Singapore’s Smart Nation push has proven that digital transformation, contrary to popular belief, does not result in loss of jobs.
In fact, the job prospects in the “high priority” infocomm sector are booming – should Singapore be hit by higher unemployment, it is not due to a lack of jobs, but a shortage of skills. This is because while jobs may be abundant, the scopes might not be in the forms that we have been “traditionally” familiar with, and companies are suffering from a job-skills mismatch. The nature of some jobs change with the arrival of the digital age, and this is driving the urgency for retraining and upskilling workers so that they are equipped to take on the new roles.
At the same time, as a training institution, NUS-ISS sees the importance in engaging companies – be it MNCs or SMEs or government agencies – in regular conversations to keep itself up-to-date with the winds of the industry.
The Product & Project Management (PPM) Industry Roundtable, which was held on 8 May 2017, aimed to find out what are the difficulties and disruptions that companies are going through. The takeaways from the roundtable will aid NUS-ISS in refining and adapting courses to meet the constantly evolving demands of the industry.
But more importantly, the focus is to capture the changing role of the project manager and discover what are the new skills needed to deliver future digital projects and services. This is so that adjustments can be made to the existing course syllabus, to prioritise these skills and brainstorm upskill approaches.
“We hold frequent roundtables, but this is the first time that we are doing it for PPM. We expect changes in the landscape, and they are going to disrupt the nature of the project management role,” said Daniel Boey, Chief, Product & Project Management. “The practice of building things in an agile fashion means that the project manager role is going to be minimised. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to lose their jobs, but one thing is for sure – the job scope of a project manager will significantly change,” he added.
The intention of the roundtable, therefore, is to anticipate and be better prepared for what is to come.
From Project to Product - What's Driving the Shift?
Traditionally, project managers ensure that the project progression runs smoothly, and are pressured on three things – scope, time and budget. Their job is done when they deliver the project on time, and they are free to leave it at that.
But with the development model of IT systems and applications shifting from waterfall to agile, planning and execution are no longer carried out using a top-down approach.
“In this new economy, people have all their data at hand, and are empowered to make decisions on the spot. A lot of processes have also been automated. In a sense, everyone becomes like a manager himself, and this ultimately diminishes the role of a project manager,” explained Daniel.
In view of this, how does the project manager remain relevant to the organisation workflow? One important point that came up during the roundtable discussions was that product management then becomes increasingly important.
“There is a paradigm shift that is happening – for example, in a waterfall app development model, the job of the project manager is done once the app is launched. But when the product takes the centre stage in an agile model, someone has to follow the product through its life cycle. This person has to be there, to constantly think about how the app can be improved, to ensure that the product brings value to the company,” Daniel stressed.
“It is therefore imperative for product managers to adopt product-thinking and be equipped with product skills. This will enable them to help organisations transform both business and IT projects,” added Daniel. “The skills also come in handy for the management of projects that require customisation and integration with other systems.”
This applies not just to project managers, but also companies who don’t usually build products. They need to start thinking about their IT projects in terms of products, with a focus on the customer.
One example would be the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech). Product thinking is present in the way GovTech thinks of citizens as customers, recognising that these “digital citizen-customers” are its most important stakeholders.
Preparing project managers for the product role
Product management is a specialised area; new skills are needed for that role, which project managers had not needed in the past. Therefore as the role evolves, the project managers now have to pick up the relevant skills to fulfill that of a product manager.
As mentioned, there is a strong emphasis on the customer – be it internal or external – when it comes to product management. As the CEO of the product, the product manager has to understand what the customer wants.
Some of the important skills identified at the roundtable, besides product strategy and marketing, include market and ethnographic research, design thinking, and voice of the customer.
Another interesting area that an industry guest raised was ethics. In the past, project managers were mainly concerned with ethics towards stakeholders. The discussions had previously centered on presenting the correct picture, avoiding conflict of interest, and so on.
But with the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the ethical aspects start to have a much more human touch to it. Ethics can now be “transferred” to the IT system itself.
For example, the self-driving cars have to be coded to behave in an ethical way – when faced with having to choose between hitting a pedestrian or risk being hit by an oncoming bus, how should the system react? This is a similar moral dilemma as the one posted in the famous trolley problem which moral philosophers and ethicists have struggled with for decades, and we are seeing humanities converge with technology right there. Before customers get into a self-driving car, they would want to know whether the system is going to protect them in the event that an accident happens.
News on upcoming courses
Moving forward, NUS-ISS will be putting together programmes that prioritise skills that can aid project managers make the transition to product managers. This differs from the existing PPM courses, which only infuse product thinking into the workflow of project management to widen the scope.
The new changes will take into consideration the feedback and concerns raised by the industry guests at the roundtable, as we hope to offer courses that can map the skills of project and product managers to the current needs of the industry.
Details for the three new courses in the pipeline are expected to be released in the next few months, so do keep a lookout.
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