Crowdsourcing and Project Management

January 11, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Project Collaboration

Crowdsourcing and Project Management
By Rich Maltzman, PMP

We know that there is a tremendous amount of buzz on crowdsourcing. YouTube and WikiPedia are two famously prominent examples of web-based communities which have significant impact. This movement has already had influence on project management. The January, 2008 issue of PM Network (see the case study on FilmRiot, page 46) covers the crowdsourcing movement with good examples, and the same issue reviews blog software for project collaboration.

There’s no doubt that a project will work more effectively if its community of stakeholders (the “crowd”) is in constant contact. My question in this brief article is different. What about the community of project managers itself? Can it come together to produce positive outcomes which benefit the community?

I’ve decided to experiment a little in this area.

Inspired by the book Wikinomics (which I highly recommend to PMs), I got interested in the website wearesmarter.org and its efforts to crowdsource a book. That business book, “We Are Smarter Than Me” (copyright 2008!) is authored by “Barry Libert and Jon Spector and thousands of contributors”. I participated in the authoring of this book by contributing some ideas on project management via the crowdsourced editing tools on their site. The inside front and back covers are emblazoned with the names of the “authors” (including me) in glorious and spectacular size 0.1 font. Hey – a mention is a mention.

I decided next to check out the world of crowdsourcing by participating in one of the sites recommended by both “We Are Smarter Than Me” as well as by the PM Network magazine article. I submitted an idea to CambrianHouse.com , a crowdsourcing site meant to help incubate and promote new ideas. It was a little convoluted – I submitted an idea to produce a crowdsourced Project Management book, The Fiddler on the Project. I got lots of feedback from the group, and ended up winning the weekly “IdeaWarz” contest that they run. So the “crowd” liked the idea.

Now my question is this: besides the PMBOK® Guide, can project managers collaborate to write a book like “We Are Smarter Than Me”? The book I am working on with colleague Ranjit Biswas, PMP is open to collaboration on a wiki. About 70 people have participated in this social experiment so far, mainly by participating in the survey. Time will tell if the PM community, at least once informed about the opportunity, will respond more significantly, that is in numbers and with more significant writing contributions.

My lessons learned so far from crowdsourcing? It’s in its infancy. The tools are primitive, and its energy is not yet focused. But a high potential is there. As project managers, there is amazing power in numbers. Crowdsourcing can and will start to solve PM problems, as the tools get more sophisticated, and the PM community responds.

Rich Maltzman, PMP, has 30 years of industry experience, the last 20 of which have been in project management. Currently a Senior Manager for a large multinational corporation’s Global PMO, Rich has also been developing and delivering project management courseware and PMP prep packages for Boston University’s Corporate Education Center and mScholar. In addition, he and co-author Ranjit Biswas, PMP, are the lead authors, along with all of you out there, of the book, Fiddler on the Project, to be published in 2008, via its crowdsourced wiki site, http://fiddlerontheproject.bluwiki.org. You are invited to write it with them. You can also visit Rich’s blog at www.scopecrepe.blogspot.com.

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1 person has left a comment

Here comes the first of the crowd to your posting - supporting your idea.

One of the area that I have been thinking in terms of crowdsourcing is that of Project Risk Management. This can happen in two environments - inside the organization as well as outside the organization.

Large organizations which have similar projects being carried out all across the globe can expose the projects to the internal project teams to capture the anticipated risks ( and possible mitigation) in a project.

Same concept can be extended beyond the organization boundaries too.

My blog - which I have recently started explores these possibilities in the new internet world.

Any comment is appreciated. BTW - I just subscribed to your blog in my Google reader.

thanks

Suv

Suv wrote on January 24, 2008 - 8:40 am | Visit Link

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