The enshittification of management systems – and how to fight back?

This blog post is written by Stefan Ondek, the Managing Partner and Lead Trainer of POTIFOB

I remember the time when project, service and delivery management systems were created and maintained by volunteers and made available to use for free. Usage and communities grew. Certifications were created as a means to provide independent proof of knowledge and skills.

Then things started changing. Certifications and memberships have been growing in number. Publications started to become more expensive. Accreditations for trainers appeared. More and more money started turning.

Naughty things started to happen. One organisation sued the primary author of its main book over intellectual property disputes. The co-founder of another one, and the co-author of its primary system, left it in disgust over how its focus turned to making money on certifications and trainer accreditation, and founded a new, competing one. Certification mills appeared and have thrived since.

The government of a certain country, which owned the intellectual property to leading project management and service management systems and de facto mandated its use by the public sector and its suppliers, sold the majority stake in that ownership to the highest bidder.

Certifications became more and more expensive. Their validity durations shortened. Accreditation and intellectual property use fees kept rising. Certain organisations, which own the systems, started mandating the use of training materials prepared by them. Some even prohibited modifications or creation of own training materials or syllabi even by accredited providers. One size fits all, right?

Some training providers budged to keep their business going. Others quit in disgust.

Suddenly some certification organisations started selling their own e-learning. So much about independent testing of knowledge and skills. Roughly at the same time they made training providers pay more for accreditations and  the like. More training providers quit.

Then thigs turned really bad: One major certification organisation bought the provider of the intellectual property (IP) they certified for. Soon after they retroactively shortened the duration of the certificates for their systems to 3 years. Even for those certificates, which were originally issued for life. Even for those certificates, which were originally issued by other certification organisations, authorised by then-IP owner. 

Then they started spamming past certificate holders with e-mails offering them to extend ALL certificates they ever issued to them in exchange for buying “annual membership”. I counted: Just in February I received 6 such e-mails from that organisation. Most of them personalised, addressing me by first name, and playing on FOMO (“STEFAN, only 4 days left to claim our special offer!”). I do not remember having given consent to receiving such e-mails. I am still getting them.

Some certificate holders  budged and paid for their certification extensions. For extensions, which prove only that their holder was ready to pay to get that extension. Many others, as well as many existing and potential users got frustrated and lost trust.

Maybe you are one of the above and are asking: “How can I fight back?”

So here are a few tips:

1. When selecting management systems for your organisation, make intellectual property rights and vendor lock in avoidance key decision criteria.
2. Prefer open/ free to use/ libre management systems to proprietary ones.
3. When considering certification, ask yourself: For which role? What is certification promise? What are the certification criteria? What is the validity duration? What are the extension criteria (if certification is not valid for life). Do NOT pick a certification just because it is “popular” or “well known”.