Survey: Social Media in a Project Environment

Social media has come up quite a bit on the MTWblog lately, as you’ve probably noticed. In part, that’s because we believe that working better, faster and smarter can be improved by collaboration – and social media offers many entry points for collaboration. Another reason is that many of our readers are professional project managers and social media is a hot topic among practitioners looking to push that industry forward. Lastly, we think that all team leaders and managers, of all shapes and sizes, should be aware of the changing ways the people communicate and interact – shouldn’t it be part of the job description of a modern leader?

Elizabeth Harrin, a professional project manager and prolific writer covers the topic in a recent post on her Girl’s Guide to Project Management blog and in an article for Projects@Work as well.Part of the PMI’s New Media Council and listed more than 100 times on Twitter for her expertise in project management and social media, we figure Elizabeth has some good ideas to share.

First a quick layman’s definition, in case you are new to the concept: social media is any type of media that has an element of interaction.

Typically the term refers to online media made possible by the Web: blogs, YouTube, podcasts, FaceBook. Interaction can be any type of feedback (comments on an online story) or updates (the ability to share or “like” an article or video).

Although the evolution and proliferation of social media has gone warp speed in the last several years, some social media has been around for a long, long time – like talk radio, for instance: “Hello caller, you’re on the air!”

For a longer definition, check out the wikipedia entry on social media. Wikipedia is just another great example of social media.

So, how does this apply to getting work done and managing projects? That’s where Elizabeth’s survey comes into play. She polled nearly 250 project managers in more than 30 countries regarding their professional use and opinion of social media.

What she found is that “[p]roject managers agree that there are benefits to be had, with 82% feeling that social media and enterprise collaboration tools can/do improve the way they manage their projects.”

Oft cited social media tools for leading and managing projects included:

• LinkedIn
• Instant Messaging
• Web-based project management tool

We pulled some of the most interesting top-level results from the survey:

• 53% of survey respondents carry out meetings online
• 49% use social media tools for project status updates
• 43% said they manage their project team with social media tools

Read the rest of survey results and see for yourself – the report is a quick four pager and, along with the other surveys and studies we’ve collected, starts to provide an idea of where we are and where we’re headed in terms of the value of using social media for collaboration to get things done better, faster and smarter.

In addition to checking out the report and blog, follow Elizabeth Harrin on Twitter @PM4Girls.