For 20 years now, the Colombian Association of Systems Engineers - ACIS - develops the IT Project Management Conference. Within the framework of this event, the results report of the IT Project Management Survey is presented.
A little more than 10 years ago I was lucky to support the IT project management day. Today I participate as a volunteer, sometimes as a lecturer and in the last years as Academic Coordinator together with my partner and friend Hilda Chaparro. I have seen this event and the quality of its conferences grow and evolve.
IT Project Management Survey Results Report
The results report has been carried out for 20 years. Since 2018, I have been in charge of the survey - which Alberto Cueto led with great dedication. Since that same year, I have authored the report that consolidates the most important findings of the survey. A substantial change over the results presentation model of before.
The purpose of the survey, and indeed the report, is to identify patterns and trends in the profession, as well as the nature of the professional environment for ICT project management.
Every year the survey is carried out in the months prior to the event. The results will be presented at the conference to be held next April - and to which you are cordially invited. This year we hope that the results will reflect the impact of the pandemic on our teams, on ourselves and on our management models.
The reports are freely distributable under the Creative Commons License (Attribution - Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike 4.0 International - or CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
2022: The war of talent
Twenty years after the first IT Project Management Conference, the importance and impact of projects as an evolutionary instrument and vehicle for change in the world of technology is undeniable.
Two decades few imagined the potential and growth ahead. Along the way we learned about hard practices management concepts, such as change control, schedule management, risk management and quality. As time went by, less technical concepts were introduced and softer practices oriented to talent management and even happiness.
The iron triangle - which some of us knew as the triple constraint - evolved into more complex concepts about the theory of constraints and the contraposition of variables. More recently, agility - or agile thinking - has taken up a lot of space in the world of technology management and with it come practices and models based largely on automation - such as DevOps - or on accelerating time-to-value (TTV) such as Lean portfolio management.
2022 is, of course, the year in which we all expect the pandemic that was declared in early 2020 to end. That's a little over two years ago as of the completion of this report. And with the end, we expect a different dynamic to virtuality - perhaps hybrid management models and the incorporation of flexible organizational structures geared to support virtuality, hybrid models and high staff turnover.
This is the fifth report and with it we see evidence that allows us to validate some of the hypotheses raised in previous reports. As always, the objective of this report is to provide useful information to directors, managers and team members, and to propose some reflections on our industry and the fundamental role of management in the success of technology strategic plans and many organizations.
2021: The price of remote work
The year 2020 will go down in history, not only because of the pandemic and what it has meant for humanity. Behind this epic battle, there have been unprecedented transformations in the digital and workplace.
A +75% growth of non-face-to-face sales - according to the Report on e-Commerce Behavior in Colombia during 2020 and Outlook for 2021, published by the Colombian Chamber of E-Commerce - meant a joint effort of IT areas, suppliers and teams. These teams were unexpected leaders in the transformation of large, medium and small companies that were forced to rethink their business model and the way they relate to their customers.
With no small amount of previous effort, telecommuting became the norm for teams and managers - talent managers and coordinators - arriving to add to their already unexpected and urgent transformation challenge. An April 2021 Economist article claims that before the pandemic, only 5% of the workforce did so from home, and by spring 2020, that number had risen to 60%. It is very likely that many of the service organizations - typical of Colombia's large cities, and the administrative and management offices of production and manufacturing companies - will suffer from a similar shift. According to figures from the Ministry of Labour, 53 % by women and 43 % by men in the country.
All of this was only made possible by IT and the hundreds of thousands of initiatives that drove the pandemic-driven organizational transformation. And it will represent the greatest security and stability challenges for those organizations susceptible to the digital threats of our time.
This report reflects the sentiment of IT project leaders and team members during 2021.
2020 Report: The Pandemic Begins
The year 2020 is probably the most complex year for global society in the last 50-60 years. The pandemic is what Nassim Taleb calls 'Black Swans' in his famous book 'The Black Swan: The impact of the Highly Improbable'. Black swans are surprise events with great socio-economic impact. Of course, in retrospect it is possible to assess whether this could have been managed and contained with relative ease. And it invites us to reflect on the right decisions at the right time.
Beyond amazement, our reality as project leaders is always to keep things on track or as good as possible. We've all had to restructure our work, our workdays, the way we organize our teams. The result, being leaders of the most urgent and fast-paced digital transformation ever planned.
This survey, conducted in early 2020, does not yet reflect the impact of the pandemic on our activities. Nor does it reflect the anecdotal fact that for some in senior government our work requires no more than a couple of hours of the day. However, it remains a key instrument for understanding our context as leaders or project members. The 2021 survey is sure to bring in its results the impact of the current global situation.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the support of those who complete the survey and in particular the Colombian Association of Systems Engineers. This year the association managed to rethink the IT Project Management Day despite the crisis.
2019 Report: Strategic Alignment
The year 2019 brings with it its own challenges. I want to share with you, three that I consider representative of the national environment.
The first one, Strategic Alignment. This challenge has been with us CIOs and VPs of IT for some years now. Maintaining alignment between what we want and expect to do, and what we actually do is no simple task. We call the former a strategy, and the latter goes by many names: operations, projects, services, products, to name a few. Knowing how to manage all these components correctly is a titanic task.
The second, Technical Debt Reduction. Every year, the flexibilization of infrastructure and the reduction of entry costs invites us to fight obsolescence. Sometimes, migrating our own infrastructure is not only desirable but vital to the survival of our businesses.
The third challenge, without hesitation, Evolving IT Governance. Without contemplation, traditional management models are insufficient to quickly and effectively manage the IT areas of our times. A traditionalist governance and full of controls reinforces the feeling of many organizations that feel that the IT area "does not measure up". It is not for nothing that ITIL has launched a new version of its model. A new version that not only took longer than expected, but also represented a great internal discussion.
These challenges, and surely many others, mean one thing: more projects. These projects that, regardless of methodological trends, depend on capable, effective and practical leaders. Leaders who can lead the organization to effective and practical delivery. timely of results.
This survey has had a single objective, to give objective and clear information for those who work around IT projects. Information to identify trends in the labor market and the profession of Project Management.
Report 2018: Report with data analysis
The survey is a professional, serious and in-depth work of a small team. It is the result of the work of volunteers. Volunteers who over the years and consistently consolidate data for the analysis and understanding of the exercise of the profession. A work to better understand our environment and the projects of information technology and communications.
This year, with an all-time record of 672 responses, the XVI IT Project Management Survey has established itself as a national and regional benchmark for the profession.
This time we have built a report with more detail and depth. A report that not only presents the data clearly, but also raises some questions. A new report that goes further in the search for answers.
Far from the feelings and passion that the profession arouses in many of us, this survey invites us to reflect. To reflect on the role we play as project leaders. And also about the impact of factors such as labour market conditions. We will assess the value of project management offices (PMO) or project management.
Projects are instruments of change, fundamental for the evolution of organizations, governments and of course societies. Project managers are the leaders called to reach new achievements and transform their environment.
