Make no mistake; the world of industrial project management has recently taken a remarkable turn. The world is rapidly shifting digital and for good reason. We are experiencing great breakthroughs in the areas of Industry 4.0, IoT, cloud computing, and AI that facilitate the ability to harvest, collate, curate, and parse vast amounts of formerly disparate data. We are learning to synthesize useful and actionable insights from this data. The pipeline of innovative technology solutions leveraging these new digital platforms paints a stark picture for traditional project development: projects are no longer exclusively physical or produce concrete deliverables. Rather, they are increasingly abstract in nature – comprised of software, experimentation, data, and other intangible notions. Adaptation is imperative.
Project management had historically involved the creation of a tangible item; a widget, a campaign, a building, or maybe a physical process. We built prototypes, ran experiments, erected facilities, devised elaborate processes, and purchased specialized equipment to support our project objectives. If there was a nexus with IT, it was considered inconsequential and they might be called in at the end of the project to help wrap up minor loose ends. Now digital technology and information is often at the center of large-scale projects and inextricably linked to the success of our projects in ways we formerly couldn’t have imagined.
Let’s face it. The world is moving away from the idea that commerce lay in the supply of goods alone. Instead, services and information are predominantly supplanting traditional commodities for coveted value. As such, we find ourselves face to face with a paradigm shift in which the virtual is overtaking the material in consuming our time and effort. Rather than working a lathe or crafting a widget, generating software code, tracking orders, or analyzing customer trends become routine activities in our industrial projects.
Project teams need to adapt to this challenging new reality. Software, information-related hardware, networks, and user interfaces are now an integral part of today’s sophisticated industrial projects. Nearly all significant projects now include vital elements that require custom mobile applications and/or IoT interfaces in order to achieve the project goals. Concurrent development is not enough. Collaborative, integrated project management that appreciates the digital components of the project is now prescribed.
In the software development world, Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban help self-organizing teams quickly and intensely focus on singular features or functionality to create code that adapts to complex and changing customer needs. Traditional waterfall or stage-gate project management methodologies do not support a rapidly changing environment like this. Folding software development (or other highly technical digital endeavors) into a traditional project framework is pointless. They are now increasingly incompatible. Instead, we must accept that it is the conventional project management framework that should conform.
What was once the domain of the project manager is now rightly the realm of a diverse and cohesive high-performing team. The skill sets and project requirements are both far too complex now not to expand the team model to cover this larger project scope. Software and mobility apps are almost ubiquitous with the performance of most every job function. They should be developed, managed and deployed with valuable real-time feedback from the users.
Have you considered challenging the conventional project management model in favor of something more agile, more comprehensive, and more digital? Don’t forget to include the digital components of your projects up front in your execution plan. Team makeup and management may be the key to capitalizing on your next digital opportunity.
Lean in and Lean on.