Around the CHAOS outlook – How 2011 played out and what to watch in 2012

As the year 2011 wraps-up, I wanted to take this opportunity to share the top 10 (and interesting) technology and management trends and areas that dominated the scene in 2011. I also touched upon briefly what you can expect to watch within these spaces  the next year, 2012. The most significant technology space to watch out for me personally in 2012 would be the Green Technology space, However I did not specifically include it in the below list. Why? I believe each of the trends listed below will be influced on how Green technology evolves in 2012. Just a mention on this list would not do justice and pehpahs I would rather save this for a different post.

While this list is mainly based on my personal experiences and interests in 2011,  it is also inspired by social network interactions.

1. Agile Management makes further inroads- Agile management continued to make inroads and gain acceptance in 2011. Organizations recognized and realized its benefits. They even adopted various hybrid versions of agile even if they did not go completely agile. They tweaked agile to make it work for their custom needs like reporting, tracking and planning. We also saw PMI finally starting their Agile Project management certification program.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – While PMI will continue to be one of the most accepted organization certifying and training agile management. There will be other leaders as well. Scrum Alliance for one, which is currently the leader in Scrum training and certification. Agile adoption might also see wider adoption extending beyond the traditional software development space, though i feel it will be still very much be within the IT industry (mostly).

2. Disaster, Risk and Security Management – While these have always been key areas of management, they become more valuable when managing in uncertain times and 2011 was no exception.Industry specific surveys have highlighted the importance of organization managed both risk and security.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – With computing over the cloud being the frst choice with organization, security, risk and disaster management will possibly be one of the keystones that holds the enterprise’s cloud architecture together.

3. Cloudy with AWS – If  you have to name one company that has propelled cloud adoption it has to to Amazon’s Web Services. The company continued to mature its cloud offerings both directly by extending its platform services across availability regions as well as adding innovative features like supporting multiple network interfaces with Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – There is little doubt that amazon will continue to be a leader within the enterprise cloud providers, it will be an interesting space to watch out how challengers like Rackspace for instance will play. Of course Google has been eying this space and will look for consolidation with its cloud offerings for the enterprise.

4. SME Focused Management – This has been the subject of a never-ending debate, project managers or managers in general required to be a subject matter expert. A significant majority of ‘successful’ initiatives I came across in 2011 were led by managers with significant subject matter expertise. Needless to say the demand for these managers was also significantly higher.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – While there isn’t much to watch out in this space in 2012 or in the near future except for the fact that the debate will continue to rage on. I for one believe that with uncertain times and agile management the talk of the day , the demand managers with the subject matter expertise will outpace supply.

5. Social Media & Google Plus – 2011 was also the year when you could not possibly ignore Social media. Time magazine has the person of the year as “The Protester” , aided with social media. Social media moved beyond sharing updates and pictures to  shaping both geographies as well as brands. Google stormed back into the social media scene with Google+ and they did their homework this time around. With around 70 million active users in 6 months, it looks like they have finally managed to get social media right this time.

Watch this space in 2012 (for)  -  I hate to put my foot in my mouth but 2012  might be just as well the year of Google+. There is also the much anticipated IPO from Facebook. An interesting trend here would also be the segmentation within the social media space with niche palyers like Instagram, Path & Pintrest all fighting it out for spotlight.

6. Managing Big Data – The systems and technology to manage Big Data finally seemed to have arrived in 2011. Thanks to cloud computing, both platform based like Amazon – AWS and service based like cloudera, the technology to exploit these huge datasets are now available beyond large organizations that could afford to deploy multiple clusters of hardware.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – With the systems and technology evolved, what would be interesting to watch is how organizations ultimately use this data. A small number of organizations have already started doing this, but 2012 will definitely be the year when organizations finally start to exploit these datasets to provide better products and services.

7. Email’s waning its majority – One of my personal favourites,  in 2011 though email continued to be the primary channel for communication for the enterprise, its dominance seemed to be threatened if not completely shaken. Collaboration tools, instant messaging and social media services all played their part in taming the email beast. 2011 is also the year when a large listed technology company went cold turkey and completely banned internal email.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – While I am pretty certain that 2012 will be no different than 2011 for email with respect to its waning majority, what will be interesting to watch is the organizations that will adopt alternatives and those alternatives themselves.

8. The Statups and IPOs – 2011 was the year for startups and IPOs. There were some really innovative startups like Instagram ,Quora, Launchrock and Stocktwits to name a few. Unfortunately 2011 was also the year for ridiculous IPO offerings, with Groupon leading the pack. While most have them have been subject to market correction since then, there are still some overvalued items out there.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – Facebook of course will come up with possibly the biggest tech IPO. There are also list of startups that will try to ride on the IPO wave along with Facebook. With a little inspiration, luck and caution you actually might profit from this trend. Despite uncertain times, watch out for the innovate startups that will continue to get the much needed funding and possibly change the way we work and play.

9. Enterprise Project Program Portfolio Management Systems – The EP3M space seemed less crowded this year, however there are still no clear leaders. While Microsoft and Oracle dominate this space with MS Project Suite and Primavera respectively, they are yet to be established are clear leaders within the quadrant . There were some clear challengers this year specially the companies with on-demand, SAAS and cloud based offerings which both the front runners seemed to lack, at least in 2011.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) - This will probably be an interesting space to watch in 2012 as well. Will the dominant players go in for a on-demand agile model or will one of the challengers finally scale-up at an Enterprise level to threaten the front runners.

10. Apple & Steve Jobs – I had to include this one, no matter how much you love to hate apple, they do come up with the most innovative and stable products. This was obviously a mixed year for the tech giant. While the world will continue to miss Steve for his innovation and vision, Apple did prove (once again) that the iPhone continues to be the most popular smart-phone till date.

Watch this space in 2012 (for) – The television revolution. As apple plans to revolutionize televisions like they way it revolutionized the cellphones and music, this space and Apple in particular will be an interesting space to watch in 2012.

So did I get it close for 2011? What do you think will be the most interesting space to watch out for in 2012. Something that I missed?