INNOVATIONS AND INSIGHTS
WHY ADAPTABILITY, FLEXIBILITY AND CREATIVITY MAY REPLACE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONTROLS
(Source: Coast Photography)
Modern workplaces are now so often filled with disruption that yields uncertainty, unpredictability and risk like never before. This emerging disruption is aided by fast moving changes that transmit unchallenged through the internet, social media and other interconnectivity that is associated with globalisation. The unpredictable fast paced nature of change can turn a project from profitable into a close project overnight if fundamentals are radically changed by presidential announcements that announce tariff changes or trade wars without notice. Project management is no longer an activity to achieve a single goal, nor can it be performed in isolation away from connections with the wider disruptions occurring in the world, be they technology, Brexit, climate change or a whole host of others.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PREVIOUSLY‌
This is not to say that project management is no longer useful, rather it is an indication that new methods are required for it to cope with in a constantly changing, unpredictable and risky broader environment. 10
Based on a premise of managers being in control since at least the 1940s, project management has devised systems and structures that have been aimed at producing deliverables to a set time at a set cost. The deliverables of the project managers have for so long been the output of project managers that set out milestones, resources, times and costs with sequences of activities. The rigid processes of the project manager are usually set with consultation and expectations of a broad range of stakeholders, Project Management Office and investors. The whole notion of project so often assumed that the project was discrete and often separate to any broader business, where direct control was the corner stone of achieving the goals. Whilst some creativity may have existed in project management of the past it may have so often been limited to achieving milestones or if the project plan steps were thought to have
