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.
Tags: agile, complexity, future, long-tail, pmbox, prince-2, project-management, saas, Tech
One Comment
I don’t fully agree with clear distinction between small, easy project and complex monsters. Complexity of projects can grow unexpectedly and it’s not very uncommon.
Another thing is I prefer versatility over deep specialization in project management. I believe good project manager should be able to manage both heavy-weight project and development of small “agile” application. That’s why I wouldn’t be so quick to give a choice: you’re either on “long tail” side or “very complex” one.
One more argument here is the wider horizons PM has (including experience in dealing with different sizes of projects), the easier he overcomes issues which appear.