Published
This year, much of the buzz (pandemic aside) has been about new technology: data analytics, artificial intelligence and digital twins. You might be forgiven for thinking that, by the time we reach 2030 major projects are much more like business-as-usual, with new machines and new digital applications taking all of the challenge out of what we do.
There are a number of reasons, why this won’t be the case:
The future is all about how we collaborate
As part of a podcast episode we are preparing for January, I have been interviewing a number of the Association’s current and recent Rising Stars, to ask them for their take on work and skills in 2030. I am currently over half-way through the list of interviewees and one theme is emerging above others; the potential of the metaverse. “Ah, technology”, you may say. However, the interviewees all describe this emerging concept very firmly in terms of how we communicate with one another, how we interact and collaborate across geographies and time zones and how we learn and share. The technology may enable this way of working but at its heart will be conversations.
The future is social
Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner’s wonderful video on the power, ubiquity and relevance of social learning is at least five year’s old now, but it hasn’t lost any of its impact:
They make the point that the future is all about how we learn from each other; from talking to each other, observing one another and simply from the experience of working together.
The future is ambitious
We are already running to catch up but this hasn’t constrained our imagination or the ambition of what we do in our major projects. Over the next eight years, we know we need to have resolved the immediate threat to our existences posed by the twin emergencies of climate and biodiversity. Whilst we may anticipate that technology will do much of the heavy lifting, there is no getting over the fact that these (and other) planet-wide issues will depend on our ability to reach across borders, to engage with other countries and support and enable the development of the majority world.
So I think we will definitely be talking about major projects in eight year’s time. Our needs and ambitions will, if anything, have continued to grow and, just maybe, we’ll have grown up from our belief that our technology will save us and learned that human conversations are what drives our projects and our way of life. Ideas and collaborations begin with conversations, conflicts and disagreements are resolved with conversations, value is articulated and realised though conversations.
Let’s not forget technology, entirely. For those of you who want a sneak preview of what working in the metaverse involves, the good news is that the Major Projects Association is already there and has been since 2017, when we first started our series of QUBE@Work events in the immersive, 3D, environment that is QUBE.