There's a new definition of PM 2.0
Project Management 2.0 is an approach to managing projects that is brought to life by the use of Web-based, emergent, collaborative project management software and that focuses on collective intelligence, productivity and project leadership as the basic factors of project success.
Ignoring for the moment if you took out the Web 2.0 words, this would a good description of any modern PM method. So let's look at the product offerings of some mainstream players and test then against the PM 2.0 definition.
- Safran North America
- DelTek
- Oracle Primaveria
- SAP / Dassian
- Microsoft Enterprise Project Management
- A bunch of SharePoint MOSS add ons for Microsoft Project like EPM Solutions
With the new PM 2.0 definition and these tools we see they are for the most part web based - all of which I have hands on experience with in a variety of business domains. They have attributes in common with PM 2.0, if you look at the Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0
The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.
Each of these firms in the list above would say they have Web 2.0 offerings,per the definition above - especially MSFT. Some actually have it more than others of course. But the PM 2.0 attributes like...
- Web based, yep all are web based for the simple reason that Fat Client are too expensive
- Emergent "something"
- Collaborative project management
- Focused on collective intelligence
- Productivity (who doesn't have that in 2009 offerings)
- Project leadership, what ever the units of measure that is
...are stated to be the basic factors of project success.
If it is true that the items above are the basics of the success of a project, then is it likely everyone should toss out PMBOK, the DoD Probability of Project Success guidelines for each service, all the Earned Value Management Systems Descriptions, all the IMP/IMS guidance in the Federal government (DID 81650 for example), all the project management process handbooks developed from CMMI-DEV 1.2, NQA-1 (nukes), the DOE 413.3 series (DOE capital construction and operations), all the risk management guides, SOX, ITIL... OK, you get the point.
The items listed above as the basic of project success are NOT, I repeat NOT, the basic factors for project success. That is utter nonsense. Forget the "no moral motivation" argument. This conjecture follows Wolfgang Pauli's statement about a paper submitted to him for review by a physics student.
This is not only wrong, this is not even right
OK I'll give the PM 2.0 people the last one - leadership. Oh all right, collaborative behaviors in project management is critical. But behaviors don't need fancy tools, just collaborative people. Which by the way are explicitly called out in PMBOK and every government agencies PM handbook.
Here's a book chapter that "may" shed some light on the basics of project management in the context of "agile." Figure 1. is one of many taxonomies of the elements of project activities required for project success. Figure 2. is a recent survey of the primary sources of failure in software projects. And Figure 4. is Capers Jones' software taxonomy. So what is the PM 2.0 sweet stop?
Just to round this off, here's a survey from Marios Alexandrou on project management methods. Some should be considered software development methods, but for sake of argument, let's consider than all PM methods for the moment:
- Adaptive Project Framework
- Agile Software Development
- Crystal Methods
- Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM)
- Extreme Programming (XP)
- Feature Driven Development (FDD)
- Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
- Joint Application Development (JAD)
- Lean Development (LD)
- PRINCE2
- Rapid Application Development (RAD)
- Rational Unified Process (RUP)
- Scrum
- Spiral
- Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
- TenStep Project Management Process
- Waterfall (a.k.a. Traditional)
So now if we connect the project management methods, the Knowledge Areas and Process Groups from PMBOK, with the project management tools, we get a nice dense matrix. In this constructed matrix I'm hard pressed to see how the attributes listed above for PM 2.0 have much to say about "increasing the probability of project success." Which by the way has a specific definition in the context of large projects.
If anyone can connect the dots for me, I am my PM 1.0 colleagues will be humbled to learn what we're missing out on in the PM 2.0 paradigm.
