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Few would dispute that in the present complex world, businesses are facing increased competition and ongoing disruption from exponential technology boom, ever-demanding clients, market shifts and even social trends. Business success is no longer driven by any one single future of project management factor but requires multiple factors to be met. Smart organizations understand that proven project management practices, anticipating and following the trends lead to greater success of the business and less waste.
This article will help you know the future of project management and understand the gaps. Alongside, you can go for the best Project Management training to further boost your knowledge of PMP.
To understand project management, first we need to discuss what is a project and what constitutes it. A project is a combination of all focused, well-planned, organized, time-bound, measurable, optimizable efforts (that can be broken down into shorter, manageable and time-bound efforts) to create value through unique products, services, and processes or the desired outcomes.
A project could be of short duration or a lengthy one continuing for months and has a fixed timeline attached within which it has to start and end. It is called a project life cycle. Project examples include construction of a bridge, the development of software for a new business process, installation of machinery in a factory, relief efforts after a cyclone, expansion of sales into a new geographic market etc.
Each project, before arriving at an outcome, needs to go through phases of initiation, planning, and execution and requires to be managed to be completed on time with added value. This is known as project management, which is essentially the use of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to deliver something of value to people. It needs to be steered by experts in the particular project domain called project managers.
Key components of project management:
Stages of Project Management
With the global economy becoming more project-oriented, the practice of project management expands within industries that were traditionally less project-oriented, brightening up the future of project management. For example, legal, publishing and professional services are now contributing to future trends in project management.
As per Project Management Institute (PMI), across the globe, a widening gap exists between the need for skilled project management workers by businesses versus the availability of professionals to fill those roles.
Stimulants of project management future scope are:
Job openings due to the expansion of project management with newer sector’s requirements for project management increasing, coupled with attrition in project-oriented sectors from 2017–2027 in the 11 countries analyzed are shown here:
Project management in the last sixty-four years has made a paradigm shift. Successful project management now is not just about organizing tasks and resources and delivering a project on time but has made a long journey ahead.
Project Management Institute (PMI) enlists some significant trends that have shaped the project management profession over the last five decades, namely the globalization of the discipline, the explosion of methods, techniques and practices applied to projects and many others. As new trends continue to emerge, many have already made a dramatic impact on how project managers go about their work. Some such trends are discussed below:
Artificial intelligence and automation considerably impacted project management processes. Modern businesses cannot but use Artificial intelligence to automate manual project tasks and to receive project performance insights.
As per PMI’s exploration and findings, the digital transformation adopted by organizations and institutions during the onset of the Covid pandemic is now a norm. Most new-age businesses and even the existing ones now redefine core business models to gain a competitive advantage in the fast-changing marketplace.
Now, technologies like cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and AI are used regularly by businesses to enhance the customer experience, boost employee efficiency and improve project outcomes.
Project management software that is used for managing projects uses AI for complex scheduling, data visualization, and interactive dashboards to provide information and insights that help decision makers to take fast, better and accurate decisions.
PMI predicts that future project management will keep seeing companies continuing to invest in AI for risk management, decision-making, knowledge management and data analytical skills and many other tasks.
Global brands have already started using matured digital transformation strategies and will continuously keep reskilling and upskilling the workforce, training IT and data specialists to support the proper and meaningful application of AI.
AI is used by businesses to ensure successful project completion in the following ways:
Another emerging area that is gaining traction is the field of emotion AI, which enables machines to read and respond to human emotions.
Data and its management and analytics are the lifeblood of modern project management. Managers must leverage data insights to make fast and informed decisions that contribute to business growth.
Big Data analytics is a fast-impacting trend in the landscape of project management. It is used in project scheduling, risk estimation, quality management, client and many other areas. Inside the project team, it plays a major role in giving insights into team sizes, team formation, members to include and skill sets required to manage projects efficiently.
The demand for improved project outcomes would force business and project managers to predict project success and better guide project managers in the project life cycle.
Technology has made global project management possible. With increased participation and collaboration of talents beyond the boundaries of a nation’s border has improved project management with faster and better project outcomes with desired quality. More than it was possible before. As per the survey by Financeonline;
Understanding the impact of remote work and distributed workforce has now become imperative for project managers to better design, execute, measure and control project outcomes and goals; how a project manager should plan projects and communicate with diverse and remote team members.
The latest project management tools like Slack and other advanced features are proving a blessing for project managers by making effective collaboration possible and more affordable than ever.
The latest internet 5G technology making video streaming possible without consuming much bandwidth or slowing the network has started making project management and team collaboration faster, easier and cheaper.
Project managers now are focusing more on agile principles which are to be flexible and adaptable enough to respond fast to changes in the market and shifting customer needs.
A major shift is going to happen towards scaling agile development since businesses are increasingly adopting DevOps practices, and SAFe Agile is key to success in 2023 and beyond.
Lean business practices like building cross-functional teams, developing minimal viable products, focusing on rapid prototyping, continuous innovation and more are increasingly preferred by organizations, especially major retailers.
Blended project management or hybrid project management as it is differently called infuses various aspects of two (or more) different project management methodologies. It combines them to create an entirely new method that would meet all project requirements. It is often preferred by project managers who feel limited by a single methodology.
One of the recent project management trends is this shift from exclusively one project management alone to a hybrid model. According to a survey, 60 percent of respondents mentioned using either a hybrid of waterfall and agile or other project methodologies (ProjectManager, 2021).
Such a hybrid model provides the flexibility to create one’s own recipe for a project’s success. A project manager mix-matches and blends things to suit the project and no fixed rule applies here. It is completely left to the choice of a project manager with the mixing process.
There is no fixed rule of what project methods can be combined; however, some popular ones include:
A point to note here is, in general, when people talk about hybrid concepts, they usually refer to hybrid Agile project management or a hybrid Agile methodology that takes the flexibility and adaptability of Agile and combines it with the more traditional and rigid approach of Waterfall project management.
Financesonline.com mentions it as one of the soft trends of this year as the hard skills gained from education and experience alone are not enough to gain an edge on the job market. With AI tools taking over the rote aspects of the job, businesses are emphasizing soft skills, demanding that project managers cultivate soft skills to make themselves valuable to organizations. Businesses are prioritizing the following skills within their talent pool in supporting successful projects:
Modern project management surpasses merely fulfilling the project scope and the required documentation. To excel in the role of project manager requires managing stakeholders and building relationships with team members. All these are but the by-products of leadership skills.
Excellent leaders manage to communicate their vision, have great problem-solving skills to mitigate project roadblocks, and can unite team members for a common goal. You can go for PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner training course to know and understand the course better.
Top Cities where Knowledgehut Conduct Project Management Certification Training Course Online
We already mentioned the concept of hybrid project management. Here we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid project management and also the challenges of hybrid project management. We will consider here the Agile and Waterfall features to keep things simple.
Agile Solutions bring flexibility by including features that clients ask for throughout the production and development process and are ideal for highly personalized projects or where continuous feedback is required. Furthermore, it enhances efficiency by finishing multiple tasks simultaneously, sharing responsibilities within the team and offering simple solutions.
Waterfall offers a more traditional project management route with more focus on planning and strategizing to ensure the perfect completion of a process. It means (as the waterfall follows a fixed course) once production and development start, they move forward efficiently knowing the next steps and tasks happen in sequence to avoid mistakes and miscommunication and reduce risks.
Pros and Cons of Hybrid Project Management
Pros
Cons
Challenges of Hybrid Project Management
Though hybrid project management allows the best parts of the chosen methodologies, say Agile and Waterfall, it is not without its challenges.
A list of ten top industries with a towering need for project management and qualified project management professionals are:
Increasing prices, regulations, risks, uncertainty and other concerns make it very tough for project management in the construction industry to profit even under excellent demands and look for qualified professionals to take care of construction projects.
Companies also prefer a more collaborative project management approach and make the overall construction lifecycle much more transparent by using building information modeling (BIM) software and cloud-based management tools.
Moreover, the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and reality technologies like AR/VR, construction monitoring and inspection, digitalization are the elements construction companies are emphasizing on.
Digitization, robotization, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Virtual Reality, 3D printing etc. are changing the way engineering industries work. These are also changing the attitudes of customers and other stakeholders that companies must interact with.
Often engineers find themselves managing engineering projects as part of their duties and therefore project management skills are becoming a part of the core competencies that engineers need to have. Project management is now being considered a tool by matured organizations to implement the strategic changes that are required to adapt to the changing market environment.
Here are the other trending elements that are observed in this sector:
With newer technologies and management paradigms, IT project management's future continues to evolve significantly, and enterprises need to keep up with these changes or risk closure. The PMI survey reports that 81 percent of professionals mention that AI and automation impact their firms.
As per the IT industry experts the things shaping and shaking the world of project management in 2023 and beyond are:
By automating low-value-add tasks, project managers now focus their efforts and energies on tasks that benefit their businesses, increasing the possibility of each project reaching its strategic goals.
Project Management Software combined with AI-based automation capabilities brings about positive changes in the way organizations manage their projects, even the large and complex ones.
Project management plays a crucial role in the finance industry. As per the information obtained from PWC, following are the trends:
Artificial Intelligence and Automation- with global healthcare spending expected to rise at a CAGR of 5 percent between 2019 and 2023, there is strong evidence suggesting a forthcoming evolution in the future scope of hospital management project. The trends are:
The management consulting industry has experienced tremendous growth over the past few years. The increase of consulting market size brings new challenges and trends. A few top trends that will shape the future of management consulting firms are:
The transformational trends to continue will be:
We have already discussed what is the future of project management and also the current and future trends in project management earlier in this article. Here we will highlight the project management scope in the future with respect to various countries.
As per the PMI survey, in the 11 countries analyzed, newly created positions are expected to occur each year in project management-oriented industries making the future of project management in 2022 and onwards encouraging.
India with its massive infrastructure development sprees to achieve its growth targets is a hotspot of project management. By 2030 it is estimated that the country will have more than 1.5 billion people; providing the necessary infrastructure for all of them is a top challenge, making the future of project management in India quite lucrative.
PMI reports by 2027 the USA is going to have 22 million new project management job vacancies.
UK has a rapidly growing demand so far as the project profession is concerned. Over 2 million people are employed in full-time project-based roles contributing £156.5bn to the UK economy.
As per the interim chief executive at the Australian Institute of Project Management, Andrew Hendry, project management is “one of the most sought-after professions at the moment”.
Though the construction industry is yet to bounce back after the pandemic, several major public sector projects are expected to stimulate growth and the projected demand from 2023 to 2026 will be between $25 billion to $32 billion annually. It will include trends like harnessing technological opportunities and digitization sprees to achieve more efficient and sustainable development.
When considering a career the two most crucial factors are a) Earning Potential and b) Career Growth. Project management fulfills both. We have already dealt in-depth with the project management demand. Here we will cover a few additional and interesting survey findings.
PMI and Anderson Economic Group (AEG) jointly made a survey on project-oriented employment opportunities in 11 countries in five continents including developed and/or growing economic powers and predicted that project management related job growth is expected to be 33 percent collectively.
Having dealt with all the nuts and bolts of the future of project management, we will end with yet another bonus trend of the GIG economy which is one of the most transformative global economic trends influencing project management. The term refers to the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. It reflects in many ways the growing dominance of projects and their management.
Around 68 percent of organizations now use outsourced or contract project managers. Instead of considering employment as a life-long or even multi-year commitment, many now move smoothly from project to project and from company to company.
KnowledgeHut Project Management training brings a comprehensive, hands-on approach to you becoming a leading project manager and keeping pace with emerging shifts.
Project management is not necessarily hard to learn. However, some may find some necessary soft skills difficult to learn. For example, leadership and people management could be quite difficult for some. Whereas, effective communication could be a challenge for others.
Project management of the future will:
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