Presentation given to Projekt Management Austria conference, PMA Focus, on 18th October 2012. <br /> Abstract: Social media offers us new ways of communicating and new ways of connecting with people. An important part of project management is effective communication, so at first glance social media should be able to help us deliver our projects. But is this really the case? Do the methods of social media, and the ethos behind it, really assist us in bringing in projects on time, on budget, at the required quality? Can tweets really help deliver a project? At first glance, the worlds of project management and social media would appear to be very far apart. The ethos of each can seem to be in direct opposition to the other, leading to strong questions as to how they can ever hope to be used together. For example, project management is traditionally formal and defined - it deals with the assignment of work, monitoring and control of that work, and rigid reporting routes. Social media, by contrast, is designed to allow conversations, information sharing, and collaboration with self-selecting groups. The truth is, while project management can have its formal structures, it is also at its heart about effective communication. In the past we have used strict methods of delivering this communication to ensure it is timely, accurate, and effective - but couldn't the tools of social media, which is all about communication - allow us to improve on this? This talk will look at the new possibilities provided by social media, and try to understand how, and if, they can be brought together with project management to provide effective tools. We will look at the different technologies that exist under the social media banner, such as blogs, Twitter, and business networking like LinkedIn, and try to define if they are really offering improvements to the way we currently work, or if they instead present revolutionary changes that require a wholesale re-evaluation of how we manage our projects. By the end of this talk, I hope to enable you to make sensible judgements about which social media tools you can start using right now to improve your project management, and to answer the important question: is social media really delivering what project management needs?

1. Social Media: Delivering for
Project Management?
Trevor Roberts
Ryton Projects Ltd

2. Social Media vs Project
Management

3. Blogs

One to Many

Low barrier to entry

Based around
interest areas or
issues

4. Commenting

Brings in the
readers

Allows everyone to
contribute

Builds community

5. Social Networking

Facebook et al

Many to Many

Broad appeal

Target
audience can
be wide or
narrow

6. Web of connections
Based around individuals, not interests

7. Twitter / Yammer

Many to Many

Follow lists

Non-reciprocal

Can be open or
closed
1000 Words / Shutterstock.com

8. Conversations

@replies allow
people who don't
follow you to be
informed you are
talking to them

Hashtags allow
people interested
in a certain topic to
know what others
are saying

9. Social Media: Organic, non-
hierarchical

Flat structure

Open to all

Self-organising through follow lists / connections

10. “Traditional” Project Management:
Defined, hierarchical

Non-flat structure

Open to selected people

Externally organised

11. Making use of the tools

External to the project

Internal to the project

12. External Communication

Progress reporting

Keeping stakeholders
informed

Gathering information
from target audience

13. Two way communication flow

Social media
means everyone
is invited

Don't just send
out information

Take advantage
of the new
communication
channel to
improve your
project

14. Internal communication
Different types of projects:

Projects to deliver significant physical objects –
buildings, ships, etc.

Projects to deliver virtual objects – software
applications, business processes, etc.

Projects to deliver hybrid solutions – upgraded
IT infrastructure and systems, consumer
electronics devices, etc.

15. Physical Projects

Well understood problem

Limited changes possible after design phase

Little autonomy of individual teams

16. Virtual Projects

Less well understood problem – but improving

Changes within components possible until delivery

Great deal of autonomy for individual teams

17. “Black box” delivery

What goes in
is important

What comes
out is important

What happens
inside is not –
so long as it
does the job

18. Team communications

Simple, clear, quick
communication

Conversational

Second best to face to
face

Brings geographically
dispersed teams
together

Multiple team members
involved

All able to contribute

19. Hybrid Projects

Mixture of the two previous types

Different areas can cope with different amounts of
change

Different teams will have different levels of
autonomy

20. Disruptive effects

Incremental
improvement
versus dramatic
change

Evolution versus
revolution

New ways of
working

21. Online PM tools

Trello (trello.com)

Wrike (wrike.com)

Basecamp (basecamp.com)

AgileZen (agilezen.com)

5pm (5pmweb.com)

Huddle (huddle.com)

… and many more

22. Example: Virtual Kanban

Kanban – effective way of managing workflow

Successfully used in many software projects

Central concept requires a physical board
whole team can see – impossible with co-
located teams

Photographs of board are not interactive

Trello allows online, virtual Kanban boards

Available online to everyone in the project

23. New ways of delivering projects?

Completely outsourced team

Recruitment through online tools

Communication via social media

All of this is already possible with the tools we
have

24. Free Software Project

Global, ad-hoc project to develop free and open
operating system and software tools

Originally using proto-social media – mailing
lists, newsgroups, IRC, etc.

Organic management structure developed

Continues to this day

25. Example: Local Government IT

Hybrid project – physical IT infrastructure and
virtual software platforms

Microsoft Sharepoint technology

Project and team blogs

Document repository

Collaborative working

Wikis

26. Outside of projects...

27. Social Media: Delivering for Project
Management?

Blog tools can be used for every project

Virtual and hybrid projects can benefit from
Twitter-like tools also

Online collaboration tools extend the consumer
social media technologies – useful for all
projects

Disruptive effects can be expected...

… but we don't know what they'll be!

28. Thanks
Trevor Roberts:
@trev_roberts
www.projectmanagementguide.org
www.rytonprojects.co.uk