Reconstructing Project Management

This hugely informative and wide-ranging analysis on the management of projects, past, present and future, is written both for practitioners and scholars. Beginning with a history of the discipline’s development, Reconstructing Project Management provides an extensive commentary on its practices and theoretical underpinnings, and concludes with proposals to improve its relevancy and value. Written not without a hint of attitude, this is by no means simply another project management textbook.

The thesis of the book is that ‘it all depends on how you define the subject’; that much of our present thinking about project management as traditionally defined is sometimes boring, conceptually weak, and of limited application, whereas in reality it can be exciting, challenging and enormously important. The book draws on leading scholarship and case studies to explore this thesis.

The book is divided into three major parts. Following an Introduction setting the scene, Part 1 covers the origins of modern project management – how the discipline has come to be what it is typically said to be; how it has been constructed – and the limitations of this traditional model. Part 2 presents an enlarged view of the discipline and then deconstructs this into its principal elements. Part 3 then reconstructs these elements to address the challenges facing society, and the implications for the discipline, in the years ahead.  A final section reprises the sweep of the discipline’s development and summarises the principal insights from the book.

This thoughtful commentary on project (and program, and portfolio) management as it has developed and has been practiced over the last 60-plus years, and as it may be over the next 20 to 40, draws on examples from many industry sectors around the world. It is a seminal work, required reading for everyone interested in projects and their management.

Table of Contents

PART 1 CONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 7
Chapter 1 Introducti on to Part 1 9
Chapter 2 Project Management before it was Invented 12
Chapter 3 Systems Project Management 27
Chapter 4 The Project Management Knowledge Base 52
Chapter 5 Developing Project Management 75
Chapter 6 Enterprise-Wide Project Management (EWPM) 99
Chapter 7 The Development of Project Management: Summary 108

PART 2 DECONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 113
Chapter 8 Introducti on to Part 2 115
Chapter 9 Control 123
Chapter 10 Organisati on 145
Chapter 11 Governance and Strategy 160
Chapter 12 Managing the Emerging Project Definition 167
Chapter 13 Procurement and the Project’s Commercial Management 176
Chapter 14 Adding Value, Controlling Risk, Delivering Quality, Safely and Securely 186
Chapter 15 People 198
Chapter 16 Level 3: The Insti tuti onal Context 214

PART 3 RECONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 229
Chapter 17 Introducti on to Part 3 231
Chapter 18 The Character of our PM Knowledge 234
Chapter 19 Managing Context 252
Chapter 20 Ethos: Building Sponsor Value 257
Chapter 21 ‘only connect’ – the Age of Relevance 269

PART 4 SUMMA 279
Chapter 22 Summary and Conclusions 281