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April 2006

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Project Management is a Profession: The Emperor's Latest Outfit

by Paul Giammalvo

Like the story of Emperor’s New Clothes, practitioners of project management have been deluding ourselves that what we do is a profession, with little or no substantiation save for our own wishful thinking. It seems as though we have come to believe in our own marketing hype.

Extensive literature reviews indicate that occupations can become accepted as professions via two primary routes-

  1. By Traditional means, which are measured by Extrinsic metrics (i.e. Title- Doctor, Professor, Reverend, Captain; High pay and Prestige in the community; Wearing of Uniforms/Symbols et al)
  2. By Non-Traditional means, which are measured by Intrinsic metrics (Trust built over an extended period of time based on consistent and predictable results) Examples from this latter category includes Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, Chinese Herbal Medicine to name but a few.

Further literature reviews of legal, economic, sociological and semantic research indicates that 20 attributes are associated with occupations presently considered to be professions. Of these 20 attributes, 17 of them are Traditional or Extrinsic (the “trappings” of a profession) while 3 of them are associated with the Non-Traditional evolution or growth of a profession, evidenced by Intrinsic metrics. While not all attributes are of equal importance, taken together, they are reliable indicators of any given occupation being perceived as a profession, and through statistical analysis, an occupation can be “ranked” or compared against others according to a “Profession Evolution Quotient”. But for the purposes of this paper, I will focus only on those attributes which I consider to be “Profession Killers”- 4 Attributes which represent significant obstacles to Project Management ever being recognized as a stand alone profession.


ILLUSTRATION 1- 20 Attributes of a Profession Rank Ordered Using Interval Scale

Profession Killer #1- Body of Knowledge-
The only attribute common to BOTH the traditional and non-traditional routes is “a body of knowledge which is somehow “unique, complicated, esoteric, secret or abstruse”.

Without a body of knowledge which is unique, it becomes almost impossible to define a profession. I would like to start by making a case that the project management body of knowledge is not “unique, complicated, esoteric, secret or abstruse”, and therefore, what we do cannot be perceived be a profession.

Table 1 illustrates the key content which forms the basis of the project management body of knowledge (Note that I have intentionally not capitalized the terms, as I refer not only to PMI’s interpretation, but also that of AACE, APM, IPMA, AIPM, INCOSE et al). As can be seen, while not extensive or all inclusive, the underlying basis for much of the PM BoK comes from a rather diverse and broad cross section. As a matter of opinion, one could very well argue that of all management guru’s contributing the most to a project management BoK, Henry Fayol, a French Mining Engineer, who, through his 5 managerial elements, 6 management functions and 14 management principles, is very much evident throughout the PM BoK. Also worth noting is most of the basis for the PM BoK was developed during the late 1800’s- Early to mid 1900’s. Very little NEW has been added since 1960’s, other than refinements to or automation of the tools and techniques. Professor Peter Morris captured the essence of this with his quote “Project Management is a discipline caught in a 1960’s time warp ”. Sufficient concern over the apparent stagnation in the global practice of project management resulted in a “Rethinking Project Management” research grant having been funded.

TABLE 1- PM BoK Knowledge Areas and their Sources

As can be seen from Table 1, very nearly 100% of the generic project management body of knowledge came from sources outside of project management, negating any credible claims of uniqueness. Claims that the BoK is “complicated, esoteric, secret or abstruse” are also negated by the fact you can find reference to them in a broad range of text books on organizational development, general management theory or human resources. Most of the basic elements of project management are taught in introductory general management courses, whether in business schools or technical applications. And as noted previously, most of these concepts date from the late 1800’s to mid 1900’s.

To further illustrate what can only be described as a questionable distortion of project management vis a vis the sources of the underlying base knowledge, compare Illustration 2, Figure 1-2 taken directly from the PMBOK Guide 3rd Edition, against Illustration 3, which is an adaptation of Fayol’s 6 Management Functions as they relate to a generic project management bok.

ILLUSTRATION 2- PMBOK Guide 3rd Edition® Figure 1-2, Pg 13


ILLUSTRATION 3- Adaptation of Fayol’s 6 Management Functions to a Project Management BoK.

As a “reality test”- Of the two illustrations above, which one do you think more accurately portrays the project management body of knowledge as you’ve experienced it?

It seems as though as project management practitioners, we are over-emphasizing our own importance by distorting the body of knowledge and not giving appropriate credit to the diversity of sources contributing to the project management body of knowledge. We need to focus less on the bok and more on the APPLICATIONS.

Profession Killers #2 and #3- Autonomy of Decision Making/Financial Accountability-
If the body of knowledge isn’t enough to kill off any illusion of project management being a profession, then certainly the twin issues of Autonomy in Making Decisions and Financial Accountability will.

The premise of a profession is founded on the concept that in order to earn the privilege to be self policing, the practitioners of that profession owe the consuming public a fiduciary responsibility to act in their best interests, and failing to do so, the professional practitioner who breaches or violates that fiduciary trust may be held financially accountable for any errors in diagnosis of the problem and/or treatment (“solutions”) In the days when most professionals were serving clients directly and compensated on a “Fee-For-Services” basis, the cause and effect relationship was straight forward and traceable. However, as most projects today are not done on this basis, but are done through some sort of employer-employee relationship, the project management practitioners find they do not control the time frame, cost budgets or even the resources. Lacking autonomy to set time frames, cost budgets and the selection and control of resources breaks any causal link between the actions of the project management practitioner and the outcome of the project, which makes holding the project manager financially accountable difficult to prove. Interestingly enough, the profession which most has most clearly specified this relationship is commercial aircraft piloting, through the principle of the “Pilot in Command”. When flying an aircraft, the pilot in command has full and total control of the aircraft and is held fully and totally accountable for anything which goes wrong, provided he had reasonable control over the events. (Thus many accidents are judged to have been caused by “Pilot Error”) Unless practitioners are willing to accept this kind of total responsibility in exchange for accountability, then project management is unlikely to ever earn the respect and prestige accorded professions.

To make this point clear, how many of you would be willing to put your own money at risk to guarantee the success of the project you are working on today?

Profession Killer #4- Project Management is a Process-
One of the major quandaries facing project managers is the diversity of applications it applies to. Using the PMBOK Guide 3rd Edition definition of “Project”, a solid case could be made that essentially all existing occupations from Aardvark Trainers to Zamboni Drivers and everyone else in between use project management as a delivery system for any work which is not ongoing.


ILLUSTRATION 4- Conundrum Quandary of Project Management.

As can be seen from Illustration 4, a broad sample of occupations commonly requiring licenses has been selected. These range from the trades through to the “learned professions” of law and medicine. Virtually all of them incorporate project management as a delivery system as a core element when executing their normal day to day responsibilities. So if all of these occupations are recognized as being “professions” and the practitioners are already licensed to practice, and project management is an integral part of their delivery system, what is the added value of having a certification or license for project management as well?

This principle can be illustrated very quickly by asking the question- If you needed open heart surgery, would you rather have a PMP do it or a Board Certified Cardiologist? While one could argue it would be great it the medical professional had BOTH, given a choice between the PMP and the Board Certification as a Cardiologist, I think it safe to say most of us would choose the Board Certification over the PMP.

Conclusion-Due to limitations on the size of this paper, I have chosen only 4 of the 20 attributes to illustrate why project management most probably cannot and arguable SHOULD not be marketed or referred to as a stand alone profession. While these 4 examples represent what I consider to be near insurmountable obstacles to project management being recognized as a profession, the remaining 16 also offer varying degrees of challenges which also would need to be overcome.

So what to do next? I am not an “accidental project manager. This has been my chosen calling for over 35 years, and project management is still what I want to do when I grow up. Like most of you reading this, I too have a vested interest in seeing Project Management earning the fullest possible respect and recognition. However, we owe ourselves as well as future generations of project managers more than marketing hype and credentials based on unfounded claims and biased opinions. I would like to conclude this rebuttal with a series of issues and recommendations to consider:

Issue 1- Research indicates that confusion exists between the noun “Profession” and adjective “Professional”. To illustrate, Tiger Woods is undoubtedly a professional golfer. He makes a lot of money, enjoys recognition, prestige and all the perks associated with being a professional. However, just because he is a professional golfer does NOT make golf a profession.

Somewhere along the line, especially over the last 6 years or so, we seem to have allowed ourselves to believe that, like Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz, that if we “clicked our heels together three times, closed our eyes and dreamed hard, we could make project management a profession”. Simply not true.

Gartner, Standish, META, CIO Magazine, Engineering News Record, Construction Management Association- all have produced surveys clearly indicating failure rates of between 30-60%. This track record is more akin to medicine in the 17th and 18th century, certainly not even close to having earned the right of being called a profession.

Recommendation 1- In order to maximize the professional image of what we do, consistent with the example set by the non-traditional route for an occupation to achieve professional status, focus needs to be on RESULTS. One of the first would be to reach a broadly accepted definition of “project success” and develop metrics which would help practitioners measure that success consistently, then measure and report against those metrics. This means building trust in our end users, making realistic promises, then consistently DELIVERING on those promises. We need to walk our talk and end all hypocrisy.

Issue 2- Rudy Giuliani in his book “Leadership”, stated that to be effective leaders should “under promise and over deliver”. A recurrent theme in the Codes of Ethics/Codes of Conduct of AACE, ASCE, IEEE and other reputable and highly regarded professional societies is the concept of modesty from those involved in and/or representing the profession. PMI in particular but to a lesser degree, IPMA and PMSA as well have “oversold” project management by making unsubstantiated or unsupportable claims that what we do is a profession.

Recommendation 2- Given the research of Zwerman, Thomas et al, scholarly papers by Max Wideman, Mark Mullaly, and Sainath Nagarajan and my own as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation have established reasonable doubt that project management is a profession, lacking any substantive research proving otherwise, all professional organizations should immediately stop making claims or reference to project management as a profession. To claim it is an EMERGING or EVOLVING profession would be much more accurate and consistent, but effective immediately, I am recommending we adopt the term “practice” of project management. This terminology would be more consistent with the track record published by Gartner, Standish, META, ENR, CMAA et al and reflect a more humble or modest ethical profile appropriate for a methodology which is capable of delivering successful projects between 40-70% of the time. Certainly not a track record to be proud of individually or collectively.

Issue 3- Another of the 22 attributes of a profession is a restriction on advertising. While certainly not as important as the 4 “Profession Killers” outlined above, the question of advertising is another matter casting a negative image over our occupation. A common theme in the Codes of Ethics/Codes of Conduct of several reputable and highly regarded professional societies is the concept of modesty from both those who practice as well as those organizations who deem to represent them. PMI in particular has been accepting advertisements which portray the practice of project management in less than positive light. Claims such as “Pass your PMP Exam in 5 days or your money back”; the concept of “teaching to the exam”; books with titles such as “PMP Exam for Dummies” are inconsistent with the image of the practitioners as professionals.

Recommendation 3- Instead of focusing our efforts on making project management into a profession, why not focus our efforts on raising the image of those who practice as professionals. By doing this, regardless of whether or not project management ever achieves the status of a full blown profession becomes less relevant. By recognizing and rewarding those who truly exemplify professionalism in project management can we hope to capture the “best practices” and pass them along to the next generation of Project Managers.

Issue 4- The role of the professional association serving the new knowledge occupations in an ever flattening world is something important we need to understand. Previously, I used Tiger Woods and golfing as an analogy to help illustrate and understand that being a professional is not synonymous with what he/she does being a profession. I’d like to build on the golf analogy to help explore what the role of the ideal professional organization might look like in a flat world.

Given that the one and ONLY way to measure whether or not a person is a PROFESSIONAL is through RESULTS whatever we develop needs to be focused on delivering more successful projects. Let’s apply that “test” or “criteria” to Golfing.

  1. The USGA and RANDA set the RULES OF PLAY for golf and with everyone playing by the same rules, PERFORMANCE standards EVOLVE; in the design of the golf courses; design of the equipment; adaptation of various styles of play. The performance standards are SET by the best PRACTITIONERS, and once established, are BENCHMARKED, (best in class), ENCODED and ENFORCED by USGA and RANDA. (Making the cut for golfers, USGA/RANDA approval for equipment/golf courses)
  2. The performance metrics for Golf are the person with the lowest number of shots to get the little ball from point A to point B (in the hole), while adhering to the set of formal rules and etiquette of the game. Very clear, unambiguous and measurable.
  3. The process to measure success is
    1. Everyone plays 18 holes
    2. Everyone plays in strict accordance to the same rules (= Professional Ethics)
    3. The person with the lowest score at the end of 18 holes wins (Clear definition of project success)
    4. Through a series of competitions, the “best of the best” evolve, from which others who want to be professional golfers emulate; (“Best Practices”)
    5. Those who are judged to be professional by their peers based on performance, then teach those who are aspiring to be professionals. (lessons learned)
  4. According to the labor law dictionary a Professional Golfer is “anyone who earns a living playing or teaching golf”. The USGA and RANDA do not “certify” professional golfers per se. They hold competitions in which the golfers PROVE their right to call themselves professionals, with USGA and RANDA verifying their scores and ranking them.
  5. USGA and RANDA do not require a license to protect golf from hack(ers), quacks or frauds. All they have to do is ENFORCE THE RULES to prevent cheating. By allowing open and transparent competition according to a strict set of rules, the competencies of each golfer become self evident, with the professional organizations being the ones to keep score.

Recommendation 4- Let’s apply this golfing analogy to a real world application of the ideal professional organization for a flat world. Using the USGA/RANDA model the ideal professional organization for a flat world would:

  1. Establish the rules of the game (relevant and high standards of ethical practice, focused on meeting the needs of the consuming public)
  2. Establish a broad and widely accepted definition of what constitutes a “successful” project;
  3. Determine how are we going to measure and report success or failure and to who these reports go to? (PMI, IPMA, AIPM, AACE, Government Agencies?);
  4. Develop an open, transparent and unbiased performance based ranking system so we know who the most successful project managers are. (If you have yet to do so, take a look at the AIPM or GAPP model)
  5. Put an end to mediocrity by establishing a global practitioner database, using open source technology which can capture the “best practices” for project management as developed within each sector and share them with others, both within and external to that sector, using “copyleft” or open source licensing; (For examples check out the INCOSE website)

1Giammalvo, PD, Is Project Management a Profession? And if not, what is it? Pan Pacific Business Conference, Anchorage Alaska, June, 2004
2Ibid
3Rethinking Project Management, accessed 10 April 2006.

Paul Giammalvo Paul D. Giammalvo, CDT, PMP, CCE, MScPM, is Director of the ASEAN Project Manager’s Center of Excellence, Inc. (APMX) For over 12 years, he has been provided Project Management training and consulting throughout SE Asia. He is active in the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International, (AACE); Construction Specifications Institute (CSI); Construction Management Association of America, (CMAA) and serves on the Global Project Management Forum Steering Committee. http://www.getpmcertified.com

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