I’ve been giving lots of talks on the future of professions and even of management.

Bottom Line: The future of management and all professions is fundamentally changing and even some professions are disappearing.

We’ve known for a long time that quality management positions are getting scarcer if not disappearing.  We’ve been saying for years that “if everyone is responsible for quality, what’s the role and job of the quality professional?”  Now, it seems that the same applies to project management professionals when everyone is responsible for success of their project.

Michael Stanleigh in a prescient article presented his research on ‘The Future of Quality and Project Management.’  His points include:

• More organizations will implement a strategy and culture initiative to ensure success with projects.
• Organizations will start to recognize that Quality Management is part of successful project management.
• Project Management Offices will become passé.
• The role of the project manager as a unique position will die.
• Performance management systems will incorporate the management of projects as part of a total job performance measurement.
• Organizations will seek out training that combines both quality and project knowledge-based learning.
• Project and quality principles will be infused into everyone’s roles within an organization.

Great stuff that seems to be write on.