This document discusses project management in the collaborative age. It argues that future project management will be collaborative, utilizing tools that provide real-time data and analytics on mobile devices. A case study is presented of a gaming company that implemented a collaborative project management tool to overcome challenges like a lack of standardization and data-driven decision making. The tool provided benefits like centralized data storage, automated reporting, task management, and better communication between distributed project teams.

1. Mantra for leveraging Emerging Trends
Ashish Sadekar
Director
ProThoughts
0 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

2. Project Management in
the Collaborative Age
The Emerging Trend of Project
Management
Project management has travelled a long journey and in
no uncertain terms, ready for a big leap to experience a
new adventure and embrace a new way of managing a
project which will reap high dividends and benefits. It will
multiply the chances of success. To take you back, when
project management started, the major challenges as we
all practitioners remember has been communications and
stakeholder management. They are going to be still there
but with new age technology the project manager of today
and tomorrow has a lot of ammunition to take care of
these challenges. The new project manager and
importantly the stakeholders will glued to their
smartphones and will be under pressure to have all the
project data to take important decisions in the dynamic
environment. Tomorrow’s project management will be
shaped by this ammunition, the tools of the project
manager which can help the projects to succeed. These
tools will typically be on the cloud and work with a SaaS
(software as a Service model) and will throw real time
analytics, such as Earned Value analysis and dashboards on
your smartphones. There will be strong collaborative
platform perhaps integrated with your social media
streams such as Facebook, etc. This paper details such a
futuristic model and platform of project management.
Ashish Sadekar
6/9/2014
1 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

3. Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................................3
DEFINITION OF COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT............................................................................................3
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AS WE KNOW IT .........................................................................................................................4
THE FUTURE MODEL OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT – THE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGER...........................4
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL – A CASE STUDY...............................................................................5
BENEFITS OF COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................. 11
THE FUTURE - COLLABORATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT: .......................................................................................... 12
2 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

4. Introduction
Project management has travelled a long journey and in no uncertain terms, ready for a big leap to
experience a new adventure and embrace a new way of managing a project which will reap high
dividends and benefits. It will multiply the chances of success.
To take you back, when project management started, the major challenges as we all practitioners
remember has been communications and stakeholder management. They are going to be still there
but with new age technology the project manager of today and tomorrow has a lot of ammunition to
take care of these challenges.
In fact, technology advances gives newer opportunities and also throws different and unique problems
to handle. Today’s project manager will have a diverse workforce who will be physically around in the
globe but always connected as if you are sitting in a war room. The days are not far when video data
would be used extensively to communicate in a project scenario and would appear as a
commonplace item. The need for immediate data and hence, immediate decisions in this dynamic
world of multitude of stakeholders would be demanding on the project manager.
How will the today’s project manager react to this situation? How can he manage the project and yet
deliver it to success. This paper will discuss the means and the only way to achieve this by working
out a Collaborative way in project management, and introduce the innovative way - Project
Management in Collaboration Age. This is a strong emerging trend which needs to be adopted and
adapted fast in the project management world.
Welcome to the collaborative world of project management. But what exactly is this collaborative
project management? What’s this buzz word that everyone’s talking about in project management
circles? Is this just a buzz word or do you want to suggest that the project management was not
collaborative earlier? Let’s figure out.
Definition of Collaborative Project Management
Collaborative project management is based on the principle of actively involving all project members
in the planning and control process and of networking all the project members using information,
communication, and collaboration modules. Management is not regarded as an activity reserved
solely for managers but as an integral part of the project work of all team members.
Collaborative project management makes extensive use of localized control loops. Complex projects
are broken down into smaller "more tangible" sub-systems which are then assigned to members of
the relevant departments. Consequently, planning and control responsibility is assumed by those who
are also responsible for project content.
Sub-plans are networked and synchronized to tie all partners into the system of planning and control
and to promote a common understanding of overall planning. Changes and/or delays are
communicated directly to the relevant project members without active intervention in their areas of
responsibility.
The technical platform on which collaborative project management builds is a central database that
makes current and consistent planning data available to all project participants wherever they may be
located.
Communication and collaboration are the basis for early identification of the impact of potential
problems on linked sub-projects. They create a high level of transparency and a shared awareness of
quality among team members.
3 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

5. Project Management as we know it
Isn’t the collaborative project management applicable in the earlier era of project management or
even now? What’s so new about this project management in collaborative way?
In our earlier times or even, I would not be wrong is stating that in our present times, project
management as a discipline is still evolving. Project management, especially in the Indian diaspora is
still evolving and is not being treated as a necessary function to deliver projects. The project
management as a function and the project management knowledge is still not perceived as game
changer or even a mere “changer” in the delivery of the projects.
The crux is do we manage projects in the collaborative way currently? The collaborative way is some
miles ahead, however, the right people and employers are slowly recognizing the need for project
management. The awareness is getting built for project management as a function in the
organization. For example, one of my clients, a large pharma client is slowly recognizing the need for
project management and moving from the project co-ordinating kind of work with empowering the
project manager to deliver the projects successfully. They have involved all their executive directors to
understand the essence of project management and investing heavily to get the right talent, right
processes and the right tools to win in their projects. It is necessary for all sectors as in pharma that
projects are delivered within the schedule. For example, any delay of a day in pharma means a large
revenue being lost, as the pharma company gains most of the revenue share in the early launch of
the product. Similarly, in the telecom industry, a day’s delay in product launch or even a marketing
gimmick would result in a heavy loss of revenue or mindshare of customer. Everyone, including the IT
sector is waking up to the right way of doing the project management.
To sum it up, the current project management seriously lacks collaboration and a lot of organizations
are looking for the right way of doing the projects. It is time that it is quickly latches up the
collaborative way of doing the projects to succeed in the projects.
The Future Model of Project Management – The collaborative project
manager
As touched upon in the previous sections, tomorrow’s workforce will shift to the smartphones or video
phones and will be a mobile diverse team. As a research suggests, the project team will be global
workforce working in different time zones with their different culture sets and thriving in a dynamic
environment. One common thread across the different culture set is the virtue of impatience; this
workforce will need data on real time basis else can even be a de-motivator for the team. Can the
current project manager survive with its own MS project desktop version running behind every team
member for the updates. No wonder the project manager today is considered an overhead in the
team and is seen as a non – value adding person providing statuses to the management.
The Collaborative age of project management will provide real time status and immediate data to take
decisions in the project, among many other things. The future of the project management is the
Collaborative Age of Project Management.
The collaborative project management methodology provides adequate support for the widespread
practice of working in development teams with direct responsibility.
 Proactive, tool-assisted communication and collaboration replace the rigid algorithms of
conventional project management systems.
 A central database provides current and uniform planning information for all project members
– even between companies and across locations.
4 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

6.  Clearly allocated responsibilities and interfaces promote transparency and currency of
information, thus ensuring improved planning reliability and quality.
 Project management sets up a top-down planning framework by defining important
milestones and key data. Project members plan their work scopes independently, confirm that
specified requirements have been fulfilled, and assume direct responsibility for coordination
with other sub-projects.
 Communication modules permit simple and intuitive networking of sub-projects and thus
support rapid and transparent problem resolution processes. Changes are communicated
automatically to those involved and problems are resolved by reaching mutual agreement on
suitable measures.
 Managing the tasks all the way through the process with a central workspace enabling the
users the ability to have greater information at less cost/time. This is because it enables the
team to work on what is needed and provide updates almost without thinking about it.
 Having a collaboratively updated task list also allows automatic creation of burn-down charts,
or other reporting; again facilitating the project manager’s role and allowing them to quickly
understand if items are running late. Further, good knowledge management replaces the
difficulties of file storage and hidden deposits of valuable information. Whilst a project
manager may keep excellent documentation, the issue tends to come several months later
when trying to find out information. Or, as we’ve all experienced, when you take over from a
departing PM and have to try and pick up where they left off.
 Collaboration software steps around these issues if properly managed by enabling searc h
and by spreading the knowledge around the team as to where things are stored.
Collaborative tools are the social media of the workplace. Generally presenting as a central
dashboard or workspace that everyone has access to and has a reason to use, they increase the
team’s buy-in to the project rather than just their work package. These tools tend to support three key
areas:
 Knowledge management: Whether this is the enterprise item like SharePoint or a centrally
maintained wiki, it is difficult to argue that having a central location that is searchable and
collaborative is anything other than beneficial.
 Running a project: One of the biggest areas that has seen a range of developments is the
area of issue management. Tools allowing each task that is required to be tracked, and effort,
issues logged by the person responsible for delivery and then transitioned through a proper
workflow have a significant impact of how a project can be run.
 Reporting & Analytics: Making sense of the data captured through the knowledge
management and giving reports suiting different stakeholders tastes and preferences, leaves
a satisfied customer at the end of the project. The reports and analytics provide real time
updates which helps to take decisions at the right time for the right people.
Let’s understand a live case study of Project Management in Collaborative Age…
Collaborative Project Management tool – A Case Study
The collaborative way of project management can be best explained by an actual live case study
where it was implemented and the benefits were clearly visible. The Project management in
Collaborative age has arrived and the below case study illustrates the point well. The case study
illustrated below is for a mid-sized Gaming IT company based out of Noida, India.
Organization Background:
The organization is a leading developer of high quality innovative game content and game
development for the online, land-based, mobile and social gaming platforms. Its’ primary area of
5 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

7. business is the established services sector that provides subcontracted game art and software for the
industry.
Regarding the projects, it is a 200 member team and grown organically over the last 6 years. This
organization is based out of Noida, New Delhi, India.
Some of the typical aspects of their projects were:
 At any given moment of time, there are around of 25 -50 projects handled by 2 project
managers and assisted by 3-4 team leaders.
 The project team is typically of 5 member team and the duration of each of the project is
around 4-5 month period.
 The Project manager reports directly into the managing director and is a senior authority in
the organization.
 Before the collaborative way of working, the projects were managed in excel spreadsheets.
 The communication earlier used to happen verbally or through mails, i.e., Microsoft Outlook.
 The Configuration Management function happens with VSS and managed separately, and not
tied up to the projects.
Challenges:
Some of the typical challenges the projects faced:
 The entire effort to create, execute, track and close the project is manual which results into a
lot of time and lot of mistakes.
 Only a single person can track the excel sheet at any given point of time which adds to idle
time and lack of collaborative effort, again leading to wastage of time and constrained time.
 Excel involves a lot of macros and formulae and in case, any of the logic is modified, it takes
a mammoth effort to correct and restore it to original. Maintenance of the project worksheets
is quite a huge task in terms of cost and money.
 A lot of time and energy is invested in communication the project updates; excel screenshot is
being taken and sent to the team and the details have to be explained on 1:1 basis.
Standardization and Collaboration is lacking in the projects.
 Due to the lack of proper data, a lot of time in invested to get the correct data and find
different trends and variances. In case of any issue, a good amount of time is invested to find
the root causes and the real cause of the problem.
 Due to lack of data, quality of reports is lacking.
Solution Description:
For the paucity of the technical paper, the critical aspects of the collaborative way of working in the
projects are highlighted. These critical features along with other ancillary functionality helped
overcome the challenges and reap high value to their projects. The customer in this case, has
mentioned that it helped them to get repeat business and even one of their customers wants to
implement a similar way of project management.
A Central Repository of Data:
Data should be stored in a single place and every element of the data should be appropriately linked
to create a meaningful data.
Ability to generate Data and high quality reports:
The data if mined properly should generate high quality reports and analytics for quick decision
making. Attached are some of the snapshots of some critical reports used in various projects.
6 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

8. 7 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

9. Executive Dashboards:
Every member of the project team right upto the CEO can have its own blend of project items, called
the Dashboard. The management and a team member’s dashboardsare shown below for the
illustrative purpose:
Time Sheet entries linked to a particular task in the project:
The time sheet entries should be linked to the particular task in the project. It should help to enter the
actual as well as the billable time entries. These time entries can be shared with the appropriate
approver or the customer.
8 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

10. Centralized Document Management System:
Every document in the project is important and also, it is essential that it is linked to the deliverables
or milestones in the project. It can further help to have a version history of the document with Check
In and Check out flags. This helps the team to collaborate with deliverables and discussions on the
deliverables in one single place and tied to the right item in the project plan.
9 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

11. Discussion Threads:
There was a need to communicate and discuss on issues, tasks or any other items in the project. This
might help to gather the data and report as organization process asset, i.e., Lessons Learnt or
Retrospectives.
Budgeting and Costing:
This helps to give a snapshot of the project performance in terms of cost and schedule to all the
stakeholders on a real time basis.
10 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

12. Schedule Management:
This helps the project manager to check the Critical path for the project and track time on the plan.
The red bars are the critical tasks which the project should focus on.
Benefits of Collaborative Project Management
1. Speed
Decisions need to be taken at the right time and in today’s world at breakneck speed, else competitor
is always ahead of you. Project Management in collaborative way enables you to garner speed in
your project. With speed and momentum, there are also by-products of enhanced team motivation
and high energy on the projects.
2. Better Project Data
One of the greatest things about having a shared space is that everyone who is involved in the project
can have access to it all at once, no matter what their level of responsibility. Brainstorming can also
happen no matter where team members are located improving the quantity and quality of input.
3. Working with Distributed Teams
Many of us these days work with widely dispersed teams. In the past, that might have caused
problems of some people not being fully aware of all project parameters. With a shared project space
there’s no need to worry about someone being out of the loop. All project communications are saved
in the project space, improving both communication and efficiency. Team members in different time
zones no longer have to wait for an office to be open to track project status - they can log in to their
dashboard and see.
4. Big Picture, Fine Detail
That brings us to the next point - the ability to simultaneously see the big picture and drill down to the
fine detail. A collaborative project management tool allows both aspects. Online project management
software can allow the managers of different sub-projects to have their own work view while still
having access to the overview. If you have one overarching project on which several sub-projects
depend, it’s easy to see these dependencies, assess how the projects are going and make decisions
based on the overview. Goals, strategies and schedules are all beautifully organized, making it easy
to keep track of accountability and performance.
11 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

13. 5. Saving Money
And let’s not forget about the financial benefits. You deliver the project well within your schedule with
your planned effort, involving your stakeholders and increased customer satisfaction. This definitely
augurs well for your next project, isn’t it?
The Future - Collaborative project management:
Project Management in the Collaborative has set in; the quicker the decision makers and project
managers realize the better for them and their organizations. Project Management in the diverse and
dynamic environment would be challenging and there is no other option, but to operate in a
collaborative way to succeed in your projects.
The idea is to quickly become aware of this fact, use the collaborative way of working together, which
involves the people, processes and tools to win in your projects. It is the time now to do the project in
a different way. Let’s adopt and adapt – and make a new beginning and succeed in our projects.
Let’s embrace the Project Management in the Collaboration Age.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_project_management
http://www.icoordinator.com/en/blog/collaborative-project-management
12 Project Management in the Collaborative Age

14. About the Author
Ashish Sadekar is passionate about project management and likes to call himself as an aspiring
thought leader in this space. And he decided to devote his further career specifically for this field and
turned an entrepreneur exclusively focussing on project management space. His company,
ProThoughts, offers collaborative project management software, advisory & training services, and
advanced project management concepts / theories. He is an invited speaker on PM forums and his
papers are selected for prestigious project events (this is one among many). He is a visiting faculty to
the city’s top 2 B-schools for Project Management. He is PfMP (one of the 1st few in Portfolio), PMP,
Scrum Alliance certified and has trained more than 1000 project practitioners so far.
Ashish had the privilege of working with the best minds in the top companies he has worked so far.
He has worked with Microsoft where he bootstrapped the Consulting practice for Dynamics in India
and he led a unit in SAS India, a leader in Business Intelligence. Earlier, he has worked with top
Indian organizations like Infosys and TCS where he executed some of the first and complex deals. He
is well versed with technology and especially in ERP, CRM and Business Intelligence & Analytics.
He is an active member with PMI Mumbai chapter and participates in the certification training and
other volunteer activities of the chapter.
Details:
Communication Address: E 604, OberoiSplendor, JVLR, Andheri (East) - 400060
Email Address: ashish_sadekar@hotmail.com
Mobile Number: +91 9820982723
13 Project Management in the Collaborative Age