The Big PM Problem

  ProjectsAtWork  

So who are you and what is it you do? Perhaps the single biggest problem facing the project management profession is that many practitioners can’t agree on what exactly they do, how they should do it, or how to get better at it. Here are some observations based on an ongoing online discussion that has drawn in more than 600 project managers.

Earlier this year, I launched a discussion on LinkedIn asking project managers what they felt was the “Single Biggest Problem Facing Project Management?” The only qualifier was that the problem had to be something that the project management community could influence or correct (lack of management buy-in or adequate resources didn’t count). The idea was to find one or two of the biggest problems that, if corrected or improved, would increase project management professionalism.

After almost 800 responses [ed. note: approaching 1,000 at time of publication] by more than 600 project managers from all over the world, an “answer” emerged — the biggest problem facing project management is that seemingly no one can agree on what project management is.

Certainly, almost of all us would agree that a project is a “unique endeavor” constrained by scope, time and cost. But beyond that starter definition, there appears to be very little agreement on the actual practice of managing projects. In…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.