Think You’re Cut Out for PM in 2016? Take This Quiz!

Think You’re Cut Out for PM in 2016? Take This Quiz!
By Joel Roberts

Are you sure you are ready for the challenges 2016 will bring to project management? PM is not immune to the technological revolution that is shaking other departments for a few decades now. There are definitive changes to follow as 2016 progresses and many of them can be the difference between projects’ life and death. Take this short 5 question survey and see if your company will be able to cope with these changes.

Survey

Are employees bringing their own devices to work lately?

1. Yes, all employees use mix of integrated devices to work on company projects
2. Some employees work on their personal laptops/tablets/phones
3. No, they are using company provided computers

Have your project plans migrated to the cloud/company owned server yet?

1. We are using cloud services for storing MS Project plans
2. We are using own server
3. We currently do not have a shared file storing solution in place

How are project management teams organized in your company?

1. Remote teams dispersed across the Globe
2. In-house teams collaborating with independent contractors
3. In-house teams in same geographical location

Are project managers in your company certified?

1. We are more interested with project management experience than certification
2. We prefer certified project managers
3. We don’t feel project certification is important

How are project deliverables defined in your company?

1. Bottom up: Team members are submitting estimates on project deliverables
2. Combined: Team members submit proposals that the project manager approves
3. Top Down: The Project manager creates the plan and updates it as project progresses

Results

Project management authors online agree on a few trends that will definitely emerge or be reinforced in the year is upon us. Every question in the survey was connected to a particular trend. Let’s examine them shortly, so you can review your answers for yourself.

1. 2016 is going to reinforce the trend of BYOD (bring your own device) to work. This trend already bloomed in 2015 but it still had integration as an issue. As IT will provide more integrative solutions across devices and platforms this trend will grow even further.

2. With steady growth in the last five years, cloud solutions are expected to show continued growth in 2016, and reach high 36, 2% of companies using cloud storage services in 2018 (source TechNavio Analysis).

3. Experts on the field agree that virtual teams are the new project teams. If you are not utilizing on the expert opinions, skills and cost saving opportunities freelancers, or geographically dispersed individuals, now would be the time to do so.

4. Certification will no longer be a shoot stopper for project managers. It’s listing in project management job offers has gone from “must have” to “preferred” to “nice to have”.

5. With emergence of project management solutions such as Wrike, Basecamp and many others have allowed for better team members involvement and “bottom up” approach to defining project deliverables, and bigger autonomy for team members.

How did your company do? Are you ready for 2016? Moreover, are there other project management trends which we have not covered here coming this year? Let us know in the comments section.

Joel Roberts is an account manager and a project management author for more than 12 years, working on Seavus’ Microsoft Project Viewer – a standalone viewer for team members who only need to view and analyze project plans. Her takes on PM have been featured more than a dozen project management websites.