From Craig Norris, The Project Economy - Industry Trend or Event?
Welcome to the strange new world of project-based work, where independent professionals coalesce around a design challenge or product launch and disband once the work is done.
Project work is not new: In Hollywood, members of the “cast of thousands” that make a film may never find themselves together until the premiere. What is new is the growing pervasiveness of project-to-project employment in an economy where a product’s shelf life is shrinking by the month, and firms are finding it necessary to reinvent themselves at regular intervals.
The advantages of a project-based workforce are clear and compelling: an ability to adapt quickly to changing competitive circumstances without an obsolete business unit’s drag on productivity, performance and profits. Large, bureaucratic companies as we’ve known them will cease to exist. They will be replaced by smaller, more fluid versions of their former selves, staffed by professional nomads who migrate to wherever the employment market promises the greatest personal and financial return.