THEY CALL IT DEVICE CONVERGENCE. It's where devices of different types start to turn up in configurations that combine functionality. If you've seen printers that can also scan or fax, you have an idea what I mean. So, what does this have to do with project management? Plenty.
In the telecommunications world, devices are converging at a stunning pace. You've probably heard about phones with Web browsing capabilities but there's much more going on than just that. The functionality of a phone, a pager, and a PDA are all being blended into one, and the combination is perfect for project management uses.
We've come a long way from the punch card era of project management, but the next revolution in input technology may be the biggest change yet.
A Number of Devices Are Converging. There are probably many categories of devices converging but let's look at just three for the moment. PDAs are personal digital assistants. The Palm Pilot, created by 3Com, carries the lion's share of the market for these devices at the moment, although Microsoft has collaborated with several vendors such as HP and Compaq to create Pocket PCs. These PDAs are Windows-based. Pager devices are well known and have been around for quite awhile. Pagers are essentially always on. They are always listening for signals intended for them. Once they receive such a signal, they activate, retrieve the appropriate message, and then inform the sending network that the message has been received. Two-way pagers are becoming more the rage now. These devices allow short text messages to be composed and sent using the same frequency as incoming messages. Phones are nothing knew, but the stunning increase of cell phone usage worldwide has been completely beyond expectations. The proliferation of multiple mobile phone networks has delivered the infrastructure that makes a revolution in device convergence inevitable.
Chris Vandersluis ([email protected]) is president and co-founder of HMS Software, based in Montreal, Can. He is a member of PMI® and the American Association of Cost Engineers. He has appeared in publications such as Fortune and Heavy Construction News, and is a regular columnist for Computing Canada magazine's project management column. Comments on this column should be directed to [email protected].
In this past year of hideous stock market performance, there is at least one company that has gone against the trend. Research in Motion (RIM) has created a device quaintly called the “Blackberry.” If you haven't seen one before, you're likely to soon. The Blackberry is part two-way pager and part PDA like the Palm Pilot. Unlike the Palm, however, RIM has made the pager so that it is essentially all online. Like the Palm, the tiny LCD screen contains icons with programs and, yes, you can create or add programs to it. Java is the architecture that allows virtually anyone to add programs to a device like the Blackberry. The Java programming language from Sun is now available in a tiny version known as J2Me. (Remember mini-Me from Austin Powers?) It's a miniscule version of Java which will run on devices such as mobile phones and, yes, the Blackberry. Now, anyone who programs in this language can create applications for this device.
I find the Blackberry interesting, as it is the first PDA-type device I've seen that is essentially always on. (Lest it feel left out, RIM isn't the only company making these types of devices. Motorola also has a nice looking two-way pager/PDA device.) I've seen several PDAs now that can connect to the Internet. You can buy a Palm VII, which comes with it's own antenna, or connect one of several wireless modems such as Omnisky to your Palm III or Palm V. There are wireless modems also for the Pocket PC or Windows CE devices that allow you to dial into your Internet provider and browse the Net. The problem with all of these modem type devices is that they're not always on. A pager is. The technology of simply listening to a signal then transmitting back and forth whatever data is pending is perfect for a PDA. Real-time access is somewhat less useful.
While sitting in a meeting a few days ago, a colleague of mine received a number of e-mails. “I used to sit at the end of my day and go through the 60 or 70 e-mails that had accumulated throughout the day,” he said. “Now, I deal with them as I go through my day, wherever I happen to be.” While it was interesting to see his e-mail working, the implications for project management are very significant.
Device Convergence Will Affect Project Management Directly. The last couple of months I've seen more and more PDA-versions of project management software. For example, at a trade show in California, I saw an interesting interface for Microsoft Project on a Pocket PC. A user could download his project to the PDA, walk around the project updating data and, once back at his desk, synchronize the project file and update the project data. A number of different firms have been working on PDA interfaces, but they'll all need to be rethought in the face of device convergence.
Imagine this scenario: You have a cell/PDA/pager in your pocket. You're sitting in a meeting when a vibrating alert notifies you that there is a problem with your project. This alert shows up as a text message sent by the kind of alert software already being promoted by companies like Welcom and Artemis. You take a moment to click on your project management software icon right on your tiny screen. A couple of pen taps later, you're looking at the two or three tasks in question. The solution requires that someone research a contingency plan. You type in an e-mail message to a supplier who can supply an alternate solution and then a text message to one of your staff to follow up on the supplier. The entire exercise takes five minutes or less and at no time was a word spoken or a sound uttered.
In more traditional settings, this kind of scenario is simply impossible. The alert to a problem in a project will come, at best, at the end of the week. Resolving it will require e-mails and telephone conversations once you reach the right people.
Now, do project people really want to be that up to date on their projects? Well, not everyone should be. In a project that is destined to take a couple of years, where project updates are done monthly, the above scenario is probably inappropriate, but even in these project management environments there is a lot to be said for being able to ask short, simple questions and get the answers in close to real time. Just setting up meetings is easier with e-mail than it is by phone, but it is simplicity itself using a two-way pager when everyone is on board. The problem with e-mail is that you've got to be back at your office or hotel to use it. For someone like myself who travels often, I may not see my e-mail until very late in the day or not until tomorrow. A request for a meeting between three people then has to wait until the slowest person sees it before the conversation can continue. With two-way pagers or a device that would carry e-mail and would fit in my pocket, I could respond instantly.
The proliferation of multiple mobile phone networks has delivered the infrastructure that makes a revolution in device convergence inevitable.
Never mind the frequent flyer. Imagine much more time-intensive projects such as plant shutdowns. These five- or six-day projects run 24 hours per day. If you've ever found yourself in such a schedule, then you know that the difference in time it takes of track you down across the plant, right now, instead of when you get back to your desk, might make hours of difference to the end project.
Complete Convergence Isn't Quite Here Yet—But It's Coming. The convergence of all these devices is coming closer and closer. The Blackberry still does not include mobile phone functionality. This means that even if you have one and you need to make cell calls, you're still going to be carrying two devices that can connect to a mobile phone network. This has to change soon, however. From the mobile end of the market, we've already seen mobile phones with Internet connections and a couple of offerings that include PDA functionality from most of the major mobile vendors. It is only a matter of time before these all come together.
FOR THOSE OF YOU planning to call me immediately to find out what software has been made available for these two-way pagers, hold on for just a little while. Software for PDAs is just coming out and a number of software vendors are working on that. The vendors who have selected Java as their programming platform will likely be the first to release software for Blackberry-type devices, but I predict a wave of these tiny interface products to show up soon. The idea of carrying something the size of a Palm Pilot that would allow a user to update a project, fill in a timesheet, send and receive an e-mail, and phone home makes it so attractive that developers will have to follow the trend.
Reader Service Number 022