Trends in Project Management

A question on Linkedin came up about current trends in the industry. One of the answers mentioned that training should come earlier, as opposed to being a University / College program.

I thought this was interesting – and true. Perhaps it stems from the root of the development of Project Management in construction and IT capacities, that it seems to be rigidly defined.

But if you look at what a project is - many everyday things that we do is a “project”. Teaching project management can help people manage planning a wedding, plan a vacation, manage the home buying process, to just about anything else. It’s a lot about how you frame the idea. A marriage isn’t a project (though I suppose someone could argue), but planning the wedding is. Why? You have a deadline, you have a concrete start (she said yes) to a concrete end (while you have to plan the cleanup / “strike”) of the wedding, the wedding has a concrete end. You have budgets, there are deadlines within the timeline to order materials, there is a variety of communication. There are even political aspects (the guest list!). At any rate, since the skills of a project manager are useful life skills – it would make sense to teach it in schools.