The Evolution of Project Management?

I was reading my PMI today and found two articles that seemed related to me. The first was a short article describing the new organization of the project management Journal. The Journal will now have six new departments with two editors for each department. This appears to be an excellent approach to expanding the research concepts and opportunities with and project management.

Two things about this article interested me. First, was the selection of the six departments. The human side of project management and the organizational side of projects is easy to understand. The ICT side of project management? I have no idea what they will be researching. The management of infrastructure and public projects and project business is a title that is also confusing to me. I’m not sure what this department will be researching. Complex innovation projects and project strategy sounds like two different departments but included within one group. Project portfolio management, program management and implementation of strategies is the last department. I suspect any selection of departments for project research would be debatable. The current approach appears to be a good first start.

The thing that also interested me about this article was identification of the people to be the departmental editors. There were two editors selected for each department. Of the 12 departmental editors only one came from the United States. Although this group includes members from Canada  and Australia, to group is European centric. I am curious about what this says about the state of project management research.

In reviewing the August 2013 project management Journal I noted that none of the authors were US authors. There were six research papers presented by 17 authors and none were US authors or US research institutions. I am just curious what the implications are for US-based project management research.

This month is a PMI member I was asked to vote on the slate of officers for the PMI Board of Directors. I decided I would only go for board members became from an industry other than IT. I have a sense that IT is overly represented in many of the leadership roles within PMI. This might be a natural result of the growth of the IT industry. I also believe that the PMI board needs to be diverse. Therefore, my decision to only vote for board members outside the IT industry.

When the ballot arrived we were asked to vote for five out of the eight candidates for the PMI Board of Directors. After looking at the credentials of all a candidates and my determination not to vote for anybody with an IT background, I was only able to vote for three candidates. Of the people with non-IT backgrounds I voted for one candidate whose vita indicates he is a professional speaker. I voted for another candidate who’s the president of five companies including the biggest sport small in Argentina. The third candidate I voted for is an advisor for the United Nations with a focus on PMO’s.

The Board of Directors also has a resolution that they’ve asked the PMI membership to pass which would eliminate the ability of members to be nominated by a 1% approval of the membership. This would mean only the nominating committee could nominate people to the Board of Directors. I read the justification for this motion and do not understand why the board would want to restrict the nomination process.

I do not draw any conclusions based on these observations. There does not seem to be any correlation between the euro centric research approach and the IT dominance in the Board of Directors. I just contemplate disease trends have any implications for the future of the project management profession.

Russ