Reflection on “Tech Trek by Hendershot, November 2013”
The article “Tech Trek” discussed a new aspect of the complexity that project manager face in the current market. It talked about how project managers act when they hear about breakthrough tech by answering a very basic question “At what point do we jump-in, and to what level?” Project managers must evaluate each and every technology in terms of its potential impact, difficulty and its cost of implementation, and what type of effect on processes already in place it will have.
When a new technology comes out, the early adopters benefit a lot by being first in the market, and if the new technologies become an industry standard, those have the ability to stay ahead of the competition. On the other hand, organizations that follow a wait-and-see approach benefit from the early adopter’s mistakes, learning from their struggles. Project managers have to understand that it is not a choice between those two approaches, it is more of doing both at once; the project manager must understand the degree of chaos this new technology can introduce to a project’s scope and timeline, and they need to balance their needs accordingly. However, there is always more risk involved; if the company has never worked with the new technology, they have to account for additional risk into their project timeline.
The article also discussed the twelve disruptive technologies that going to transform business and the economy of the whole world; Mobile internet, Automation of knowledge work, Internet of things, Cloud, Advanced robotics, Autonomous vehicles, Next-generation genomics, Energy storage, 3-D printing, Advanced materials, Advanced oil and gas exploration and discovery, Renewable energy.
Some of the lesson learned from this article are that some clients do not know what they really want and they cannot define their need especially when the technology is very new, and the best solution to that problem is the rapid prototyping, knowing that part of the project managers’ job is to be able to sell the vision to the stakeholders, and keeping in mind that developing a smart strategy for implementing them can help the organizations as well as project managers to respond effectively to the market innovation.
What I find really interesting is the new technologies and its impact on our lives as final customer, and how that impacts the global economy as well. I lived in a time where the phone landline was considered a very classy product to have in the house; I still remember how we used to memorize the road maps, and to respect our meetings and dates without having the mobile phone or the smart phones. These revolutionary products brought so many easiness and complications to our life in the same time. When it comes to work and managing projects before, I never had the chance to be part of that in the old days, but in the same time, the greatest projects of the human history, like the Egyptian pyramids, were executed without that advanced technology; I strongly believe that the human element will always be the most important element in the process, an element that will never be replaced, and the true project manager will find the best way to do things, no matter what technology he has to do so.
