Thursday, November 25, 2010

The oncoming demise of software project management

Back in 2000, when I started with a career in computer programming, there were these guys who looked considerably older, had amassed sufficient experience and were called project managers. Most of the time they huddled around in meeting rooms and their private offices. The class distinction was very visible. Naturally, we young programmers thought this profession was cool and aspired for the project manager lifestyle. While we couldn't figure out what the heck they did, we knew they were the decision makers and had a lot of say in the company. 

Fast forward 10 years, now I'm in that very same profession. What seemed aspiring and motivational once has turned out to be absolutely boring and mechanical now. Based on my experience, pure breed project management (yes note the emphasis on pure) will be dead in another 10 years or so. Most of the project management tasks are in the process of automation and it's a matter of time before large service organizations adopt these processes there by cutting down on these project management tasks. I mention large service organizations because, in smaller and product development organizations, this profession is already dead. I hope to see this rapid evolution spread to the larger organizations as well. As service oriented organizations become 'top heavy', Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest kicks in, eliminating the need for workflow managers. This process will be hastened by the evolution of software tools. Gradually, pure project management, as a profession will cease to exist, at least I hope so.