5 Facts Shaping the Future

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This year formula of 4th Project Management Conference organized by PMI Poland Chapter Wroclaw Branch was a bit different and I liked it very much. Except from a few speakers and a panel discussion on trends in project management (BTW, my take away from that discussion is that in the end what we want to become is love – thanks to Bruno Kahne), 3 project teams had a chance to share their case studies, real life project experience.  I had a pleasure to join one of them – GOVECS, a pioneer within the fast growing electric mobility sector, understands the market and consumers” needs and offers customized solutions.

In this post I would like to focus on 5 global trends with some tips from Govecs and the „Schwalbe” project, presented by Sławomir Kortas, „Schwalbe” Project Manager and Tomasz Pawlak,  Govecs PMO Director. The guys called them FACTS as they are not trends any more but Govecs’ best practices.

frienship

When we think about relationships with customers, partners, contractors or teammates, partnership come to our minds. But I agree with Kevin Kelly that nowadays it’s even more, it’s a friendship.

„Give real attention and focus on building relationships. Success is not about the idea. It’s about the entrepreneur. It’s not the „what” that makes a difference, it’s the „how” and above all, the „who” does it”

Gallup research shows that employees who have friends at work are seven times more likely to be engaged at work.

Agile Manifesto states: „Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”. In Agile teams a Product Owner, who is very often the client/customer representative is a part of the team. Why” Because it’s much easier to achieve collaboration. And it”s all about collaboration ” creating the positive synergy where the result of the team is much bigger than the sum of results of each team member. Collaboration requires trust and this depends on deep relationships.

Building  shared understanding, one goal, one team, acting as a single mind, that’s the key to success. I’ve asked Govecs what kind of relations they build with their contractors, partners and employees. The answer was obvious – friendship is a fact. Even with much bigger brands such as Bosch their relation is based on trust and support whenever needed which leads to successful collaboration.

agile

Agile is not a methodology. It is not something you do. It is something you become. That state comes after a mind shift. It requires that you let go off some of your current mindset.

Software development has long been the primary home of agile project management, but we’ve been steadily watching agile leak into industries outside IT. For example, there’s already an agile marketing manifesto, editorial staff often use kanban software to organize articles, and Scrum’s been used in finance for almost a half-decade now.

But these examples are discrete, a sampling of the very few industries that are even familiar with project management to begin with. And that’s about to change.

In just the past few months, agile project management has visibly crept into all industries. Graphic designers and UX professionals are using it. Agile is revolutionizing pet food product development. Even construction management has introduced agile to its workflows. IT no longer has a monopoly on the project management technique”.

How about agility in Govecs? What does it mean for them? Agile manufacturing is manufacturing that responds quickly to customers desires and input through a highly communication system to product high quality, customized modular products. AGILE leadership is a mindset.

collaboration tools

„We are observing a shift from existing project management software to collaboration software, like Slack and its alternatives.  Given that Millennials now make up a majority of the workforce, it”s no wonder that online communication tools have reached new heights. Project management software like Asana and Crocagile are dedicated to rethinking email. „Social media” is now not just a household word, but an essential networking phenomenon.

The big daddy in business chat is Slack with its features that make it perfectly suited for work, including automatic archiving of all your interactions, a good search engine and the ability to work across just about every device you use. Because it is hosted online and is extremely customizable, Slack is also easy for corporate technology departments to set up and maintain.

These features have helped turn Slack into one of the fastest-growing business applications in history. After only a year in operation, Slack served about half a million workers every day as a partial replacement for email, instant messaging and face-to-face meetings. Its base of users is doubling every three months and in October 2016 was 4 mil users since 2013, when it started.”

Govecs uses a lot of new collaboration tools. Also visual management is their day to day practice – you can see a lot of drawings, post-its, so called „high touch and low tech tools”. The collaboration tools they use are BaseCamp, TimeCamp, War Room and Slack.

 team identity

Team identity refers to the phenomena of individual team members who feel a positive attitude towards, and identify with, their team. When team members achieve team identity, they put the needs of the team before their own. Easy or difficult? Having in mind that Human beings are 90 percent chimp (selfish) and 10 percent bee(caring for others) quite challenging.

But hold on, human nature was produced by natural selection working at two levels simultaneously. Individuals compete with individuals within every group. But human nature was also shaped as groups competed with other groups. As Darwin said long ago, the most cohesive and cooperative groups generally beat the groups of selfish individualists. Darwin’s ideas about group selection fell out of favor in the 1960s, but recent discoveries are putting his ideas back into play, and the implications are profound. We’re not always selfish hypocrites. We also have the ability, under special circumstances, to shut down our petty selves and become like cells in a larger body, or like bees in a hive, working for the good of the group. These experiences are often among the most cherished of our lives.

Although we strive for diversity, once we have created a team we should „erase” differences, increase identity ” find the common stuff ” the goal, build shared understanding.

So what Govecs does to increase identity?

A dedicated office called EDISON with characteristic lamps – the name was chosen by employees in a contest – the idea came from Sławek, Schwalbe PM.  T-shirts  mugs, celebrations, all these increase cohesiveness, engagement and collaboration.

sharing

The concepts of owning and sharing underwent a significant shift these last few years.  Consumers are less and less interested in possession. It is not about assets. It is about access. It is not about „having”. It is about experiencing. This „I own, therefore I am” idea lasted for long time. It drove and still does prompt the business models of most big brand companies.  But we entering the era of the new sharing. Where we exchange „a place to stay” on AirBnB or sublet our vehicle via FlightCar, instead of having it waiting for us at over expensive airport garages.”

We are getting overwhelmed with stuff, so the concept of sharing instead owning is shaping the future and goes beyond project management. But wait a minute,  don’t we want to work on projects that make a difference to the World” Don”t we look for meaning and purpose in what we do” In teal thinking it is called „a revolutionary goal”.

Why Govecs is successful? Because everything they do has a meaning and purpose, they shape the future!

More on the conference in Sławomir Kortas’ post.

Source: Capterra 5-biggest-project-management-trends-shaping-2017

PMI is the registered trade mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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