FEATURED PAPER

Relationships Between Project Management And General Management

By Alan Stretton, PhD

Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper first discusses how the two most prominent project management bodies of knowledge see their relationships with general management. The PMBOK Guide (PMI 2004) very directly points out the importance of general management and allied topics (here called ‘supporting’ topics) in managing projects. However, whilst it lists the latter in some detail, it does not elaborate on them, on the basis that they are already covered in the general management literature. Instead, the PMBOK Guide focuses on detailed expositions of its nine project management topics (here called ‘core’ topics).

The APMBoK (APM 2006) also has many general management and allied topics in its 52 project management topics. However, unlike the PMBOK Guide, it develops each of these 52 topics in a relatively uniform way. In other words, it does not make any discernable distinction between ‘core’ and ‘supporting’ project management topics. These differences between the two bodies of knowledge have implications for aligning project manager credentials when these bodies of knowledge form the bases for such credentialing. (This will be discussed further in a following paper).

The paper goes on to look more closely at general management knowledge frameworks. It notes that one particular ‘classical’ general management knowledge framework (based on Allen 1964, 1974) identifies both ‘core’ and ‘supporting’ general management functions and activities. There is substantial agreement in ‘classical’ management writings that the ‘core’ general management functions comprise planning, organizing, leading, implementing, and controlling.

Attention is then focused on three views which Turner 1993 proposed on how general management process help achieve project objectives. His ‘classical view’ directly applies the five ‘core’ general management processes to undertaking and completing the work involve in managing the entire project life cycle. This links project management and general management processes much more intimately than is indicated in the two project management bodies of knowledge discussed earlier.

I then comment that the project management literature at large tends to focus on differences rather than commonalities, and therefore tends to ignore relevant materials in the general management literature. This is particularly true in the case of organisational change initiatives, which I will discuss further in another future paper.

Finally, another consequence of this focus on the particularities of project management is that the project management literature is markedly introspective. In this paper, and in many of my other papers in this journal, I have endeavoured to bring more holistic perspectives to various aspects of project and program management.

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About the Author Alan Stretton, PhD Author Alan Stretton is currently a member of the Faculty Corps of the University of Management and Technology, Arlington, Virginia, USA. In 2006 he retired from a position as Adjunct Professor of Project Management in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia, which he joined in 1988 to develop and deliver a Master of Project Management program. Prior to joining UTS, Mr. Stretton worked in the building and construction industries in Australia, New Zealand and the USA for some 38 years, which included the project management of construction, R&D, introduction of information and control systems, internal management education programs and organizational change projects. He has degrees in Civil Engineering (BE, Tasmania) and Mathematics (MA, Oxford), and an honorary PhD in strategy, programme and project management (ESC, Lille, France). Alan was Chairman of the Standards (PMBOK) Committee of the Project Management Institute from late 1989 to early 1992. He held a similar position with the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), and was elected a Life Fellow of AIPM in 1996. He was a member of the Core Working Group in the development of the Australian National Competency Standards for Project Management. He has published over eighty professional articles. Alan can be contacted at alanailene@bigpond.com.au.