When looking back at the year 2011 it is natural to base on our past predictions, especially considering I made a bunch of them. Reading my guesses for the last year I’d say that I was right in terms of general trends, although here and there I underestimated the strength of the change.
Year 2011
I’m especially happy with my past views on the project management landscape, which I believe stands against the challenge of time. You may say this part was actually easy to predict as, in general, we don’t see any rapid changes around. And as long as you pay attention to what is happening around you, you will be at least a bit familiar with the next big thing, whatever it happens to be.
On the formal side of the project management scene, there isn’t another three-letter abbreviation, besides PMP, which people would like to add after their names. In agile parts of the world Scrum is effectively a brand, meaning that different courses for Certified Scrum Whatevers are a great business. Does it mean our situation in our projects is any better? No, not really. On average, we still suck in building great software.
One thing I definitely underestimated is how fast Kanban adoption would grow. This is somewhat surprising, since you can officially consider me biased in this area, as I’m one of Kanban loudmouths. Anyway, it’s still an interesting thing to observe, as I believe we can notice some recurring patterns which have happened, are happening and will happen again. More on this in my predictions for this year.
Year 2012
I could probably just rewrite my predictions from the last year and I wouldn’t be fundamentally wrong on any single thing. I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to predict how the global and local economy will be changing next year, except that it’s probably going to be worse than it is. Some time ago I was talking with a CEO and asked him how he feels about year 2012. As he was very optimistic, I asked him how he’d felt about year 2009 at the end of 2008. It appeared he’d been very optimistic as well. And then recession had come and rendered all plans utterly useless. IT is still way healthier than the majority of industries, so I would say that there’s no need to worry much. We will see it coming, when it’s coming. And whatever is coming.
Methods
Despite the market situation, broad understanding of project quality will definitely make a difference. And there we come to one of patterns I mentioned earlier. When I look at Kanban adoption in the world I see big differences depending on geography. There are parts of Europe which are leading the pack, but there are also those which are virtually black holes. By the way, the US is, as usual, in the better group. Now, if you looked at agile adoption five, six or seven years ago, the map would look similar!
What does it mean in terms of the next year? Well, when it comes to organizational maturity, those who already fight an uphill battle with improving their methods would continue to do so, while parts of the world which are more open to adopting new methods will slowly but systematically increase the quality gap. In the time span of 12 months, there won’t be that much of a difference, but if nothing changes in the long run some countries can repeat India’s way. Off-shoring isn’t that trendy anymore, even though this market is still enormous in India.
There is good news as well. It doesn’t mean that a single organization can’t do great, even if they are on the wrong side of the fence. They definitely can. What more it’s usually easier to shine as the background is going to be, well, less competitive.
One conclusion to remember: if you look at qualities of candidates for your employees, consider urge to learn as one of crucial ones.
Project Management as Business
For me this is sort of a sad observation, but whichever method hits the mainstream is aggressively monetized. It was by design with PMP. It happened with Scrum. It will happen with Kanban as well, even though Kanban can’t be called a project management method. I would say that it won’t happen in 2012, but you can’t stave it off much longer.
Unfortunately the more monetisation there is in any given method, the less value different certificates have. Yet still, on a wide market there will be plenty companies that value such certificates highly, or even require them. This trend will be even stronger this year than it was the last one.
It’s up to everyone to decide whether they want to pursue certification or rather focus on building their skills. Both can land us in well-paid jobs.
Success rate
It won’t change. I should probably finish with these few words, but I’ll add an explanation. When it comes to big scale, whole markets, success rates won’t change. I believe that whatever the next CHAOS report shows, it will be similar to results from previous editions. However, success rate can change dramatically when it comes to a single organisation. Better methods, more learning and awareness can all be game-changers.
The sad part of the message is that I don’t expect it to be commonly seen. It will be a difference between more and less mature companies; a difference between more and less mature markets. But it will all drown in the big scale, overwhelmed by multiple organisations that deal with projects like we were still in early 1990s.
Summary
If you want the short version of these predictions there will more of doing the same things we did last year. For the better or for the worse.
Dan,
I like your perspective and predictions – intuition is more what I would call it since this is driven by your experiences and observations.
I am curious. As a project management professional, what are some of the most common causes of project failures? And, how do you keep them from failing? Do you have some tools that help you stay on top of it all by giving you data-driven advise – a true prediction of what to expect based on where you have been,
We would love to show a simple, web-based tool for managing projects that also builds in a data-driven predictions of the success of the projects, I call it the “cone of confidence”. Its continuous, its automatic, and its valuable information. Check out http://alvazan.com for a FREE trial.
I would be interested in your thoughts and professional opinion on the value of such tools in terms of changing the way projects are managed and improving the percentage of successful projects.
k