This document discusses the future of project leadership. It notes that everything and everyone will be connected through sensors and the internet, machines will surpass humans in many areas, and expectations for excellence, flexibility and sustainability will increase. Project structures will become more networked without boundaries, and organizations will combine human and machine capabilities. Successful project leaders of the future will need to lead distributed teams, develop data strategies, facilitate innovation across boundaries, and embrace continuous change and diversity of thinking. They will guide projects and organizations through the acceleration of technology and help navigate an uncertain future.

1. The Future of
Project Leadership
▪ Futurist
▪ Strategy advisor
▪ Author
@rossdawson

2. Living in the future

3. Now and Zen

4. Everything a project

5. Finite players play within boundaries
Infinite players play with boundaries
- James Carse

6. Acceleration
Leadership
Structure
Work
Organisations
Expectations
Capabilities

7. Acceleration

8. Consistent exponential growth

9. Everyone and everything connected

10. Image: Mark Pegrum
Acceleration
Vibration
Water levels
Leaks
Acoustic/Ultrasound
Light
Solar intensity
Chemical/Gas
Odour
Pollution
Motion/Velocity/Displacement
Electric
Magnetic
Position
Biological process
Proximity
Flow
Pressure
Force/Strain/Load/Torque
Temperature
Humidity/Moisture
Air pressure
Sensors everywhere

11. Beating humans

12. Machines teach themselves

13. Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Always getting better

14. A voracious appetite for data
Source: EasySolutions

15. The next interface beyond smartphones

16. Using our thoughts to control the world

17. Expectations

18. We
expect
more

19. Excellence

20. Image: Dennis Yang
Flexibility

21. Sustainability
Image: NASA

22. Accounting for externalities

23. Transparency and accountability

24. Structure

25. Brain Internet
Applications
Organisations Industries
Proteins Actors
Society
PoliticsContagion
Networks everywhere

26. “Ranked by market value, 60 of the
world’s 100 largest corporations
earn at least half of their revenue
from platform markets”
- Prof. Thomas Eisenmann, Harvard Business School

27. enable
value-creating interactions
between
external
producers and consumers,
based on an
open infrastructure
and
governance structures
Adapted from: Platform Revolution, Parker, van Alstyne and Choudhary
Platforms

28. The many layers of platforms
Technology standards
City-as-Platform
Company-as-Platform
Platform business models
Government-as-Platform
Social platforms
Technology platforms

29. Value is created across ecosystems

30. Complex emergent patterns

31. The M2M economy
Credit: Commonwealth Bank

32. Emergent behaviours

33. Work

34. Continuous job destruction and creation

35. Work can be done anywhere

36. The rise of virtual organisations

37. Automating manual tasks

39. Expertise

40. Creativity

41. Image: ^rika^
Relationships

43. Organisations

44. Human and machines together
Source: StitchFix

45. Bounded Unbounded
Organisations are networks

46. Innovation across boundaries

47. Fluid roles and work

48. Capabilities

49. Image: Guido Heltko
Diverse thinking

50. Leading distributed teams

52. Data strategies and governance

53. Cognitive offloading

54. Leading change

55. Distributed reputation and credentials

56. Leadership

57. The only way
you can control your destiny
is to be more flexible
than your environment
- The Law of Requisite Variety

58. In the present, facing the future

60. Hearing the call to the hero’s journey

61. Acceleration
Leadership
Structure
Work
Organisations
Expectations
Capabilities

62. Project leaders at the heart of the future