leadership, Communication and Listening.
2. Empower others. Create teams with a wide range of age, skills, cultural background and gender. Learn how to effectively delegate to free up time for strategic thinking, planning, solution development and problem solving.
3. Use your experience, knowledge and wisdom to good effect.