Back in 2008 with the Bitcoin Whitepaper released, a light in the midst of the darkness, with the market crash that happened, came to be. Cryptocurrency quickly became the next thing while Social Media and smartphone adoption, as well as cellular networks, were being upgraded from 2G to 3G and quickly moving to LTE. Mostly everyone was just trying to get onto facebook, understand twitter, blogging, youtube, create and develop apps whilst the blockchain was being develop.

It took time until people realized it was not a scam, at least no the Bitcoin and Ethereum or other blockchains. Then came the ICOs, Initical Coin Offerings for Bitcoin Blockchain or TGE, Token Generation Event for the Ethereum Blockchain as these were programmable to have functionalities thanks to the smart contracts.

With so many projects coming and going, the volatility of the markets, prices going up and down, the growth of the companies so quickly affected created problems in developments. Sometimes having too many cooks in the kitchen can crease issues. Clear establishment of who’s who, who’s responsible, who has the final call, how are things to be work, and some governance and structure is heavily needed in order to actually make things occur such as develop, code, market, implement, test, debug, while providing progress reports.

Almost every blockchain company didn’t have a normal corporate or regular company structure because this was the new world so it could be shaped in a new way. It didn’t have to be so rigid and instead of having bosses, leaders, and such, everyone was to work together. Problem here was there was no clear path, structure, or who’s who other than the guy who hired you, who signs the paycheck or CEOs or president of the company.

Fall of a Dream

When the fall and winter of 2018 set in, the prices of Ethereum and almost every other token or coin in crypto went down heavily. If you had had a TGE or ICO in 2016, two years later with 50+ employees in staff, more than likely your payroll was taking quite a hit.

Some CEOs and Presidents of the companies had to reevaluated their efforts and the allocation of resources. Here are two of those examples:

• Consensys is not actually laying off half of its workforce (article by Breaker Magazine)
• Shapeshift Lays off 37 in Latest Crypto Cutback

While I don’t know the specific reasons, the money allocation of these two companies or the other blockchain projects that had to do this, one thing I can say one thing for sure: Project Management would’ve help…a lot.

Project Management for Decentralization

When people hear about project management some thing it is mainly about excel spreadsheets, pressure, deadlines, productivity, budgets, quality, and many other things. But mainly, a heavy pressure to deliver the meeting targets and deadlines, sometimes unrealistic, from the Project Manager who may or may not have the knowledge of the industry, the actual skills to communicate properly and inspire personnel, or simply: has been assigned the role but doesn’t know anything about PMI or the first thing about project management using all the incorrect tools and mainly mindset along the way.

Blockchain is mainly for the people by the people to provide the people a richer, cleared and more transparent way of services and assets using technology. It can be also used to create a real democratic governance and take us to the final frontier before reaching singularity, or at the very least, hold each person accountable to the commitment they made.

Many times over resources were not done appropriately on some of the blockchain projects, and in many cases big corporations, because they didn’t go through processes that would help them start their project correctly.

If you take a class of Project Management in order to later on request the certification exam, you’ll be taught that there are Knowledge Areas, a total of 10, and Process Groups, five in this case.

Process Groups are the following:

• Initiating – Is the process of understanding why are we creating this in the first place. Why are we being given the resources, asking for money, and going on about this. During this process, there is also the initial meeting where the individuals involved in the project are to meet and understand that there is a Project Manager and that this PM will be in charge and held accountable and will hold accountable those involved in the project.
• Planning – The most important part of the process. This is where every expert involved in the project will come up with the ground rules.
  • Software to use for tracking and communication. Slack or Whatsapp (please use Slack.)
  • Report days
  • Forms to use
  • Email Formats
  • Processes to comply with regulations
  • Processes from Marketing
  • Processes from HR
  • Manpower required
  • Define the requirements for each department
  • Define deliverables to close the project and confirm we have achieved this.
• Executing – With the Planning done we know what we need to do and execute. The plan is set and the cards being dealt to the players. We have
• Monitoring & Controlling – This is where we will be confirming is we are on target, ahead or below in time and resources allocation to confirm time, money and quality are up to par.
• Closing – When deliverables are completed we are able to complete the project.

This is but a very simple summary in theory of Project Management. I have seen people go from Idea to Executing then Planning then Monitor & Control, then back to Planning, Executing, Trying to Close and seeing that the rules were not set so there was big problem in communication and the quality that was expected in the deliverable. Hence why the process, while it ma seem tedious to some, it simply works because it provides focus to each individual part and you’re setting your project for success from the beginning.

What many people have seen is that there are many people jumping onto the ship of decentralization with the mentality of revolution, anarchy and “let’s show them.” In many occasions without proper counsel from legal, marketing and or senior advisors to make sure that there are clear milestones in the path ahead by creating a roadmap for success that everyone within the organization can work towards to helping build the Ethos rather than just using the word without proper sense. It is one thing to have character and another to be “quite a character” when it comes to running a company or what type of identity the company or project goes with.

Knowing the destination, understanding the Why, thanks to Simon Sinek for Star with Why, will help any organization, team, project, task force, move towards the real goal you all decide and agree upon.

Project Management is not a template mindset. It’s a leadership mindset that is meant to be exercised every moment by guiding the teams, making sure it is a well running machine, no redundancy or double efforts are being done that could case loss of time, revenue, and even morale.

Until the next time, see you all in the Blockchain

Mikel