Rethinking project management – Old truths and new insights (original) (raw)

Project Management – Challenges and Research Results

The demand for professional expertise in project management is constantly increasing due to the progressive complication of environmental processes and the functioning of organizations of all kinds as well as arising problems through projects' execution. To meet this demand, project management is intensively developed from both the practical and scientific side. As a result, project management has become a separate field of practical and scientific knowledge which has a separate subject of study, its own theoretical foundations, using specific research methods. The development of project management is done by specialized academic centers, research institutes, professional associations, consulting firms and individual professionals. The Chair of Project Management at the Warsaw School of Economics is one of the leading centers of scientific and practical project management in Poland. The issues described in this publication cover a wide spectrum of current challenges and problems in project management. The purpose of this publication is to present the research achievements of Chair and people co-operating with it in both national and – above all – international environment of specialists in project management.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

This paper studies the business process known as project management. This process has exhibited a remarkable growth in business interest over the last 15 years, as demonstrated by a 1000% increase in membership in the Project Management Institute since 1996. This growth is largely attributable to the emergence of many new diverse business applications that can be successfully managed as projects. The new applications for project management include IT implementations, research and development, new product and service development, corporate change management, and software development. The characteristics of modern projects are typically very different from those of traditional projects such as construction and engineering, which necessitates the development of new project management techniques. We discuss these recent practical developments. The history of project management methodology is reviewed, from CPM and PERT to the influential modern directions of critical chain project management and agile methods. We identify one important application area for future methodological change as new product and service development. A list of specific research topics within project management is discussed. The conclusions suggest the existence of significant research opportunities within project management.

PERSPECTIVES ON RESEARCH IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2008

This paper demonstrates that project management is a developing field of academic study in management, of considerable diversity and richness, which can make a valuable contribution to the development of management knowledge, as well as being of considerable economic importance. The paper reviews the substantial progress and trends of research in the subject, which has been grouped into nine major schools of thought: optimization, modelling, governance, behaviour, success, decision, process, contingency, and marketing. The paper addresses interactions between the different schools and with other related management fields, and provides insights into current and potential research in each and across these schools.

The Dawn of a New Era for Project Management

2021

Projects are today widely used as a business model for private and public sectors and they constitute the preferred model for developing changes in construction, oil and gas, chemical processes, aerospace, defence, etc [...]

PROJECT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH TRENDS OF ALLIED DISCIPLINES

This study looks at project management from the perspective of its relationship to allied disciplines in the management field. By exploring, identifying, and classifying management journal articles of project managementallied disciplines, the evolution and trends of project management research are revealed. This study specifically investigates the research in allied disciplines from the management academy's viewpoint, instead of looking at project management research trends from the project management community's perspective. The goal of this research is to better understand project management from the management world, and argues that project management is a legitimate academic discipline by reviewing research trends of its allied disciplines. To thoroughly investigate project management research in allied disciplines, it is necessary to review major journal publications in the management and business field. Because the management and business field is very broad, this research identified and defined eight different categories of allied disciplines in project management. Then, we selected 18 top business and management academic journals that published articles related to project management to review and categorize journal articles into these eight different areas. By chronologically analyzing and categorizing more than 500 journal articles from the 18 journals in the business field published from the 1950s to the summer of 2007, this study analyzes publications trends of different domains (operations research vs. organizational behavior vs. practice) and different journals and predicts the future of project management as an academic discipline in the mainstream management research. 1 Organizational behavioral (OB) science and practice-oriented management were two other management entities that showed great interest in project management. From the late 1950s to 1960s, Harvard Business Review (practice) and Academy of Management Journal (OB) published numerous articles related to project management, discussing the project manager (There has been a long debate in the management education community as to whether "project management" is a practice or an academic discipline. In the engineering field, where the tools and techniques of project management have been applied and implemented successfully, the answer to this question is yes. The civil engineering field has the construction engineering and management discipline, where people learn and implement planning, managing, and controlling engineering construction projects. The industrial engineering field applies quantitative methods to manufacturing systems analysis and production planning and scheduling to achieve effective productivity. However, when it comes to the business and management field, business scholars appear puzzled and unconvinced of the notion that project management is an academic discipline. The origin, history, and evolution of project management, and its academic background, foundations, and underlying theory, have been debated and studied only to a limited extent from the management field's academic perspective, and supporting literature is greatly lacking. There has been some study among project management researchers to identify and rethink project management , but the summary was conceptual in nature and the research failed to transfer the message outside of the project management field to a broader management audience.

Exploring research in project management: Nine schools of project management research (Part 2)

Project Management Journal, 2008

This paper demonstrates that project management is a developing field of academic study in management, of considerable diversity and richness, which can make a valuable contribution to the development of management knowledge, as well as being of considerable economic importance. The paper reviews the substantial progress and trends of research in the subject, which has been grouped into nine major schools of thought: optimization, modelling, governance, behaviour, success, decision, process, contingency, and marketing. The paper addresses interactions between the different schools and with other related management fields, and provides insights into current and potential research in each and across these schools.

Perspectives on research in project management: the nine schools

Global Business Perspectives, 2013

This paper demonstrates that project management is a developing field of academic study in management, of considerable diversity and richness, which can make a valuable contribution to the development of management knowledge, as well as being of considerable economic importance. The paper reviews the substantial progress and trends of research in the subject, which has been grouped into nine major schools of thought: optimization, modelling, governance, behaviour, success, decision, process, contingency, and marketing. The paper addresses interactions between the different schools and with other related management fields, and provides insights into current and potential research in each and across these schools.

Project Management Research—The Challenge and Opportunity

Project Management Journal, 2007

Project management is one of the fastest growing disciplines in organizations today. However, ironically, the statistics of project success suggests that most projects still fail and many projects do not accomplish their business results. This presents possibly a unique opportunity for substantial improvement. In this paper the authors offer their perspective about the challenge that the project management research community is facing today. The authors propose several research directions that may evolve as central in the next few years in order to stimulate the discussion and debate about the future of the discipline. They first look at project management research from a problem-driven perspective and than offer three central views with which project management could be perceived: the strategic/business view, the operational/process view, and the team/leadership view. For each one the governing thought pattern, the theories, and the related disciplines are presented. Although these...

A typology of project management: emergence and evolution of new forms

1999

Traditionally, project management has focused on the management of projects on a single location either within one organization or among two or more organizations. Recently, however, emerging trends are changing the way projects are organized and managed, creating new challenges in project management research and practice. This paper has two objectives.