Modern IT Project Management and the Convergence of Content and Communication

Jul 13
08:16

2011

Robert Steele

Robert Steele

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The convergence of content and communication has existed throughout history. Before the internet, what one experienced in life (the “content”) was far more separated from how one communicated across distances...In IT project management, the “content” is essentially the work that needs to be done.

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Prior to the inception of the social media,Modern IT Project Management and the Convergence of Content and Communication Articles there was a gap between what was experienced online and how one communicated online. For example, one experienced content on the web by watching a video, and one communicated with someone through email. Now, social media websites have started to merge those two aspects together. On Facebook for example, one can post a video on his or her wall and send messages within the same site.

Although web content and communication are distinctly different aspects of the internet regardless of whether the two are accessible through the same site or not, I would like to suggest that there is a pattern of convergence here. What this pattern has done for modern project management (particularly IT project management) is the main focus of this article.

The convergence of content and communication has existed throughout history. Before the internet, what one experienced in life (the “content”) was far more separated from how one communicated across distances. Christopher Columbus, for instance, upon discovering the Americas, documented his experiences in a journal, while communication across distances was literally impossible without sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

In time, sending mail over the seas brought experience and communication slightly closer together. One could write the experience in a letter for example, whereas before that time, the experience would need to be relayed in person.

Over hundreds of years, communication across distances took the form of letters, telegraphs, telephones, cell phones, email, and all the variety of communication across the internet today. With each new methods of communication, the documentation of experience has become more accessible across distances. There was a time when China was thought as a mysterious, faraway place, and now, on Google earth, one can view the Forbidden City from satellite imagery and see geo-tagged photos from tourists who have gone there.

While this may seem like a negative, anti-romantic view to some, that is an argument for another time. For the sake of this article, I will speak only of what this convergence of experience and communication has done in the workplace, and how new web-based project management solutions have changed the way IT project management works.

In IT project management, the “content” is essentially the work that needs to be done. The communication is the way that team members communicate across distances. In today’s IT project management world, the two are more closely associated than ever before. Much like twitter, where linking content, in some situations, is nearly (if not completely) the same as communicating to people, IT project management software causes work and communication to be the same. As this may seem abstract, and maybe even a stretch, let me provide an example below.

A common IT project would be the development of a new website. The work that needs to be done on the website is self-evident at times; it doesn’t need to be communicated. For instance, when a web-page is so packed with content that it cannot load, a customer does not need to say so, for it will be evident in the web analytics. The work and the communication of work is side-by-side.

This convergence is more clearly explained in a company that works internationally - say, for example, a software company based in Australia with assets in the Philippines. IT project management software connects the two places, allowing them to share documents and information nearly instantaneously. This software can actually make one location’s work a method of communicating what the other location needs to work on. In other words, the documentation of the work itself is the means of communication.

Again, as I mentioned before, the implications of this convergence in everyday life may seem problematic, inhuman, and even unethical to some critics. I tend to take the technological philosophy stated by Zygmunt Bauman: “What has a use, has an abuse.” Any technological advancement has the potential to bring positive and negative results. But, overall, I only bring up my observations not to state an opinion, but rather reveal a pattern for what it is and nothing more, showing how the internet has benefited the practice of IT project management.