As I am sure most of you know, PMI tracks and identifies a number of Megatrends each year. This year, one of them is digital disruption (and you can read more about that here). There’s some great content on that page, and many things that I could write about. But I want to focus on the six areas that PMI identifies as the “top digital-age skills for product delivery.” And I’m going to consider some of them more than others. The six areas are:

1. Innovative mindset
2. Legal and regulatory compliance knowledge
3. Security and privacy knowledge
4. Data science skills
5. Ability to make data-driven decisions
6. Collaborative leadership skills

Now, PMI identifies those for product delivery, but clearly there is considerable overlap there with project management—that’s how products get developed and enhanced, and many organizations are evolving software development projects into a product-based management and delivery model.

Out of that list, innovation has been covered on ProjectManagement.com in the past, and collaborative leadership is something that all project managers should have as a core capability. And of course, project managers have been making data-driven decisions since the dawn of time—there is no shortage of project management metrics, regardless of the approach that you personally use. But what about those other areas?

I think most project managers would say that they have some knowledge of both legal and regulatory compliance, as well as security and privacy—but I also suspect that knowledge is rather rudimentary, and perhaps not at the level that PMI is imagining.

And data science? I’m pretty sure I’d fail on that one. Data science isn’t a single predefined list, but think math, data visualization, data manipulation, possibly some programming, and so on. There’s also the larger concept of data ethics and the related concepts of AI and machine learning. Depending on a project manager’s background, they may be skilled in some or all of those skills, but I suspect most won’t be.

But let’s elevate this analysis a little. Let’s not look at these skills in terms of individual project managers, let’s consider them as requirements for work teams—whether those teams are delivering projects, products, value streams, capabilities or something else entirely. Now we make this conversation about the environment—about how organizations create the ability to cover these six areas within each of their teams.

That seems more logical to me—it doesn’t let project managers off the hook, but neither does it require project managers to be directly accountable for all areas.

Preparing teams for the digital age

I want to separate these three areas of need, numbers 2 to 4 inclusive from the list above, into two distinct categories because I think that different approaches are needed for each of those categories.

When it comes to 2 and 3, the issue is one of awareness and communication. Number 4, data science, needs more of a skill-based solution. I’ll get to that one later, but let’s start with knowledge of legal and regulatory compliance, and security and privacy.

In most organizations, there are pockets where there is a comprehensive understanding of what is required in these areas: internal audit and governance functions, a dedicated data security or data privacy officer, a liaison with regulators, etc. To ensure that project and product teams have the knowledge that is needed to address these areas, organizations simply have to:

• Ensure that teams understand the need for these areas to be considered at all times
• Provide a framework and standards for what is expected
• Provide access to the available expertise within the organization

That may still require an investment on the part of the organization. For example, there may need to be additional staff added to provide enough support for all teams, but generally speaking this is simply an exercise in awareness and information sharing. I believe the biggest part of that is establishing a standard—a performance baseline that everyone has to meet when it comes to privacy, security, compliance and legal responsibilities.

This sounds like it should be fairly straightforward, but that isn’t always the case. Organizations can define policies, they can specify minimum system security requirements, ensure that personal data is encrypted to a sufficient level and so on, but there’s more to it than that. These areas also have to consider how people work, how work in progress is managed, even things like what kind of data is used in test systems and whether contractors or vendors have access to it.

I believe that we are soon going to reach a point where teams are assigned a compliance analyst or similar role. Just as projects may be assigned a financial analyst, or a dedicated PMO support resource today, so they will need to have an expert available who can answer any questions around these areas, and provide guidance on how best to comply with policies and standards.

If not already in place, there will also be a need for formal signoff on these areas for any solution that is going into an operational environment, whether that’s an internal system/function or a customer-facing product or service.

Data science is a rather different animal. Data scientists are still fairly specialist roles that aren’t common in all organizations, and I’m not sure that every organization is going to need a full-time data scientist role to support projects in the foreseeable future. But that doesn’t mean that data science itself isn’t important. The ability to gain more insight from data through the application of data science principles is going to become ever more critical to organizations. Those organizations are looking to ensure that they are making the right investments and obtaining the best possible return, and data analytics are key to that.

I see this concept being applied more at the portfolio level, at least initially, than at the project level (although undoubtedly some very large projects could also benefit from it). That likely means aligning it with the PMO or similar function that is accountable for portfolio management. If there are existing roles in the organization, whether as formal data scientists or as programmer analysts working with the enterprise BI tool or similar, then I believe that can be leveraged.

There will be a need for some degree of data analysis at all times, but there will be periods when that need is greater—during initial portfolio modeling and investment selection for example, so operating as an internal service-based model likely makes the most sense.

Over time, there may need to be data science principles applied directly to the organization’s project portfolio management (PPM) platform, which may lead to a need for a dedicated resource. However, ideally PPM tools integrate with the rest of the organization’s technology infrastructure, feeding the same data lake as is used by the BI platform, and eliminating the need for any distinct analysis capabilities.

One of the barriers to this happening right now, even in organizations that currently have data scientists, is the willingness to accept data science principles within a project environment. This is another reason why I see the portfolio level as being the most appropriate point to introduce the concept.

While data is essential to the success of individual projects, the increasing focus on leadership and people development at the project level is likely to cause some friction during the adoption period. Additionally, project managers, while not data scientists, have a reasonable handle on the simpler analysis of project data that will address the vast majority of project-specific needs.

Conclusions

When PMI identifies a megatrend, we should all take notice. These aren’t some future potential impacts that may affect us at some point. These are trends that are gaining traction globally and will have impact in the near future if they aren’t already. The current focus on digital transformation; the ongoing focus on effective, technology-enabled collaboration; and the ever-advancing pace of technological innovation all mean that the digital future is rapidly becoming the digital present.

That’s going to be disruptive, but it already has been disruptive—and there’s no reason why project managers, PMOs and all stakeholders in project delivery can’t embrace that disruption and leverage it to deliver higher levels of performance. Following PMI’s six focus areas is a pretty good place to start.

 

Source: https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/794343/are-you-ready-for-the-digital-world-