Are project management skills transferable to other industries?

There’s a strong argument to suggest that project management skills shouldn’t just be limited to project managers. In The Project Revolution: How to succeed in a project driven world,[1] Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez argues that, as many traditional activities in an organization are increasingly carried out by automation, projects will become more critical in creating value.

I believe we are approaching the edge of this new future, certainly in the automotive project management industry, which is undergoing significant disruption. Where project managers would typically ask people questions and then update a dashboard with their answers, the process is now often managed via a button on an app and with predictive analytics.

As the impact that projects can have on a business continues to change, along with the role of the project manager itself, it can be difficult to describe professional project management outside of formal frameworks. For instance, many people that call themselves project managers are just very organized, and the term can mean different things to different people. Working in the automotive industry, I would not feel comfortable working as a project manager on a building site, where processes would involve something else entirely.

The truth is, I do not believe project management should be done only by those of us with a formal job title. As humans, we all do it in one form or another. Our day to day lives take a certain amount of project management, and perhaps things would work better for all of us if everyone was given some formal training, like PRINCE2^®!

[1] The Project Revolution: How to succeed in a project driven world – Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, LID Publishing