Todd Pruzan, HBR

Welcome to the HBR Video Quick Take. I’m Todd Pruzan, senior editor for research and special projects at Harvard Business Review. The past two years have accelerated growth and change in an unprecedented way. And as we all know, that change has deeply influenced where, how, and why we work.

Today, I’m with Robin Sherwood, vice president of product management at Smartsheet, to talk about what the future of project management looks like. Robin’s unique background in project management software positioned him well to tell us about how the industry has changed and where it’s going. Robin, thank you so much for being with us today.

Robin Sherwood, Smartsheet

Oh, thanks, Todd.

Todd Pruzan, HBR

Robin, what is the future of project management software? What role does Smartsheet play in it?

Robin Sherwood, Smartsheet

I think what we are seeing in our customers is that the term “project management” refers to a much larger audience than just what we would call project managers. There are so many things that we would call project-based work, which is anything that has a goal, is time based, and has a clear assignment to it. The project-based work really can be anything. It can be a marketing campaign. It can be a merger and acquisition. It can be a new product launch.

And it’s not just about the delivery of a single project; it’s really about the delivery of projects consistently in an increasingly efficient way. And so, we think the process that surrounds project management is something that needs to continually evolve. And this is why our mission is to allow anyone to make meaningful change within their organization. It is really around that continuous improvement and process improvement for delivering work.

Todd Pruzan, HBR

OK, so why doesn’t traditional project management software meet the needs of the modern workforce?

Robin Sherwood, Smartsheet

I think there are really two challenges. On one end, you’ve got this status quo, which is really based on email and spreadsheets. And this has been around for decades. And teams need a way to organize their work. They need a way to create that process around managing work repeatedly. And these traditional tools are challenging. They don’t solicit real-time communication. They don’t support status and visibility. And people are often confused about what the current state of things is.

On the other end, you’ve got traditional project and portfolio management tools that are very structured and very capable but don’t allow the teams to evolve that process as changes are needed. And this is where you see the rise of collaborative work management, which really is focused on bringing all these things together in a way that allows for high-level status reporting and visibility across an entire portfolio of work while enabling the teams to be deeply engaged in a single tool that allows them to understand what their deliverables and their expectations are.

Todd Pruzan, HBR

Robin, you mentioned collaborative work management software. Can you elaborate a bit on that?

Robin Sherwood, Smartsheet

I think it gets back to that process challenge. We like to think about things as striving for global consistency. As a business, you need to be able to make strategic decisions, and you need to be able to compare all the things that are in flight and make trade-offs. But we also believe the local teams understand their local processes the best, and they’re the most capable of making improvements in their own efficiency. And so, we see this as—we like to think about things like global consistency with local autonomy.

The other thing is that we think those tools need to have the ability to make those process changes without having to ask permission. They don’t need to go to an IT admin or someone who’s managing the tool to make a change that really only impacts the efficiency of the local team.

The other piece I think we see as critically important in collaborative work management is borderless collaboration. So many of these tools out there are based on this licensing model that really prohibits people from participating. And we think that in order to get efficiency, you really need to bring all the relevant stakeholders into the same environment. Borderless collaboration means that you can work not just to cross-functional teams or department teams, but you can really start to engage more directly and more efficiently with customers, partners, and vendors. And this is going to be the source of true strategic advantage and efficiency within your organization.

Todd Pruzan, HBR

Well, Robin, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today and for all your insight.

Robin Sherwood, Smartsheet

Thanks, Todd.

---

Learn how Smartsheet can power your processes and help your organization maximize its potential.