Trends in IT project management

This article describes the current state of project management in the majority of normal commercial computer system development environments, from the inside. It looks back to see what sort of trouble we used to be in, and forward to see what trends are evident and where they might lead. It is based on my 20 years’ experience in Hoskyns Group, on my colleagues, and on our clients as suppliers, developers and users of computer systems and tools. The opinions, of course are my own, not necessarily those of Hoskyns Group. I discuss the IT environment and the sort of problems it has had in the past (and in many places still has). In the ’80s, methodical approaches have improved this position. As we move into the ’90s, closer links between computer-assisted systems engineering (CASE) techniques, and better estimating methods and project management tools, and the ways in which we use all of these, offer some hopes of still more improvements.