Table Of ContentThere is a need to reconstruct project management, both as a scientific cross-discipli-
nary research domain and as a practical area of application. Peter Morris’s book helps
our thinking enormously regarding both these needs. The structure and content of
Part 1 skilfully introduces the theoretical and practical components that constitute
the field. In outlining its history, Peter builds a solid foundation for exploring its ele-
ments: systems, integration, efficiency, effectiveness, performance, requirements, ‘solu-
tioneering’, contracting, procurement, risk and opportunities, value and benefits,
people. New perspectives are meanwhile introduced: agility, competences and capa-
bilities, governance and the sponsor, the front-end, technology, sustainability, innova-
tion, partnering, context, philosophy. The final part is ground-breaking in its future
projection of project management (mop/p3m). Mankind faces many challenges, be
they ecological, demographic, violence or other. Peter’s book explores possible interac-
tions between project management and these futures. No other book is the same.
Karlos Artto
Professor of Project Business
Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
***
Bravo! Reconstructing Project Management is a tour de force on the philosophy,
methods and practices of project and program management; a feast of PM lore,
knowledge and insight.
Peter Morris’ long and incredibly productive career has uniquely straddled project
management research, teaching, practice, and consulting on some of the most impor-
tant projects and biggest companies of the last few decades. Reconstructing Project
Management provides the most complete and well-integrated coverage of the evolu-
tion of project management written to date. But, more importantly, Morris has
extracted a wealth of insights from his broad and deep knowledge and experience
regarding the shortcomings of conventional project management in addressing the
daunting challenges that currently face managers of projects worldwide, and the even
greater ones that the next generation of project managers must face.
This book is a must-read for teachers, students and reflective practitioners of the art
and craft of project management.
Raymond E. Levitt
Kumagai Professor of Engineering
Director, Stanford Global Projects Center
University of Stanford, California, USA
***
Peter Morris’ writings have influenced and informed the world of project management
for over 40 years, not least his powerful idea of ‘The Management of Projects’: the
thesis that management should be responsible for the development and delivery of the
whole project and that managing the front-end of projects is key to projects’ success.
Reconstructing Project Management continues his thought leadership. It starts with
an absorbing history of project management. It then addresses the discipline’s
constituent parts, whether related to processes, tools, people or context. Finally, it
re-assembles these parts in ways that can add value given tomorrow’s business and
social needs.
This book has something for everyone – facts, ideas, concepts and theories that will
be of interest to students, practitioners and managers alike. Through whatever lens
you are looking at project management, whether past, present or future, you will
almost certainly find the answer in this book.
Mike Brown
Director of Project and Programme Management,
Rolls-Royce plc, Derby, UK
***
In Reconstructing Project Management Peter Morris demonstrates a profound under-
standing of the nature of the discipline, its complexity and its component parts. The
analysis is both broad and deep. After chronicling the growth of modern project
management, he deconstructs it into its component parts. He then recombines those
elements to address today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges.
As a practitioner, I often witness project managers becoming so consumed in delivery
that we forget the need to generate value. Peter reminds us of this need, within a
contemporary context. His book challenges us to consider the rapidly changing envi-
ronment we face in the 21st century. Fewer resources, less water, more carbon, a
rapidly changing climate – the management of projects can only get tougher, and more
important.
For anyone involved in thinking about projects, whether as deliverers, teachers or
researchers, this book will fascinate and challenge in equal measure.
Robbie Burns
Regional Director for Network Rail's Western and Wales Region, Infrastructure
Projects Directorate
***
This book begins by showing how our conception of project management evolved to
what we today recognise as the project management body of knowledge. Professor
Morris then deconstructs that body of knowledge and challenges the reader to think.
Is project management merely a tactical approachto delivery or is it an organising
principle with a distinctive philosophy? Should it have a role in corporate management
or is it only about meeting project targets given to the p.m.team? Peter Morris dem-
onstrates that seeing the discipline as the ‘management of projects’ provides a com-
pletely new approach.
Reconstructing Project Management is designed for the purist, the academic, the
project practitioner and the project organisation in equal measure. It is at times a
challenging read – a some of what it says may clash with traditional thinking – but
as an aid to developing the profession and as food for the mind, it is a must-read.
Paul Hodgkins
PM@Siemens, Programme Executive – UK and North West Europe
***
This book is a must for all those who would like to ‘awaken their dreams’ or ‘realise
their vision’ or ‘concretise their abstract ideas’. It covers the entire gamut of project
management in a lucid manner.
Part 1, ‘Constructing Project Management’, covers the discipline’s history from ancient
times to today showing that projects and their management have always been at man-
kind’s centre. In Part 2, ‘Deconstructing Project Management’, Peter covers exceedingly
well the complexity of the subject, simplifying and integrating the various conceptual
elements relevant to the broad discipline of managing projects. Peter then does a marvel-
lous job in Part 3, ‘Reconstructing Project Management’, unravelling the challenges in the
21st century as well as the opportunities opening up for us.
The art and science of project management is enunciated here in a way that can be
grasped by all those wishing to manage change in our society.
Adesh Jain, New Delhi, India
President, Project Management Associates (PMA-India) and President, International
Project Management Association, 2005
***
Reconstructing Project Management starts with a fascinating and highly readable
history of the study and practice of managing projects. Starting with early efforts by
the Pentagon to codify and structure its approach to projects in the 1960s, Professor
Morris puts many of the landmark studies of project delivery approaches in perspec-
tive. He then proceeds to rebuild the readers’ understanding of project management
in a new way.
If you are a serious student of project management, you will find Morris’s ‘reconstruc-
tion’ provocative and thought-provoking, whether you agree with every aspect or not.
His critique of the literature and our efforts to date is devastating and his plea for
more disciplined critical thinking is spot-on. Reading this book will be enjoyable to
anyone interested in the broad field of managing work through projects and is
required reading for those interested in contributing to the discipline.
Ed Merrow
Founder and CEO, Independent Project Analysis, Inc.
Ashburn, Virginia, USA
***
Reconstructing Project Management is a tour de force! Peter Morris describes the
past, present and future of project management! The big picture! The world of project
management, not only as it is but as it ought to be! This is one of the best books on
project management that I have ever read. I believe Reconstructing Project Manage-
ment will be recognized as one of the seminal books of the 21st Century on modern
project management. Every thinking professional in the field should read it; every
serious library must contain a copy. This book confirms Peter’s place as THE world’s
leading critical thinker on the increasingly important topic of managing projects.
David L. Pells
Managing Editor, PM World Journal, Houston, Texas, USA
***
Scholarship is the word that comes to mind reading this truly comprehensive and
impressively thorough volume. This is a book about and for the project management
profession. It is rigorously researched and extremely readable. It challenges you to
think, the need for which in project management has probably never been greater.
Despite its scholarly nature, it is completely practical and covers an intriguing past, a
diverse present, and a pragmatic future.
The role of universities in providing the profession with such thinking should be fully
acknowledged. Knowledge of this kind is extraordinarily valuable.
Two lifetimes are reflected in the book. One is the long gestation of the discipline
which, with its new ‘construction’, is now helping mankind address major challenges.
The other is the professional lifetime of Peter Morris, who has dedicated much effort
in practice and in education to establishing the principles of the effective management
of projects.
Tom Taylor
President, Association for Project Management, UK
***
Peter Morris has been a critical commentator on, and an important contributor to,
project management for over 40 years. In this important, summative book he draws
upon his in-depth knowledge of the field to describe and reflect upon its emergence,
both as a practical discipline and as a domain of academic study. His analysis is rich,
compelling and robust. It highlights project management’s inherent strengths and its
current weaknesses, proposing ways in which it could be restructured to better fill its
roles in society, today and in the future. The book makes observations and provides
recommendations that will be provocative to many practitioners and academics, yet
its proposals are profound and needed, and should be actionable by everyone who is
concerned, whether directly or indirectly, with the effective management of projects.
Dr. Brian Hobbs, Project Management Chair at the University of Quebec at Montreal,
and recipient of PMI’s Research Achievement Award for 2012
Reconstructing
Project Management
Peter W.G. Morris
Professor of Construction and Project Management
University College London
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morris, Peter W. G.
Reconstructing project management / Peter W.G. Morris, professor of construction and
project management, The Barlett, University College London.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-65907-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Project management. I. Title.
T56.8.M725 2014
658.4'04–dc23
2012037674
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears
in print may not be available in electronic books.
Set in 10/12 pt Sabon by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited
Cover design by Steve Thompson
1 2013
Contents
Figures xiii
Tables xv
About the Author xvii
Preface xix
Introduction 1
Structure and Thesis of the Book 2
Take-Aways 5
References and Endnotes 6
PART 1 CONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 7
Chapter 1 Introduction to Part 1 9
Historical Method 9
Bespeaking Relevant Knowledge 10
References and Endnotes 11
Chapter 2 Project Management before it was Invented 12
Pre-History: Projects and Society 12
Early Attempts at Formal Project Integration 19
World War II and the Manhattan Project 22
References and Endnotes 24
Chapter 3 Systems Project Management 27
USAF Integration: The Formal Recognition of Project Management 27
Schriever and the Atlas Program 30
Polaris 33
PERT and CPM 34
Construction 35
The Harvard Business Review Introduces the Project Manager! 36
McNamara and the Bureaucracy of Systems 36
Apollo: Configuration Management and Project Leadership 37
viii Contents
DoD Bureaucratisation 41
Externalities 43
Energy and Commodities Projects 46
Nuclear Power 46
The Extractive Industries 48
References and Endnotes 49
Chapter 4 The Project Management Knowledge Base 52
The PMBOK® Guide 52
Theoretical Underpinnings 55
‘The Management of Projects’ 60
‘The Management of Projects’ Paradigm versus ‘Execution
Delivery’ 61
The APM, IPMA, and Japanese BOKs 61
Quality Management 65
New Product Development: Lessons from Toyota 65
Academic Engagement 67
References and Endnotes 70
Chapter 5 Developing Project Management 75
IMEC: ‘Large Engineering Projects’ 75
Contracting and Procurement 76
Partnering and the new Procurement Environment 78
Risks and Opportunities 81
Flyvbjerg et al.: Transportation Projects and Optimism Bias 81
BOT/PFI 82
Value and Benefits 83
Health, Safety, and Environment 84
Defence Projects 86
Software Projects and Standish 86
Technology and Requirements Management 88
Agile Project Management 90
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) 91
Critical Chain 92
Program Management 93
Developing Enterprise-Wide p.m. Capability: The US Department
of Energy (DoE)/NRC Study 94
References and Endnotes 95
Chapter 6 Enterprise-Wide Project Management (EWPM) 99
Strategy and Governance 99
PMOs 100
Best Practice Guidelines and Maturity 100
Critical Management 102
Learning and Development 104
Project Management as a Career Track 105
References and Endnotes 105
Contents ix
Chapter 7 The Development of Project Management: Summary 108
PART 2 DECONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 113
Chapter 8 Introduction to Part 2 115
The Domain 115
Deconstructing Deconstruction 116
Approaching the Management of Projects 117
Developing Projects 120
References and Endnotes 121
Chapter 9 Control 123
Scope Management 123
Scheduling 128
Estimating 135
Budgeting 138
Cost Management 139
Performance Management (Earned Value) 140
References and Endnotes 142
Chapter 10 Organisation 145
Roles and Responsibilities 145
Structure 149
Structural Forms 152
Contingency Theory and Organisation Design 156
Project Management Contingency: Getting the Fit 157
References and Endnotes 157
Chapter 11 Governance and Strategy 160
Governance 160
Strategy 161
References and Endnotes 165
Chapter 12 Managing the Emerging Project Definition 167
Requirements Management 168
Solutions Development 170
References and Endnotes 174
Chapter 13 Procurement and the Project’s Commercial
Management 176
Acquisition and Contracting Strategy 177
Partnering and Alliancing 179
Procurement 181
Contract Administration 182
References and Endnotes 184
x Contents
Chapter 14 Adding Value, Controlling Risk, Delivering Quality,
Safely and Securely 186
Building Value, Achieving Benefits 186
Risk and Opportunity Management 190
Quality Management 192
Health, Safety, Security, and Environment (HSSE) 194
References and Endnotes 195
Chapter 15 People 198
Leadership 199
Teams 201
Stakeholder Management 203
Culture 203
Individuals’ Skills and Behaviours 205
References and Endnotes 210
Chapter 16 Level 3: The Institutional Context 214
PMOs 215
Functions of the PMO 215
Clearing the Decks for Reconstruction 224
References and Endnotes 226
PART 3 RECONSTRUCTING PROJECT MANAGEMENT 229
Chapter 17 Introduction to Part 3 231
A Discipline 231
A Knowledge Domain 232
Foundations for the Future 233
References and Endnotes 233
Chapter 18 The Character of our PM Knowledge 234
Terminology 234
Ontology 236
Epistemology and Theories of Project Management 237
Methodology 240
The Character of the Field’s Substantive Knowledge 244
References and Endnotes 249
Chapter 19 Managing Context 252
Independent (or Semi-Independent) Variables 253
Dependent Variables 254
References and Endnotes 256
Chapter 20 Ethos: Building Sponsor Value 257
Questions of Purpose 257
Effectiveness 258
