The UK's Lancaster University Management School Web Site Abstract calling for a new collegial network of international experts to dialogue on the matter of "rethinking project management is:
"Over the past decade, there has a growing number of critiques of project management as formulated during the 1960s. These have been both empirical, evinced by numerous studies of project performance, and conceptual, such as Peter Morris’ advocacy of the “management of projects”.
Yet, in parallel with this growing internal critique, the attractiveness of project forms of organisation for the delivery of assets and services for clients has been growing rapidly. Project management is again joining the mainstream of management research and practice in both the private and public sectors. As a result, the EPSRC has financed a network entitled Rethinking Project Management : Developing a New Research Agenda. This paper will present one contribution to the debates within this network which advocates viewing project organisations as information processing systems for making sense of the future."
[ "Rethinking Project Management" ]
NASA recently awarded more than $1 billion new contracts as the first big injection of money into President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration.” Information on the President Bush’s vision and other NASA items of interest can be found on the website: www.exploration.nasa.gov/documents that will impact the interests of the US Aerospace & Defense industry.
Information on the NASA organization can be seen on the NASA website: www.hq.nasa.gov/hq. NASA Directorates, Support Offices, and Field Centers are establishing internal business and program management improvement initiatives, and there are several separate “Hot Initiatives” and other ongoing initiatives defined in the NASA HQ website. However, it is not clear how NASA intends to collaborate and integrate the various products of the initiatives. It seems a lack of consistency and continuity of project management practices may be likely.
NASA’s response to the need for consistency was the chartering of NASA’s Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL) in 1998, which has been re-designed to support NASA’s need for improved project and program execution. NASA’s APPL website: www.appl.nasa.gov defines the current focus as organized into three business lines;
Each business line is integrated across APPL products and services in support of projects and programs throughout NASA and in support of individual project management practitioners and project/program teams in the NASA PM workforce.
The APPL Director, Dr. Edward J. Hoffman defines the need of APPL to: “continually refine APPL services to ensure NASA programs reflect the latest developments in the industry, the Agency, and the Nation.” Though there is an APPL interest to collaborate with professional associations (PMI, IPMA, INCOSE and SOLE.); so far the interest has not resulted in defining of cooperative agreements with such non-profit organizations on how APPL will work with them to establish ongoing PM collaboration, knowledge sharing, and career development initiatives.
These NASA issues and those of the defense aerospace services are critical and are subjects of discussion within the PMI Aerospace and Defense Specific Interest Group (PMI A&D SIG). We plan to continue providing articles in the PM Forum relative to the above subjects.
Tom Vanderheiden, PMP
Chair of PMI Aerospace and Defense SIG
Mailto: Chair@pmi-adsig.org
PMI A&D SIG Web: http://www.pmi-adsig.org
The Master of Business and Project Management presented by Australian International University in association with Asia Pacific International College is an innovative degree founded on the philosophy of transformative learning and development. It aims to impart professional expertise and higher-level competencies targeting strategic and operational management of projects and programs as well as development and effective management of project-based business units.
MBPM prepares individuals for the challenges of business development and business realization of projects and programs in today’s technology-based organizations and complex environments in both public and private sectors of the economy.
The reason for the launch of this new program is to promote a new model of professionality termed transformative practice in contrast to normative practice that has been widely known since the dawn of the industrial revolution.
Professor Jaafari believes that shifting to a transformative thinking will have widespread benefits to individual executives and their employer organizations as these models prepare them for performance within the increasingly complex and uncertain business and economic world unfolding in 21st century. He states that: “uncertainties are here to stay and we must learn to work with them not against them.” For more information, please visit http://www.aiuni.org/mbpm.php or send an email to Professor A Jaafari on ajaafari@apicollege.org.
In the next issue, that is the March-April 2005 Issue, of the Project Management World Today Russell Archibald will describe "What CEO's Must Do to Compete and Collaborate in 2005." This is a three part, not to be missed explanation for Chief Executive Officers(CEO.s), from an eminent project management author and consultant.
This paper will be published in three Parts and provides chief executive officers (CEOs) and other senior executives with the understanding of what they must demand regarding project management within their organizations, today and in coming years, to compete and collaborate effectively within the realities of the Internet Age.
It is also intended for use by project management professionals at all levels to communicate with their senior managers and convey to them the direction that the development of the project management discipline should be headed. The need is explored to simultaneously compete and collaborate in response to the challenges posed by the phenomena of the Internet and World Wide Web, together with ways that are open to the CEO to unleash the full power of project management to satisfy that need.
The important linkage is illustrated between the organization’s mission, its business strategies, and the execution of those strategies through effective management of both the project portfolios and individual programs and projects. The underlying principles and practices of modern, integrated project management are presented in a manner that makes sense to CEOs and other senior executives, and the performance level that can be demanded for each of these principles and practices is presented as bench marks for the CEO to measure against.
Baselinemagazine.com's: The Project Centre has published a series of articles on Project Integration. Of particular interest in the context of this new series by Russell Archibald is "What a project leader and CEO each should know when they set out on an integration effort".
http://ct.enews.baselinemag.com/rd/cts?d=189-177-1-15-147858-19408-0-0-0-1