PROJECT MANAGEMENT
OVERVIEW AND GOALS
This chapter provides a general overview of the broad field of project man-agement and its role in the working world. It describes how an age-old process became formalized in the late twentieth century, shows how pro-fessional project management evolved to where it is today, and distinguish-es thousands of people in the occupation of project management from the new project management professional. It explains why organizations under-take projects, clarifies terms, and provides examples of different types of projects. Its goal is to distinguish project management from other functions.
WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT?
Many sectors of the economy are identifying project management as a new key business process. As project management gains recognition as a distinct way of managing change, there are differences in how it is applied and understood across industries, corporations, governments, and academia. Project management is a term used freely in today’s work world, whether the work is in a profit-oriented company, a not-for-profit organization, or a government agency. People do not always mean the same thing when they use it, however. Some organizations use the term project management to describe the task of managing work. Others use it to define the field of work that is focused on the delivery of project results. Still others refer to
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2 The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Project Management Course
the profession of project management, encompassing not only project man-agers but also other project-related specialists. Others use it to describe tra-ditional management practices or technical management practices, simply transferring those practices from organizational operations to projects. Because this field is emerging into the mainstream, many definitions abound. During the course of describing project management practices and concepts, this book will help to distinguish what is unique to this field from what it has in common with general management and the management ele-ments of technical disciplines. It also will identify many of the misleading assumptions about project management that camouflage the value of this new field of professionalism.
Project Management Evolves
Projects have been managed since prehistory. Strategies for project man-agement can be found in records of the Chinese War Lords (Sun Tzsu), Machiavelli, and other more obscure writers (see Chapter 2). As projects became more complex and more difficult to execute in a context where profit, timelines, and resource consumption competed with defined objec-tives, twentieth-century managers began to codify the practices needed to plan, execute, and control projects. The government led the way in devel-oping the techniques and practices of project management, primarily in the military, which faced a series of major tasks that simply were not achiev-able by traditional organizations operating in traditional ways.
It is popular to ask, “Why can’t they run government the way I run my busi-ness?” In the case of project management, however, business and other organizations learned from government, not the other way around. A lion’s share of the credit for the development of the techniques and practices of project management belongs to the military, which faced a series of major tasks that simply were not achievable by traditional organizations operating in traditional ways. The United States Navy’s Polaris program, NASA’s Apollo space program, and more recently, the space shuttle and the strategic defense initiative (“star wars”) programs are instances of the application of these specially developed management approaches to extraordinarily com-plex projects. Following such examples, nonmilitary government sectors, pri-vate industry, public service agencies, and volunteer organizations have all used project management to increase their effectiveness.1
Thus, for modern-day project management, it was the U.S. Navy’s Polaris submarine program and later NASA’s Apollo space program that launched the systematic application of knowledge, tools, methods, and techniques to the planning, execution, and delivery of projects. While these techniques have proliferated broadly among other government programs
Project Management 3
since the sixties and seventies and through research and demonstration pro-grams to other branches of government and to their contractor organiza-tions, the construction industry was a key beneficiary of these improvements. Large, complex projects, such as the construction of Hoover Dam and the carving of the faces of American presidents into stone at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, applied these improvements. Since then, project management methods have been implemented in information management and movement, pharmaceuticals, information systems, the entertainment and service sectors, and a variety of global projects. Project management’s value continues to grow.
For a clearer idea of what the term project management means, com-pare it with the term medicine in a health context. Each term can have many meanings. The all-inclusive view of project management—just as in medi-cine—will address the practice of, as well as the role, the field, the occupa-tion, and the profession. It also will expand on the variations of meaning depending on which view is taken. Project management in a professional context means applying knowledge, skills, processes, methods, tools, and techniques to get desired results.
Just as the practice of medicine has many applications, so does the practice of project management. Like the word medicine, the term project management can take on a broad definition or a narrow one. A doctor prac-tices medicine (broad). A patient takes a dose of medicine (narrow). Athletic discipline is said to be good medicine—an ambiguous definition that combines both. The same term takes on a different meaning depending on the context in which it is used. Yet one associates common values and goals with medicine. Medicine supports health; it does not compromise it. Medicine implies a commitment of individuals to the goal of preserving or restoring health. This book will define a context for project management and put its various roles and uses in perspective for both individuals and organizations. Although one term or definition may not fit all uses, there are common elements inherent in all project management. These common elements bind together the individuals and the practices within project man-agement. Together they create a common understanding of what project management is and help us to come to grips with just why project manage-ment is getting such visibility today and why we need to know about it
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