Five Trends to Watch in 2025

Training companies are in a unique position that allows them to see corporate trends before they manifest to the mainstream. We get the early movers asking for skills development on what they see as the next trend. The goal for those early movers is to use the new skills to create value as early as possible to potentially gain a competitive advantage.

At Skills Development Group we are seeing some interesting and highly disruptive trends, if these trends manifest to the mainstream is yet to be seen. There is a real opportunity right now for companies and individuals to significantly accelerate value if they position themselves correctly within these trends. In the end, it is all about productivity. The more productive an individual or company can make themselves the more value they create, the higher their worth!

Trends to watch:

• The Rise of the Technical Program Manager

Check out the job listings on Indeed for Technical Program Manager. Compare them to the lists for say Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager or Agile Coach. The trend for the utilization of this position and skill set is coming from the west coast tech companies and we have seen this before (aka Agile). The role makes a lot of sense given the need for speed in project deployment and that most projects are tied in some way to technology. The key is at what level do you understand the technologies being used and what technologies do you know. For the over 1.2m PMP project managers out there, this is a trend they need to watch closely.

• Day to Day use of GenAI

Organizations are going to expect their people to use GenAI every day. They are also going to plan hiring numbers based on what they perceive to be the increase in productivity GenAI use produces. This will be for any knowledge worker across any professional position (sales, marketing, operations, human resources, learning and development, IT). Yes, there are still barriers to enterprise deployment but those are quickly being eradicated. Where are you at with your ability to use GenAI? Skills in understanding how to use GenAI specific to the work you do and the role you play will become mandatory, just like understanding how to use the Internet or how to use your office productivity suite of tools.

• Agile?

There will be no clear-cut answer to what is next in workplace productivity methodologies in 2025. Agile will still be there but be considered a given as it relates to getting work done. It already is becoming either: a) a tool in the tool belt of how work is done or b) incorporated into more traditional work structure, where people say they are being "iterative". From what is being seen, GenAI will play a role in the future of software project management as well as the coding itself. There are signs GenAI will become the centerpiece of a small, highly nimble and fast team. The team will adhere to several of the Agile guiding principles but most likely will not practice all the techniques or ceremonies.

• Power Skills and Learning

The expectation will be that every knowledge worker has strong professional and business skills. That they can self-manage, influence, deal with conflict, drive change, think critically, see the full system, problem solve, and innovate. All of this without being told or directly managed. This is currently not the case. Knowledge workers traditionally align with the "hard skills" of their job and see those skills as what makes them valuable. The problem is with rapid change, the value of those "hard skills" erodes rapidly. It is like building your house on sand instead of stone. People will need to EXCEL at learning, and they will need to EXCEL at getting things done through and with other people. This trend is going to be significantly disruptive.

• Low Code / No code / You code: Democratize Coding

Democratize coding? What does that even mean? It means any knowledge worker can code and create the value coding creates. Coding is developing functionality of a software system to do a task or offer a service. With software as the basis for most things done in business, opening this up to any knowledge work could be a seismic change in how work is done and by whom. There are already many low code no code tools like WordPress, Shopify, SalesForce, to name a few. But these are SaaS services. What happens if you want to code? Well, welcome to the world of possibilities that GenAI offers. There are many "issues" currently like privacy and copyright, but GenAI tools do allow you to create working code for your systems and services. So instead of buying into an environment, you just write what you want and it codes. Granted there is a lot more to that but remember things are happening fast.

 

So much to consider! So much to prepare for! But as we know, the corporate work world is not for the faint of heart. Keeping up is the biggest requirement to staying in, and learning fast is the key to not just staying in but flourishing. Best wishes and great luck for 2025 to you all.