Growth of the Freelance "Homepreneur"

Having owned two retail business, I was quite intrigued by this article I ran into about the rise of the "Homepreneur" or home entrepreneurs.  It states that these home based businesses occupy more than 50% of all the businesses in the US and employ more people than venture backed companies.  Not surprisingly, much of this outgrowth is attributable to the rise of networked technologies:

You can trace the rise of home-based businesses to the early days of telecommuting in the 1980s and the mass adoption of the Internet in the 1990s. Cloud computing,online collaboration, and smartphones have accelerated the trend, and recent research clarifies the economic significance of companies like Labuda's.

In addition to the ease of setting up such businesses, is the lower operating costs involved as the article points out.  Though I think this would be most applicable to home based businesses that provide business and professional services, rather than one that sells products as you would still need to keep inventory on hand and the shipping costs and logistics may require the costs of renting space for storage.

Though I think this article would generate a lot of enthusiasm for those longing to leave the corporate world and strike out and own their own business, the reality is that you would most likely need to establish yourself first and furthermore, if you're going to sell business and professional services to large companies, then you're going to need to work in one to gain the necessary experience, knowledge and wisdom to have companies pay you for your expertise.  It might be best to work in a large company and build the foundations of your home based business on the side part time.  Plus you will really need to work on a consistent campaign to market yourself and build your personal brand.  This post on HBP articulates this pretty well.

In any event, if this trend were to continue which it seems it will, the implications on the future of the workforce will be enormous.  It will accelerate the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking and collaboration tools, and technology infrastructure such as cloud computing as if it weren't fast enough already.  Work will become much more projectized and companies both large, medium and small will be forced to bid and compete for resources, much like it is done on sites like guru.com, elance and rent-a-coder, etc.

In this world, everyone will be forced to conduct work in a more entrepreneurial fashion and though there will be many benefits, it may widen the gap between the have and the have not's.

US Maintaining the Lead in High-Tech Innovation?

This post on HBR seems to indicate that the consensus view of the declining lead of the US to be on the cutting edge of high tech innovations and product development may be premature.  As the author outlines:

Between 1995 and 2005, the U.S. maintained about a 40% global share in knowledge-intensive services and about a 35% global share in high-tech industries, keeping the lead in four of them. Indeed, despite the high value of the dollar and the rapid growth of emerging markets between 1995 and 2005, the U.S. increased its global share in all but the aerospace industry. The U.S. share in communications equipment increased by more than 20 percentage points as Japan's share plummeted, and the U.S. doubled its share in computers and office equipment, although it was overtaken by China in 2003. These are the two sectors that encompass most of the products and companies that are the focus of the Pisano and Shih analysis.

The increase in China's share in computers and office machinery — from 2% in 1995 to 46% in 2005 — was remarkable, but it is not a sign that China has gained on the U.S. in innovative capacity in this sector or others. China's exports of high-tech products turn out to be not very high tech and not very Chinese: 80%-90% of China's high-tech exports come from firms that are partially or wholly foreign-owned — in many cases by American or Japanese companies — and 95% are processing exports, the high-tech components of which are produced elsewhere and imported into China. China accounts for about 35% of the value added in its exports — and considerably less in many of its high-tech exports sold under the brand names of U.S. high-tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and HP.

While it may be the case that the US still leads in many of the innovations of high tech R&D and product development, I don't see how it can maintain this lead forever.  At some point these Asian countries will start to compete in not just low cost manufacturing and labor, but in high end R&D and cutting edge product development and even innovative new business processes and management techniques, another area where the US still seems to lead.

I think this is where the US will need to undergo an extensive process of "creative destruction" as advocated by Joseph Schumpeter.  It will not be pretty, nor will it be easy, but necessary if the US is to maintain the lead in high tech innovation.

PMBOK 4th edition: A first look

The 4th edition of the PMBOK was released earlier this year, given that quite a considerable number of people worldwide visit my PMP prep page I took it upon myself to both purchase and read the guide to update the site. I've been quite busy both professionally and personally so I have not had a chance to review it with any level of detail till recently. On a first reading it seems pretty much the same as the 3rd edition with some minor changes to the ITTOs in the process areas and knowledge groups. I have a page here that outlines and summarizes the changes: PMBOK4 vs PMBOK3

Rather than give a detailed summary, I found a pretty good one on the PM Docs website. Like previous versions and with any worldwide recognized standard/methodology you will find both supports and detractors of the standard. I found a pretty fiery one here by James T Brown who runs a commercial PM consulting site and is kind of ironic given that the company is a PMI registered provider:

My opinion is that the PMBOK® is as out of control as your most nightmarish stakeholder. Always changing things… hoping to make it better… when in fact they have seem to add complexity with little or no additional value. As Voltaire stated "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Project Management is nothing but structured organized common sense!

Here is the problem…if you try to document every single common sense thing and every factor or process that contributes to the successful execution of common sense the result is gobbledygook! Does gobbledygook rhyme with PMBOK®? It is tough to define gobbledygook but you know it when you see it! Judgment cannot be legislated with bureaucracy; there are too many variables and circumstances.

The real challenge in project management is not identifying the common sense things to do, but having the individual or organizational discipline to do the common sense thing.

It is not a standard if it is always changing!

PMI is calling something a standard and then they change it. Maybe they should consider using WIP for Work in Progress instead of standard. If the PMBOK® were an 8 ounce cup every three or four years the world would have to revise all the recipes to comply with their new definition of a cup. More importantly, PMI is at risk of devaluing the PMP certification because now you have project managers certified on different sets of terms. When an organization hires a newly certified PMP based on the fourth edition of the PMBOK® they may not know the term triple constraint. A standard doesn't have to be perfect, but a standard must be a standard to effectively serve its purpose!

PMBOK® Huggers Beware!

Before we get discouraged let's remember that most of humankind's greatest project management achievements happened before the PMBOK® existed. The principles of successful project management are timeless and if you know them and use them you will be successful regardless of whether the PMBOK® chooses to include it or what the PMBOK® chooses to call it.

While I can understand his sentiment and do agree that the standard at times feels as though too much complexity has been added that don't seem to add direct value, I will hold to what I posted before about the rationale for getting a PMP certification:

Aside from these ideological battles, from a practical point of view, it will benefit a project manager more than harm him/her to get it and for the investment of around $1,200-2500 I definitely think it is worth it. Many PM jobs highly recommend and even require this designation, and if that helps you get a better paying job then the investment is worth it in my opinion. In addition, the certification has recently acquired ISO certification which is a world wide standardizing body and is the first certification to acquire it, which should help solidify the certification's global as well as domestic standing.

The good news is that the 4th edition has incorporated many improvements which allows the profession of project management to evolve best practices and standards consistent with the proactive cycle of continuous development and improvement needed in today's fast paced world.

Yet another top 10 PM trends list for 2009

Well it is 2009 and a lot has changed since last year, especially in the economic climate that we now occupy, and for those in the profession of project management it is inevitable that you will be effected by it as well as try and prognosticate on the future trends you may encounter. And sure enough, ESI International which is a consultancy and training company for all things project management related, published it's Top 10 Project Management Trends for 2009 which are outlined below:

1. The Sandwich Generation: Middle Managers’ Emerging Role in Change

Seventy-five percent of all change management programs fail because of a lack of employee support. Today’s economy will force organizations to confront the important roles middle managers play in the success of change efforts. Middle managers’ roles will shift from simple messenger of directives ‘from above’ to creating a positive environment to enable change, accountability and ownership of change initiatives, achieving the full benefits of change and ensuring return on investment.

2. Navigating Virtual Teams through Change

As budgets tighten, the role of virtual teams will grow along with the demand for the skill sets to manage them, especially through change. Powerful communication, key management strategies and new rules of engagement will be required to manage virtual teams as organizations seek to effectively shift with the turbulent global economy.

3. Sharper Distinctions Between Project and Program Management

Many global organizations have managed programs with the same methods used to manage projects, with predictably disappointing results. Programs are not merely “bigger” projects, and program managers aren’t simply professionals who are one step up on the organizational ladder. This year will see an increase in the understanding of the cardinal differences between projects and programs and the utilization of strategies to boost program managers’ effectiveness and increase program success.

4. Leveraging Communities of Practice To Hone Skills

The number and importance of project management communities of practice will increase significantly in 2009. These informal communities will be highly prized for the lack of bureaucracy that increase the sharing and use of best practices, enabling increased dialogue to overcome challenges and growing future leaders.

5. Strategic Selling of the Project Management Office

Although the project management office has gained wide acceptance, it still needs buy-in at the senior executive level. 2009 will see an increase in the importance of quantifying the PMO’s value and how to present that data to the CFO to ensure funding in what promises to be highly competitive arena for organizational resources.

6. Back to Basics for Successful Project Portfolio Management

More than any year in recent history, 2009 will be a critical year for ensuring project success. Project managers will increase their emphasis on the basics, taking a first-things-first approach and address fundamentals such as gaining and sustaining executive commitment, addressing gaps in the alignment of organizational strategy and projects, project selection, and efficient measurement process while leveraging existing resources to increase project success.

7. Right-sizing Staff with Demand Driven Resource Management

The adoption of Demand Driven Resource Management will increase significantly in 2009. Its ability to right-size internal staff and draw on outside contractors when demand requires will be viewed as an essential cost containment approach leading to greater organizational performance and efficiency.

8. Improved Requirements Metrics

The economic need to accurately assess and evaluate the organizational and cost impact of project requirements will bring a greater role for requirements management and development. Also known as business analysis, RMD’s ability to provide quality metrics that project and portfolio managers can use to assess the economic, performance and feasibility value of each project component will become essential to organizations successfully maximizing the ROI of their projects.

9. People Will Come Before Technology

Organizations will increase their demands for smart third-party guidance that ensures technology investments deliver enhanced performance. This will result in greater recognition of the critical role people play, leading to increased recognition that employees need the right skills and knowledge before applying processes for consistency and adding technology to deliver increased efficiencies.

10. Risk Management for Governance

In 2009, many organizations will say goodbye to the ‘one number’ method for project outcomes and embrace a quantifiable range of potential results on which to base decisions. Recognizing that best governance hinges on the availability of quality information at the project level, education and leadership in risk management and best practices permeate organizations wanting to optimize project forecasting to deliver more effective governance.

I can't help but to feel that you could look at a similar list 5 or even 10 years ago and see the same projected trends. Though I don't have evidence for it, my assumption is that there is more recognition throughout companies of the importance of these 10 initiatives if you had measured and collected the information and compared it with the past. Sadly, I would think that the progress of these 10 trends would not be as progressive.

Of particular interest to me is change and demand resource management, as well as risk management and governance. Many companies just don't get these right.

Top 15 highest paying IT certifications

I got directed to this link from Erika Flora's blog, which is based on a ZDNET Tech Republic survey which outlines the top 15 IT certifications you can get right now:

1. PMP (approx. $101k)
2. CAPM
3. ITIL Foundation
4. CISSP
5. CCIE
6. CCVP
7. ITIL Master
8. MSCD
9. CCNP
10. Red Hat Certified Engineer
11. MCITP (Enterprise)
12. CCSP
13. MCAD
14. MCITP (Database)
15. MCDBA (approx. $76K)

One major issue I have with these results is that it lists the CAPM as #2, and from what I understand it has had very little traction and seems unlikely that it would supercede the other certifications. Another minor issue is that the PMP certification is not a IT specific one, as project management can be and is utitilized accross industies and company departments. Otherwise, I would not be surprised to know that PMPs involved in IT get the best pay, since most who get the certification are experienced project managers.