Today’s superhero guest is Kevin Perkins, a long-time technical product manager with years of experience shaping and considering SaaS product development. He joins Steve West, CEO of Project Insight, for an engaging conversation on their early entrepreneurial friendship and the evolution of project management—where it was 20 years ago, where it stands today, and where it’s headed in the future.
Can we trust Kevin’s insights on what’s next? Absolutely. His superpower lies in his ability to see the big picture, anticipate industry trends, and lead innovation before the rest of the world is ready. You won’t want to miss this discussion!
1-5 min: Kevin’s Journey in Product Management
Kevin’s career path and how he got into product management
Steve and Kevin’s entrepreneurial connection
Early entrepreneurs when the internet was born
What was data connectivity like before the internet?
Pre-online project management and learning as you go
5-12 min: The Evolution of Project Management & Kevin's Superpower
Early tools in the early internet
Agile born out of necessity
Creating products to be monetized or invested in
Digitizing businesses
Superpower of self-placement in the history and future of project management
12-16 min: Building High-Performing Project Teams
How teams adapted before modern PM software
People want software developed yesterday – agile as a response
How Agile helps keep projects iterating and customers informed
16-23 min: How Tech is Transforming Project Management
The first chats weren’t Teams and Slack
Extranets – before the cloud application idea
Taking company intranet activities and exposing them to external platforms
Transformation of PPM tools – many tools emerged and disappeared
23-24 min: Expert Insights on Scaling & Growth
Willingness to change – staying adaptive in tech and business
Don’t have to be an expert, but must keep moving with technology
24-36 min: The Future of Project Management
Project Management from the dotcom days to now
Kevin’s endeavor with Squeezer app – making web pages mobile-friendly
Cobbling tools together to make systems work
Putting project management online
Interoperability with best-of-breed tools
Bringing in t-shirt sizes and story points and converting them into measurable data
Tightly integrating applications to bring data to PMs
36-41 min: Riffing on the Future: AI, PM, and Beyond
Future of project, program, product, and portfolio management
AI skepticism & anticipation
2025 – the year of the agent?