Where is Project Management

A few recent articles, as well as a variety of blogs I read have my attention to a few overlapping questions --- WHERE is Project Management? WHAT is Project management? Where is it going? What should it be?

These are interesting questions, of which there is no one single answer. The cloud of confusion continues to become larger. Project Management has been clearly in vogue within corporations in the last decade -- everyone wants to say they have it, but doing so by their local definition. There are various scales of grand, complicated, complex planning schedules, and rules and yet more rules, and even the lack of them. Then at the other end of the spectrum, there are simply coordinators with a large title. While there is a growing demand for this profession to assist in corporate growth, one article notes a survey reflecting the lack of company commitment, understanding and investment to ensure the project is fully addressed from beginning to end (please note the Chaos studies). Another dimension is the challenge of in recent times of "Agile"-ment. While often reflected in alternative roots to the traditional software development life cycle challenges, it is often disguised as a project management solution without fairly addressing the breadth (and depth) of other components to a project beyond developement.


I personally have some basic and core tenets. The leader of a project, hopefully titled Project Manager should follow some variation of the following. Ensure that the project management solution blends well into the corporate culture, and at the same time advances the culture to a higher degree. Gain committment from key business leaders not only to the project objectives, but also to the chosen management practices governing the project. Continual process improvement, as related to the project management profession and project methodologies, is a necessity. The ultimate delivery of the goal the project trumps any mandated standard or procedure of project management. As businesses evolve and need more timely solutions, project management must also be more flexibile (note the hidden references to the concepts of agile). I know I have more core beliefs and will comment on them in the future.