Technology is advancing as fast as ever and we are constantly asking questions as to how to adapt to these technology changes. Isn’t it more important for us to ask how these new technologies can be used as tools to enhance project performance? Let’s explore this a little bit in regards to the Web 2.0 movement.
Web 2.0 includes such technologies as blogs, wikis, web services, and the seemingly all encompassing “cloud.” The “cloud” refers to the accessibility to small chunks of functionality that we can readily incorporate into our tools to make them our own. For example, we can readily customize some communications over the Internet with a “Gant Chart Wizard” by simply placing some basic information or code right in our writing on a web page, and it will automatically incorporate the Gantt chart functionality that we otherwise know very well.
The reason I entitled this post “Project Management Essentials in Web 2.0” is that I wanted to emphasize the idea of project management essentials. What Web 2.0, or any other technology advancement for that matter, is the ability for any practitioner to focus on the true essentials of their job, rather than getting bogged down by what I will call administrative busy work. In other words, in the example above, the less time spent crafting the Gantt chart means more time spent on the true project management essentials such as; stakeholder management, communications, leadership, and the like. Our time can thus be spent more on the essentials than on the trivial with the aid of Web 2.0 project management tools.
The true project management essentials that we can focus on are “at the seam.” They are the communications issues that arise when we identify that something is not quite working – that messages aren’t quite getting across, that ideas aren’t quite being communicated, that activities aren’t quite as coordinated as we would like them to be. So we can set up the tools to feed information back to us and across the project organization. But we can limit the amount of time spent working on getting these tools, or spent on getting this information, and spend much more time working at the seam of where this information is at odds with the project’s goals and objectives.
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John Reiling, PMP
Project Management Training Online
Tech Training Online
2 responses so far ↓
1 shim marom // Sep 29, 2009 at 3:07 am
I wrote about it in my blog (see http://wp.me/pCivG-1V) where I elaborated on the fact that the these 2.0 tools don’t really make any real contribution to the art of project management. There’s much more to project management than using collaboration or web based tools.
2 aburke53 // Jun 30, 2010 at 11:02 am
There is definitely more to project management than the new Web 2.0 collaboration tools and social networking platforms. However, on all projects getting the comms right is so difficult and this includes marketing your project but digital marketing is hard to do. I wrote a blog (see http://goo.gl/6TFI) where I talk about all the options for marketing. Choose some of these methods to market and communicate about your project.
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