I am sorry to inform you but Project Management as we know it is dead. Plan-driven approaches are dead. Agile will be dead before it hits the masses. You have no idea how I hate this fact. It makes me sad. Heck, it makes me mad!

Come to think of it, I wonder if it ever was alive. The fact that it seemed to work in the past is no guarantee that it ever was the proper way to do projects. It was not if we had evolution in the field. We didnt start out with a gazillion ways to do things and in the end only a few survived because they were the best. There is no comparison, so who knows.

Why the fuzz now all of a sudden?

As a Project Manager I am now more than ever faced with the fact that part of my teams are at the other end of the world. Different cultures, different time zones, different languages, different customs. Different. Worse? Nope. They are very good, very skilled. I would even say excellent. But I hardly see them, let alone know them.

The part of the team (and stakeholders) located in my country is always on the move. They are multitasking beyond compare. It is rare if someone is dedicated fulltime to one project. For most of them I dont have fulltime tasks. I need more and more different specializations for every new project I take on. More people doing more fragmented tasks. Being mobile. And being spread all over the globe.

Personally I see a trend towards ever increasing complexity in the software projects. Resulting in more people to manage. I also see a trend towards an enormous amount of simple projects caused by the ever increasing automation of small and mid-sized companies using out-of-the-box or hosted applications. Resulting in more projects per Project Manager, meaning more people to manage .

I am not complaining about geographical changes, mobility, flexible workforces or any of the aspects I mentioned above. I am complaining about the tools to my disposal to bring it all to a good end. Agile brought us the much needed attention for the human element of teams. It also brought us a sense that there can be something else than plan-driven. But I honestly cannot see how it will help us in the situation that lies before us.

Yes, all approaches have good elements. I am not looking for good elements though. I am looking for a proper whole. One that is based upon the fact that projects are nothing more than humans working together. One that can deal with the funkiness that humans possess.

I am looking for a true Project Management Body Of Knowledge, one that is based on psychology, sociology, organizational behavior, complex adaptive systems, and whatever might help us out.

If you have that PDF on your hard drive, please mail it to me. I need it.

171 Ways To Improve Tasks And Project Management

This is an incredible list of amazing tools you can use to improve your projects and general task management. It takes a lot of time to view them all, but you will encounter some real gems.

Carnival Of Project Management

Every month Elizabeth Herrin publishes an overview of interesting PM articles of the last month. This months edition is out now.

Classic Computer Ads

Ok, I must admit: I am a nerd. So, that is out in the open. Without shame I can now point you to this post with old school advertisements of computers from the 80s. Great stuff. Enjoy!

Scrum Video

Funny video about scrum teams.

Raven Young points us to a free ebook about Project Management

"It was written by Nick Jenkins in 2006 and is a comprehensive read at 43 pages. The book covers basic project management topics and discusses subjects like the scope triangle, critical path, scope and requirements, planning, scheduling, managing risk and change and more."

SORRY. THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!

This September you can win a free subscription to The Project Management PrepCast, a great way to prepare for the PMP exam. This site is hosted by my friend Cornelius Fichtner from the PM Podcast. Every one that issues a comment on this blog before September 15th will enter the drawing. Of course, your comments need to be relevant to the discussions

Just to be sure: I will only provide ONE free subscription to this site. From all the commenters until 15 September we will select a random winner.

The Project Management PrepCast is the first true and "pod-ready" PMP® Podcast. Students are able to instantly download all 77 episodes and intensify their studies. The average episode lasts 22 minutes giving the students a total of 30 hours of quality PMP audio material.

The podcast covers concepts, tools and techniques in preparation for the PMP® or CAPM® certification exam. We cover material in the PMBOK® Guide, and we include the necessary models, theories and formulas not covered in the Guide.

The podcast offers:

• Instant access to all 77 episodes.
• Plays on all MP3 players.
• 30 hours of training on the PMBOK® Guide and other relevant material.
• 30 contact hours.
• Learn when and wherever you want.
• Listen to each episode as often as you want.
• Designed to help you understand the concepts instead of memorizing them

If you are considering a career in Project Management, I welcome you and congratulate you on a perfect choice. The future is ours. Managing projects is a skill that will be requested more and more in the near future. There will be more projects in the future. And the amount will only increase.

For software projects we will see an enormous amount of projects with small complexity. Just complex enough to justify calling it a project. Small and medium sized companies are stepping up the pace to further automate their processes. But they will use out-of-the-box applications that don't need much customization to do this. This to avoid huge bills on IT. These applications don't even run on the companies servers; the software is offered to them as services they rent. This type of project will become the majority of projects to be done. This can be called the long tail of software projects.

The fat head will be made up of a far smaller number of projects with enormous complexity. For example the projects that create the software that will be rented out to these small companies.

If you are considering training in Project Management you can opt for PMBoK or Prince 2, the fat plan-driven methods that are controlling many projects today. But they will only serve you if you are aiming for the fat head (and even than we are still not sure). If you are finding yourself in the Long Tail of Software Projects, you will need something lighter, something that complements the applications for the mid- and small sized companies: project management out-of-the-box, not too much need for customization. Oh yeah, and cheap.

Should we talking about "agile" for the long tail? For a part agile methods can assist here. But if we consider the properties of the tsunami of projects that await us:

• Rigid software solutions (not much software customization)
• Relatively inexperienced customers concerning IT implementations (small companies)
• Very tight budget
• Lot of virtual working because of small budgets and multiple projects for teams
• Lot of outsourcing to different countries and cultures

And this is exactly a profile not suited for agile methods.

Stay tuned to this blog as we will try to find out how we can serve the long tail in software projects.

For all Dutch people out there that want to see me live and unplugged I will be speaking at the Real Time Collaboration summit in Utrecht (The Netherlands) on September 18th. If you are interested in attending this seminar, please drop me a comment.

And if you are curious, my presentation is entitled: "Clothing Optional, and other benefits of the virtual workplace". It will be tremendous fun! My presentation is sponsored by ProjectPlace.nl.

Hope to see you there!

Good Project Management Can Advance Your Career

It seems that all the skills that employers are looking for are accumulated in the Project Management profession. Rock on!

Project Management and Project Leadership

"It means that project managers should manage first and lead only when its their turn. Let the team members take leadership roles when its their time."

That's an interesting thought.

How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People

This video looks interesting…

"Every open source project runs into people who are selfish, uncooperative, and … all disrespectful. These people can silently poison the atmosphere of a happy developer community. Come learn how to identify these people and peacefully de-fuse them before they derail your project. Told through a series of (often amusing) real-life anecdotes and experiences."

Can any one provide me with a summary?

Hit The Customer Or Programmer

To release the tension of the day, play this flash game to either hit the customer very hard, or slap the sh*$^& out of a programmer.

Some Easy PM Links

A nice list of links to easy articles about Project Management.