The Future of Project Management is … Not a Straight Line!

By David L. Pells

The Future of Project Management continues to be a major topic of interest and entertainment, and even intrigue, around the PM professional world this year. It is the topic of papers, presentations and even entire tracks at PM conferences. It seems to be of such high interest that I have now been invited to speak on this topic at the PM Days project management conference during 18-19 November 2008. The topic of my speech will be the same as this paper; in fact, I am using this editorial as an opportunity to develop this theme and to document my conclusions.

The discussion of the future of project management often seems to involve projections based on recent trends in the PM profession or in the application of PM concepts, or in research, theory development and even implementation in the marketplace. One of the biggest difficulties related to discussing future scenarios for project management, however, is the fact that project management means different things to different people – and organizations.

So first we should define some terms and try to set the context for this discussion. Then I will explain why I think that the future of PM is not a straight line projection but will be all over the map, will involve a variety of application scenarios, and will offer many of us opportunities to create positive change in the world.

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