An Editorial Observation
Currently the project management profession has been subject to some major surveys. These have been conducted by both commercial and academic organizations. Some of these for various commercial and promotional reasons have been in the category that the "sky is falling down". The reports on these surveys deliver that which is well known for many years and the antidote that accompanies these pronouncements.
The first thing when buying a piece of property is to consider a survey of the real estate. An official survey is mandatory to delineate the boundaries and extent of the property. And so it is with project management. A survey of the domain is the key to any work that can be completed to improve and advance the value of the application of project management and most importantly what needs to be done to make the "domain" more productive.
To date there is little record of the quantitative value of the application of the project management discipline. The current volume of "project management knowledge" deals with qualitative values and advocates the uses of "best practices" without any correlation as to the qualitative and measurable impact of the use of project management ". Much is made of the "art and science" of project management without explanation and usually surrounded by obfuscating hype. As a matter of record the new PMI book On Selling Project Management reports that ...
"The unsuccessful sellers ...focus more on shaping arguments around value statements that emphasize the quantitative benefit or effects on profit, market share, and competitive position. Ironically, these very arguments are likely to be the most difficult to justify or deliver, and are exactly the type of argument that successful consultants, in particular, avoid.." .Executive Summary page 6 Selling Project Management To Senior Executives - Framing the Moves that Matter ISBN: 1-880410-95-8
We have no issue with the conduct of general project management discipline surveys but we are suspicious of the survey methodology. In general these surveys appear to be prepared by academic and commercial undertakings where it is difficult to see an absence of conflict of interest. In most cases there is a clear conflict of interest and this included the academic institutions that "research" project management.
Project Management journals, populated by media reporters, seize on these opinion survey reports and extend the uncertainty underlying the results with journalist frenzy having discovered a hook to a "good story".
Rather than the "sky is falling in" and all organizations are "fumbling with the application of best practices" we prefer to see PM opinion survey reports that are in a good news-bad news mode to a balanced view of the state of project management.
Accordingly, we advocate that general suveys of the project management domain be more than the remote completion of a survey questionnaire developed by people who are not involved in the work of project management. That is, surveys, which are really opinion collections should be
Only in this fashion can the business of conducting a project management domain survey and report of conclusion provide any real credibility.
Project management trends in Germany - State and Trends
A recent project management survey "Project management trends in Germany - State and Trends" provided to us by the Volkswagen Coaching GmbH in cooperation with IPMI, University of Bremen is a welcome exception to our Editorial exhortation. That is, the report is a good news, bad news description of the state of project management in Germany without marketing hype or buzz. The methodology seems to be typically European with the conduct of a Workshop of PM experts, personal interviews with a cross section of German industry representatives and an exhaustive review of PM literature.
While we can argue with the methodology, however, the issue that we raised in the Editorial has been covered and one can read the results with an "a priori" level of credibility of this snapshot of the impact of a project management discipline on German industry..This same group have launched a PM-World-Study. For more contact IPMI Arne Kruse akruse@ipmi.de