‘Smart' Project Management

Mobile devices and applications are changing the way individuals gather, process and share information. A development which also applies to project management. This chapter reports an explorative study on the functionality of 50 project management apps. The apps were analyzed on the variables: type of functionality, project management processes supported, methodology/standard supported, topics covered, website support, languages supported, project roles supported, number of team members supported and number of projects supported. Our analysis showed that the functionality of project management apps today is mainly focused on two application areas: (A) Supporting the role of the project manager individually in the planning/organizing processes of the project and (B) Supporting team communication and team collaboration. Lacking in functionality seems to be the communication/collaboration with project sponsor and other stakeholders. Based on our study we recommend project managers to be selective when starting to use project management apps.

The Influence of Social Media on Teamwork Aspects

Social media has become an integral part of society compared to only ten years ago and has changed the way we communicate. On the other hand organizations are increasingly working in teams. Key in teamwork is communication, according to Salas et al. communication is invaluable in teamwork. However what is the influence of social media on teamwork with this major adjustment in the way we communicate? This chapter introduces a conceptual model to measure the influence of social media on teamwork aspects.

Project Management 2.0

With growing maturity of social media over the last few years, many companies started using these tools to interact with customers and employees. Business functions such as Sales, Marketing and Human Resources have innovatively embedded these technologies to support their processes and became, as such, an instrument for renewal. The use of social media in Project Management, however, seems to be very limited. The profession lags behind having difficulty keeping pace with the rapidly evolving web 2.0 driven technological innovations which are delivering on their promise to foster collaboration. The paper discusses the potential of social media in the project management practice. As the move towards harnessing the power of social media within the Project Management framework requires adequate organizational change, the study also addresses the implications of such an initiative on structure, culture, and control.

Inside the Project Management Institute

PMI is the world's leading not-for-profit professional membership association for the project, program, and portfolio management profession. Now in its 46th year, the association provides global advocacy, collaboration, education, and research to more than 2.9 million professionals working in nearly every country in the world. To better support project practitioners in their role as “change agents,” PMI utilizes popular social media platforms, as well as a robust virtual community. Through social media, PMI creates an environment in which project practitioners create, curate, and share strong value-added content, take part in well-informed discussions, and collaborate to seek effective solutions.

From Reactive to Proactive Use of Social Media in Emergency Response

This chapter examines the introduction and implementation of the pilot project Twitcident in an emergency response room setting. Twitcident is a web-based system for filtering, searching and analyzing data on real-world incidents or crises. Social media data is seen as important for emergency response operations: it can be used as an ‘early warning monitoring system' to detect social unrest, and for improving common operational pictures (COPs). This chapter shows that the expectations on the functioning of the tool were not fully met: first it was hard for the response room professionals to make sense of the data and second, the management did not develop a proper project planning. The recommendations are twofold. On the one hand, the professionals who work with Twitcident must invest in developing new information management routines. On the other hand, the response room management needs to create a much more inclusive project learning strategy.

Developing a Social Media Communication Plan

Social media is accepted as an effective communications and promotion tool. Social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging and podcasting are leveraged by different organizations for creating profiles, establishing communication, interaction and launching promotional activities. However, promoters might encounter certain challenges in targeting potential audiences and maintaining interest and the interaction of the audience in their social media profiles. The purpose of this chapter is to identify effective communication and content approaches, with a Finnish perspective, and to develop a social media communication plan.

Barriers to Social Media Adoption on Projects

This chapter considers the reasons behind the lack of adoption of social media tools in a project environment. It discusses how project practitioners can overcome concerns about the lack of overall strategy, lack of senior management sponsorship, lack of a proven business case, security issues, information overload and the blurring of lines between professional and personal data online in order to realize the benefits of social and collaboration tools. It concludes that social tools are a fundamental part of the current and future project management landscape and that ‘social' should be intelligently incorporated into working practices in order to meet a need instead of being a response to outside trends.

Investigating the Intention to Use Social Media Tools Within Virtual Project Teams

Enterprise social media tools are becoming more prevalent in project management, particularly where project teams have to operate on a global and virtual basis. It is becoming more critical that organisations understand the key attributes of such technology to encourage their teams to use them in order to achieve the perceived benefits. In this chapter we search for answers to the factors that influence the adoption of such tools in a virtual project setting by testing the applicability of the much cited technology adoption model known as the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The model is modified to suit the sphere of virtual teams and focuses on the behavioural intention to adopt social media technology. The purpose of examining such a model is to see if it can explain some of the key factors that may influence the adoption of social media within virtual project teams.

Managing Project Communication

While social media use has rapidly grown all over the world the use in business context is growing at a steadier pace. Mostly social media is used by businesses as a communication channel aimed at customers either to promote products and services or as part of their web care activities. The use of social media as a means for internal communication is limited; this is especially true for projects. However social media can improve organizational communications and where communication within organizations is important in general, in the context of project management it is a critical success factor. Therefore research was conducted on how social media can be used to enhance communication within projects. In this chapter a framework that can be used to apply social media in project communication is described. The framework shows how social media tools are used by different roles and for different events during a project.

Analyzing the Landscape of Social Media

The rapid spread of social media provides a new reality for organizational communication and team collaboration. This also applies to projects and project management, where logical application areas are stakeholder engagement and team collaboration. This last application area will be most beneficial to international projects with geographically dispersed teams. However, the landscape of social media is not unified. There are remarkable differences between regions, countries and generations. This chapter explores these differences, by discussing different perspectives on the social media landscape.