Introduction

To maintain project management leadership in an Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) infused environment, Project Marketing Institute (PMI) is adapting and condensing it’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) to a seventh edition  (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Major changes that focus on value creation and benefit for project managers include condensing to a third of the previous size and using principles instead of processes and knowledge areas  (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020, p. v1.1).Sixth edition processes categorized as initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing weren’t excelling to  project management potential; communicated in a style leaning toward predictive or waterfall traditional approach (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).Which requires too much initial planning for some project management advances like dynamic virtual teams and results offered by automated software solutions.  Principles in the upcoming edition will integrate research by PMI to be more relevant, readable, market responsive and workable, for hybrid and Agile project management (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Due for release in August, 2021, the seventh edition caters to a wider audience of project managers through a principle based form of standard (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020; PMI, 2021).

The benefits of project management

Growing trends in project management of remote teams, (exacerbated by Covid-19 pandemic), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) task automation are viewed herein as enabled by rapid growth of technology and discussed in unison with anticipated improvements made to PMBOK’s upcoming seventh edition. PMBOK publisher PMI has also recently added subscription service, PMI Standards+ Digital Platform in the second business quarter of 2020. PMBOK project management methodology is competitive with project management methodologies including Agile frameworks of Scrum, Kanban and Lean; traditional Waterfall sequential phases, Six Sigma, UK project management standard Prince2 and Project Management Association of Japan (PMAJ), P2M (Ohara, 2005; Muslihat, 2018; Parades & Riberio, 2018). As ICTs use grows, project management (over half of projects) has become hybrid and adaptive (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Through ICT use teams can now unite from all areas of the globe, to increase the efficiency of  project management tasks completion and lower costs using automated systems and upcoming AI solutions (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).

PMBOK waterfall approach-Why does the PMBOK need to change?

Since non-profit agency PMI published the first edition in 1996, guidance has been provided by PMBOK. Based on American National Standards Institute (ANSI), The Standard for Project Management supported by the PMBOK guide has descriptive processes that identify good practice using inputs and outputs for support  (PMI, 2017). Editions of the guidebook have been revised every four or five years increasing and decreasing the knowledge areas, process groups and descriptive forms of inputs, tools and techniques and outputs (ITTOs) across project lifecycles (Parades & Riberio, 2018; PM PrepCast, 2021; PMI, 2017). Sixth edition inputs are the documents, agreements and standards needed to create a required item, before the project process continues; i.e. a project charter is needed to authenticate project existence and necessary for development of the next life cycle stage like the project management plan (PMI, 2017, p. 71).

Current PMI Project lifecycles are project phases from beginning to end, which are ‘predictive’ or ‘adaptive’ (PMI, 2017, p. 19).Development lifecycles, focus on ‘product, service or result’ and are used as ‘predictive, iterative, incremental, adaptive, or a hybrid model[s]’ (PMI, 2017, p. 19).  The predictive definition of PMBOK is also known as traditional waterfall, where lifecycle, scope, schedule and budget are pre-determined in the early phases, needing precise management, and rigorous change approval processes for any changes encountered (PMI, 2017). Accommodation of hybrid and adaptive approaches is planned in the seventh edition; adaptive project life cycles are viewed as requiring less initial planning, instead, freeing up resources to plan for at-hand tasks, (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).PMBOK describes adaptive lifecycles as being ‘change-driven’ and inclusive of ‘agile, iterative, or incremental’ methodologies (PMI, 2017, p. 19). Whereas a hybrid life cycle takes the best of both worlds, using fixed elements and other activities still evolving with the project throughout progression (PMI, 2017).

Substitution of the comprehensive waterfall to adaptive principles may be viewed as leaving larger error by traditional project managers. Benefits of traditional methodologies include building a quality level and standard for repeated tasks, increased task and responsibility awareness, foresight and control into difficulties and potential problems before crisis point; a form of proactive procedure for arising issues (Lindblad, 2021, p. 4).  When project deliverables aren’t as derivative, with each task relying on the successful planned completion of the last; a project manager may have difficulties in resources, schedule and budget that can’t be anticipated due to a lack of planning.  PMI, the experts who brought the PMBOK to life, refute this caution, feeling sixth edition content had become too narrow and demanding, needing to realign and condense to technology infused projects and applications (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Academics have raised project management issues such as deterioration in communication from remote teams, like fear of losing the soft skills commonly built between team members in face-to-face interactions (El-Sofany, Alwadani, & Alwadani, 2014). Concern that soft skills and training being discarded in favour of specialised hard skills which communicate through ICTS, from scattered locations. Other concerns raised by project professionals are the dominance of ICTs, and complete employee replacement by AI advances  (Wang, 2019).  Seventh edition PMBOK revisions refocus to principles, for support of a wider range of project management needs and performance domains, that base on outcomes and achievements, not sixth edition forms of output creation for the next task in the waterfall (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).

What are problems with Remote teams?

 There are disadvantages to the growing trends and proliferation of ICTs enabled remote and virtual teams in today’s project management. While advantages of remote teamwork include lower costs, increased access to highly skilled professionals, and being able to connect worldwide anywhere there is good internet  (El-Sofany, Alwadani, & Alwadani, 2014, p. 28). Disadvantageous issues identified in remote teams include ‘lack of trust when engaging with remote teams’ (Choi, 2018, p. 8). Difficulties in finding the right methods of managing remote team workflow (Choi, 2018, p. 8). Timely feedback to team members, and training issues, particularly in schedule. Further challenges of remote groups relevant to project work are listed as ‘coordination, communication, explaining, division of responsibilities and completing the project in the required timeframe’ (Lenka, 2021, p. 2678). Challenges that additionally need to be considered are of time zone, language and lack of balance in hard and soft skills, reduced role clarity, reduced efficiency (cluttering), expense of platform, diffusion of focus and data security (El-Sofany, Alwadani, & Alwadani, 2014, p. 33; Lenka, 2021).

Problems with AI

Operational tasks that are repetitive and rule based now have AI solutions that help project management (Johnsonbabu, 2017, p. 1) Wang uses four types of AI to determine AI feasibility and solutions- Integration and Automation (IA), Chatbot Assistant (CA), Machine Learning Based Project Management (MLPM), Autonomous Project Management (APM) (Wang, 2019, pp. 4,5).The benefits of ICTs and growing AI automations, chatbots, MLPM and APM could transgress coordination, communication and time zone and language issues for remote project work- saving time, money and delivering a better outcome (Lenka, 2021; El-Sofany, Alwadani, & Alwadani, 2014; Wang, 2019).  AI solutions combined with remote and virtual teams that rarely meet face-to-face, however may attenuate fears of human tasks being replaced by machines. Problems and controversy on AI use are such as fear of a loss of employment, over reliance on AI, and project failure due to AI reliance (Wang, 2019).   AI integration into project management also has abuse concerns by users like the limitation of alternatives in ads that have been customized to user searches and concerns about privacy in advertising (Wang, 2019, p. 3).

Project Trends and PMBOK

ICT and real-time digital opportunities in project management allow projects to be more adaptive.  Seventh edition changes to the PMBOK guide are major (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Transforming the waterfall PMBOK guide into a style that focuses on outcomes (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). PMI have adapted to suit the ICTs based environment for greater relevance across competitive project management methodologies and improved project success and quality (Lindblad, 2021, p. 3).

PMBOK’s adaption of the 2017 sixth edition to the seventh edition will be released in August 2021. The sixth edition contains 49 processes across the 10 areas of knowledge addressing project integration, management of scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk management and procurement (PMI, 2017; Parades & Riberio, 2018). Changes reform to using 12 principles, three knowledge areas and shortening the PMBOK down to a third of its former size (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). The upcoming PMBOK will be a value delivery system that aims to share and unify project, programs and portfolios which were previously viewed as separate entities.  Principles, focus areas and outcomes will focus on what project managers aim to achieve instead of the change resistant output focus  (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).

PMBOK seventh edition principles and three major focus areas aim to communicate in a format to shape actions and management behaviour (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).  In a digital era, real time communications of remote teams, digital project management solutions and AI automation trends are better supported by a more succinct and dynamic approach. PMI the publishers of PMBOK who work in unison with American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and update every 4-5 years, have made the biggest changes since 1996 (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Supported by the more inclusive content of upcoming PMBOK, is PMIstandards+ a digital reserve released in the second quarter of 2020, that offers real-time access to templates, training videos and articles (PMI, 2021). The seventh edition also focuses around eight project performance domains as reference to a wider range of project development approaches (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).

The twelve principles of PMBOK Seventh edition, that support The Standard for Project Management are in order of importance: 

1.     ‘Be a diligent, respectful and caring steward

2.     Build a culture of accountability and respect

3.     Engage stakeholders to understand their interests and needs

4.     Focus on value

5.     Recognize and respond to systems interactions

6.     Motivate, influence, coach and learn

7.     Tailor the delivery approach based on context

8.     Build quality into processes and results

9.     Address complexity using knowledge experience and learning

10.   Address opportunities and threats

11.   Be adaptable and resilient

12.   Enable change to achieve the envisioned future state’ (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020)

PMBOK’s new three focus areas include performance domains, tailoring, and models, methods and artifacts. Project management performance domains have a broad area of focus, with performance domains such as lifecycle, planning and delivery (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). The delivery performance domain considers the selection of lifecycle, while the delivery approach influence project management planning. (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). The tailoring focus area shares a whole section of descriptive information on how projects need to be tailored to organizational influences and project needs (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). The final focus area of ‘[m]odels, methods and artifacts’ describe the value of a model as a small-scale simplified version of a project component (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Methods aim towards achieving an outcome, drawing from the information reserve of previous PMBOK editions, for outputs and results that are supportive of goals and results (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Artifacts are what was previously referred to as outputs with the nature and form of templates, documents, outputs or deliverables (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). The changes to PMBOK broaden its reach across projects to simplify the careful selection and adaption to task and requirements of project delivery methodology (Lindblad, 2021).  Existing methods of procedural waterfall are criticised in contemporary applications for their rigidity and complication of projects instead of supporting and facilitating smooth project operations and deliverables (Lindblad, 2021).

Remote Teams

 Remote teams are a new way of working as ICTs support a globalisation future of increased diversity, flexibility and talent access (Choi, 2018).Virtual environments and their supporting digital tools have decreased the need to work in a single location or physical space (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020). Globalization is a popular trend of the modern business world, meaning economic unifying and integration of the political, cultural and religious for a global business perspective (Hoegl, Persperpio, 2007; Glebov, 2010; Bhagwati, 2004 in Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020),.Technological acceleration for an increasingly  global society optimises business goal achievement; making new forms of project teams relevant to project management (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020).Krasnotkutska and Podoprykhina examined different types of project teams that are relevant in 2020 and onwards, especially since Covid-19  onset of physical contact restrictions to safeguard against transmissions beginning in late 2019.

Project teams can be distinguished as ‘[c]o-located’ traditional teams- from one physical location who work and collaborate face-to face, for example, IT companies Yahoo and IBM (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020). Distributed teams who unite from geographically distributed offices  to complete project tasks,  interacting through digital software  solutions from companies like Trello and Basecamp (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020; Basecamp, 2021). Virtual teams who connect across distributed locations and work without physical office on at least one task, instead supported by ICTs. (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020) While scattered teams such as Ebay or Volvo work from headquarters and interact using ICTs  (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020). Potential benefits of virtual and distributed teams include world market development, higher talent base alternatives and reduced costs (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020). Project management is critical to success in distributed team trends, that have been found to flourish and provide increased performance when social and team spirit is encouraged  (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020, p. 38). ICT’s advances that are enabling changes in team geographical distribution are viewed as new to modern organizations-with productivity, performance and quality fluctuations between types of co-located and distributed teams not yet clearly identified through research (Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020, pp. 38,39)

The obstructions to work instigated by Covid-19, such as social distancing have been mitigated by remote teamwork (Lenka, 2021). Virtual collaboration and connotations of work completion and increased communication across locations is possible through ICTs (Lenka, 2021). Further benefits identified for remote team projects and virtual collaboration include higher productivity and efficiency in knowledge gain, task completion, reaching a larger audience and greater coordination for information exchange (Lenka, 2021). However these assets of remote work have disadvantages in language barriers, time synchronisation, schedule difficulties, data security, training and distribution of responsibility (Lenka, 2021; Krasnotkutska & Podoprykhina, 2020). Beyond Covid-19 social distancing requirement, virtual collaboration of remote teams and workers can save money on physical spaces, which can however be counterbalanced by excessive platform expenses (Lenka, 2021).

AI in project management

Johnsonbabu reviewed the AI offerings and potential against the PMBOK guide management processes in 2019. Identifying repetitive and rule-based operational tasks now have AI solutions to aid project management efficiency (Johnsonbabu, 2017).  Logical deductions, learning and adaption, understanding or language and speech and decisions based on previous experience are offered in AI for Project Management AI. AI forms of intelligent bots like the highly accessible Apple’s assistant Siri can now be applied for real-time information, instead of reviewing multiple touchpoints in project integration management process. A sample query of this illustrating intelligent bot instruction to update tasks, issues, and schedules is ‘[h]ey Siri, when is task x expected to be completed?’ (Johnsonbabu, 2017).

Machine learning processes use large amounts of data, which is supplied to a computer for processing, for return of an appropriate project management model and algorithm (Wang, 2019). AI types aiding analysis in AI feasibility include Integration and Automation (IA), best applied to narrow and specific problems (Wang, 2019). IA is exemplified in application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) that can perform keyword extraction from emails, identifying names, address and contact details and also sentiment analysis (Wang, 2019). Other feasible and increasing accessible AI solutions for project management include Chatbot Assistant (CA), Machine Learning-Based Project Management (MLPM) and Autonomous Project Management (APM) (Wang, 2019). CA like the intelligent bots discussed by Johnsonbabu, reduce routine tasks, and answer questions. MLPM forms data decisions best informed by high quantities of previous situations (Wang, 2019). After input of data by the project manager aspects of progress, cost prediction and schedule are analysed by MLPM (Wang, 2019). APM is strong AI, not yet used, but a predicted alternative by scientists, in APM’s information sourcing, analysis and project management (Wang, 2019).  Considering technical cost, requirement of data, technical maturity and human resources, MLPM was found to the most attractive alternative for project management AI- that should be watched and studied with relation to project management methods.

Conclusion

 Changes to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide are the condensing to more succinct knowledge, adoption of twelve principles, eight performance domains, three knowledge areas and an overall increase in the breadth of project methodologies supported (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). Inclusions from the retiring sixth edition, will instead be found within the standard of seventh edition of 2021 (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). PMBOK changes which usually occur in line with legal requirements of ANSI every four or five years are adapting to the immediacy benefits of everyday ICTs business use (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020). PMI, the publisher of the PMBOK in addition to changing to fit dynamic project management approaches, has created a digital hub of templates, videos training and more called PMIstandards+.

Remote teams are a growing trend in project management, supported by the wider audience and access to talent offered by globalisation. The reduced overheads and travel costs of remote and virtual teams have offered many workers restricted by the Covid-19 pandemic such as social distancing and isolation measures, an alternative to inactivity. AI solutions available have opportunities in the field of project management to seamlessly bridge gaps in language, timeframe, real-time schedule updates using available MLPM solutions. MLPM grows stronger with relevant data added and can work in unison with more accessible IA and CA solutions.

 Project uniqueness can be viewed as an obstacle of opportunity to project management application of AI solutions (Auth, Jokisch, & Durk, 2019). As the form of PMBOK guide rearranges, project managers behaviour and action will be shaped by project delivery (Snyder-Dionisio, 2020).Better project management practices undoubtably support the achieving of project requirements and optimize project success (Parades & Riberio, 2018).Changes to PMBOK project management enabled by ICTs, such as digital resources, growing use of remote and virtual teams, and automation of tasks through AI solutions are  exciting trends for increasing project management quality and efficiency.

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