I’ve found a new word for me in a trivial job description, for a regular Project Manager position. The whole statement sounded as:

Candidate profile

We are looking for a person with extensive experience in project management (3 years minimum) who wants to take responsibility for the project’s success. Someone with knowledge and practice with project management frameworks such as PMI/Prince2. This person should work effectively in multiple threads simultaneously, in a VUCA environment. You can’t be afraid of feedback and disagreement and should be able to work with different personality types. It would be great if you balance organizing and planning project work with giving initiative and control to the team. You are entrepreneurial, i.e., proactively and creatively solve problems, keeping in mind the client’s and her team’s well-being.

When I see an acronym unknown to me, I check what it is, if this is a widely accepted term, or something industry-specific. VUCA was exactly that word.

Interestingly, this “new” word is an absolutely trivial working condition for project managers. “VUCA” acronym stands for “Volatile,” “Uncertain,” “Complex,” and “Ambiguous.” I believe any project manager has worked on a waterfall-like, detailed documented project, easy to implement, with 100%-reproducible results, that might even appear boring. Vice versa, uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility of requirements, complexity of the environment is what motivates us, and makes our job valuable.

I worked on VUCA-like projects many times, not knowing that they were “VUCA”. I just did my project management duties, clarifying requirements, adjusting work processes, adding certainty or managing chaos, and securing my teams from storms and fickle winds. This is what project managers do.

Interestingly, the VUCA acronym appeared not after 9/11, but 3 weeks before, in the United States Army War College. It just became widely known because of 9/11. What is this, proactive risk monitoring, or conspiracy theory, I don’t know. Anyway, I can remember these old, good, if not fat times before the terrorists’ attacks of 2001 and the dot com crash. There was another world, before VUCA, with long-lasting projects, cut-in-the-stone plans, high demand in IT, relatively low competition, and slower speed of market changes. Now, the world has become turbulent, and we have to live in this world.

If you know what is VUCA and what is The Institute For the Future, you may skip reading the remaining part of my article. If you are looking for quick exacts or insights, follow the article https://www.mindtools.com/asnydwg/managing-in-a-vuca-world. Finally, if you are looking for ideas behind the term and the article, you can buy the book (quite outdated in terms of technologies, but still actual overall) of Bob Johansen, “Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World”, at Amazon. Of, if you are environment-friendly and limited in time, you can borrow it on the Internet Archive for free.

Let me recap some moments I found valuable in the book.

1. Whereas VOCA is perceived as a negative thing by definition, it can be transformed into a positive driving force, yielding V as Vision, U as Understanding, C as Clarity, and A as Agility.
2. An “Inner making instinct” can tell you the truth about the leaders of the company: if they have complex or exotic time-consuming hobbies, like building steam machines, it might be that their maker instinct is not fully expressed at work. It is neither good nor bad, though.
3. Leaders can only make the future if they are clear about their actions and expected results. When people are confused they are seeking clarity, and this is what leaders should give.
4. Clarity by definition is the ability to see through messes and contradictions, see the future that others cannot see, find a viable direction to go, and see hope in hopeless situations, as the other side of trouble.
5. Dilemmas cannot be solved, they are choices of two equally bad opportunities, and cannot go away. However, they can be turned into advantages. As an example, McKinsey spends lots of effort to prepare their consultants, and when they eventually leave and seed their own companies, they would become the clients of McKinsey.
6. We live in a polarized world. As leaders, we have to depolarize it, being aware of others’ cultures, religions, etc, and developing the empathy.
7. Be transparent as leaders, introduce transparency into your projects, and measure first, not to be measured by others. As example, the book considered the humility of leaders and being environment-aware, measuring carbon footprint. It appeals to me as the “Nordic” style of living.
8. Creating Commons, contributing to the society, having Wikipedia as an example.