An Editorial Observation On The Value of Project Management
Project management research programs are currently a growth industry in North American professional project management organizations and the global project management academic community. For example, the Project Management Institute has a stream of research projects in project management and an annual meeting of distinguished academics. In Europe, this Spring, the presentations and deliberations of the International Research Network on Projects V will marshall an eminent panel of participants from around the world.
Project success(1) is an ephemeral for the advocates of applying the project management discipline to the conduct of what the Project Management Institute defines as
"a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service" .(2)
Project management is defined as
"the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet stockholder needs and expectations" (2)
While project management success can be defined from many perspectives depending on the particular stockholder objectives, much of the project literature describes project success in terms of the cost, schedule and technical performance of the project at the time of delivery.
Unfortunately, there is little quantitative evidence to support the presumption that project management contributes to project success. Empirical data is limited when project success is measured in terms of cost, schedule and alarmingly for the project management community current studies and literature reveal little or no relation between project management practices and project success. So we must ask
"if this relationship does not exist, then we are led inexorably to an unpleasant questioning of the value of project management"
Perhaps the reason little or no positive relation exists between project management and project success is that most project management activities are performed on complex projects where the levels of cost, schedule and performance make control difficult and uncertain.
Professor Christopher Bredillet in his seminal paper "Killing the False Gods of Project Management" (3) writes
"It is often convenient, and lucrative to reinforce accepted belief systems, built on many centuries of thinking based on the positivist paradigm. Positivism has lead in some cased to oversimplification - one problem equals one solution – and in many cases has obviated against recognition of the complexity and of the relativity of the world. The place of project management within most universities and as a research field shows that it is not yet considered as a discreet discipline. At most universities it is treated as a sub-discipline in Construction, Engineering or Business faculties. At the same time it is claimed to be a trans-functional discipline. This situation is itself contributing to a reinforcement of the positivist paradigm that pervades teaching, research and practice of the discipline".
We are, apparently according to the published project management literature, unable to quantify and measure the value of project management. Cost, Schedule and Performance are important measures of project success from the viewpoint of owner and producer. But if they are not correlated to project management, how are we to measure the value of project management? And what should be our investment in project management activities?.
These are questions, that today with the growing global proselytizing of project management practices, remain unanswered and a challenge to the project management research community.
(1) Improving
PM: Linking Success Criteria to Project Type
(2) PMI® Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge
(3) "Killing
The False Gods of Project Management" - Christophe Bredillet