Project Management as a Profession

It should be obvious to the reader that project management is a demanding job. Planning and controlling the complexities of a project’s activities, schedule, and budget would be difficult even if the project had the highest claim on the parent organization’s knowledge and resources, and if the PM had full authority to take any action required to keep the project on course for successful completion. Such is never the case, but all is not lost because there are tools available to bring some order to the chaos of life as a PM—to cope with the difficulties of planning and the uncertainties that affect budgets and schedules. Also, as we have indicated, it is possible to compensate for missing authority through negotiation. Mastering the use of project management tools requires specialized knowl­edge that is often acquired through academic preparation, which is to say that project management is a profession. The profession comes complete with career paths and an excellent professional organization.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded in 1969. By 1990, the PMI had 7500 members. It grew to 17,000 by 1995, but 5 years later membership had exploded to more than 64,000. By March of 2014, the PMI had more than 447,000 members worldwide. The exponential growth of the PMI is the result of the exponential growth in the use of projects and PMs as a way of getting things done. For example, a senior vice president of an international chemical firm installed project management as a way of controlling the workloads on his technical specialists and on a few overloaded facilities—project management having tools to handle the allocation of scarce resources. In another instance, a new CEO of a large hospital mandated that all nonroutine, one­time operations be managed as projects so that she could have information on the nature and status of all such activities.

In Chapter 1 we mentioned the project-oriented organization. In these firms all non­routine activities are organized as projects. In addition, the process of instituting change in routine operations is also commonly organized as a project. The motives behind this approach to handling change are the same as those motivating the chemical firm VP and the hospital CEO, the need to control and to have information about what is happening in the organization.

To establish standards for project management and to foster professionalism in the field, the PMI has codified the areas of learning required to manage projects. This Project Management Body of Knowledge, 5th edition (PMBOK) has been compiled into a book published by the PMI, also available as a CD. It serves as a basis for practice and educa­tion in the field (PMI Standards Committee, 2013). PMBOK devotes Chapter 9 to human resource management, including organizational planning, staffing, and team development. The PMI also publishes two important periodicals: first, the Project Management Journal, oriented to project management theory, though its articles are almost uniformly related to the actual practice of project management; and second, the PM Network magazine, which is a trade journal aimed at practitioners. Both publications are valuable for the experienced PM as well as the neophyte or student. The PMI also offers certification testing programs for project managers. By March 2015, over 600,000 individuals had been certified by the PMI as Project Management Professionals (PMPs).

The fantastic variety of projects being conducted today ranges from esoteric research on gene identification to specialized maintenance of machine tools. A quick glance at any daily paper will describe multiple projects such as cleaning up the image of down­town, improving air quality in various global cities, and reports of projects concerning natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Opportunities for careers in project management abound, but where can people who are competent to manage projects be found, or how can they be trained? A rapidly grow­ing number of colleges, universities, and technical institutes have developed courses and degree programs in project management. In recent years, many local chapters of the PMI have also offered training programs of varying length and depth. Nonetheless, the demand for project managers far exceeds the supply. (PMI Today, a supplement to PM Network, is recommended for more information on training and employment opportunities.)

The career path for the PM usually starts with work on a small project, and then on some larger projects. If the individual survives life as a project worker, graduation to the next level comes in the form of duty as a “project engineer” or as a “deputy” PM for a project. Then comes duty as the manager of a small project, and then as PM of larger ones. All of this, of course, presumes a track record of success.

The highest visibility for a PM is to manage a “megaproject,” either successfully or unsuccessfully. As Gale (2009) points out, success is defined as bringing the megaproject in on time and on budget. There is no room for error. The main difference between a “normal” project and a megaproject is that the technical issues tend to disappear on a megaproject. Instead, the PM’s hardest tasks are those of communicating, managing ven­dors and contractors, dealing with stakeholders, running smooth task processes, guiding the project team, engaging the client, helping map the project to the business objectives, and handling the political and cultural issues.

Source: Meredith Jack R., Mantel Jr. Samuel J., Shafer Scott M., Sutton Margaret M. (2017), Project Management in Practice, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 3th Edition.

One thought on “Project Management as a Profession

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