Project Management 2.0 believes in colloboration as the new approach to project management as opposed to traditional project management methods that vested all controls with the project manager.
Project management is becoming a hotly debated subject presumably because it is being impacted by the introduction of several innovative technologies. People are today using blogs, wikis, and collaboration planning tools to work on projects. In the light of this, traditional project management practices are getting reoriented and the emphasis is being shifted from individual control to team effort.
Most people are not familiar with the concept of ‘Project Management 2.0’ and even those who are aware are somewhat confused as the term ‘Project Management 2.0’ is open to varied interpretations. Project Management 2.0 has evolved from the conventional project management practices with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies.
It is a fact that hitherto projects were handled by Project Management Professionals (PMP) who exercised total control over the project work. But with rapidly changing scenarios, PMPs are having to coordinate work across an organization dealing with different people and varied situations. Thus today, project management is more collaboration and less centralized control.
Traditional Project Management versus Project Management 2.0
The fundamental drawback in the traditional approach to project management was the entire responsibility to successfully complete a project rested with the Project Manager. It can certainly be daunting for the Project Manager to assume a central role, coordinate all activities, and control all aspects to bring the project to fruition.Traditional project management had all controls centered on the project manager, all planning was done and instructions flowed downwards from the central auithority at the top.
Project management 2.0 has now radically changed all the established project management principles to create a more broad-based approach, aimed at a greater degree of collaboration amongst everyone involved in the project. A project is run by an entire team and each team member understands his or her role and has the full information on the project. Project Management 2.0 practices have eliminated the need for extra meetings, unwanted phone calls, and repetitive e-mails, thus saving valuable time for more productive purposes.
Advantages of Project Management 2.0
Project Management 2.0 tools help sharing data amongst the team members leading to greater work efficiency, improving working system of the company amidst cultural and multi-lingual environment, and helps bring a sense of participation by all. Intervals allow team members to view one another’s task lists and further contribute to the collaborative effort.
In the shared collaborative work environment, project management 2.0 tools enable team members to check their work progress and mark necessary project updates managed at micro levels. This provides high sigh of relief to project manager who can easily monitor who can define project status more rigidly and form a great support system for effective execution of projects. Thus, it reduces the workload of a project manager.
The best tools of Project Management 2.0 are incomplete without an integrated e-mail communication system. They allow project team members to communicate by exchanging e-mail messages without affecting other critical work parameters.
A traditional project management system is surely the best way to plan and execute a particular project, but one can not strictly adhere to it. New solutions incorporating changing technologies have to be adopted. It is not that the old approach to project management was not viable or outdated - but there is a pressing need to deploy Project Management 2.0 tools enabling shared insight and greater degree of participation.