Interview with Dr. Martin Barnes
Part II – Reflections on the Profession of Project Management

Editor's Note: Martin Barnes is one of the world's most respected authorities on the subject of modern programme and project management. We are honored that he has agreed to share his experiences, perspective and opinions with us. Part I of the interview covering Martin's professional career and experiences was published in the June 2009 edition of PM World Today, which can be seen at http://www.pmworldtoday.net/interviews/2009/june/Interview-with-Dr-Martin-Barnes.html.

PM World Today (PMWT): Like other leaders in the project management professional world, at some point your career led you to get involved in a professional association. As one of the founders of the Association for Project Management (APM) in the UK, can you share some of your memories on how that happened?

Martin Barnes: I went to the ‘Internet' international congress in Stockholm in May 1972. My colleague John Gillespie and I thought this would be a good platform for launching our new ‘Project Cost Model' software – and it was. I enjoyed the conference hugely and made some friends who are still and always will be very good friends. Our paper got an award. The experience was such good fun and so professionally interesting that I have been to later congresses every time I could. When we got back to the UK, everybody who had been to an Internet Congress was invited to a meeting in London to set up a UK branch. This took place at the Royal Society of Arts.

Those who signed up were given a membership number in alphabetical order. This is why Russ Archibald has a lower number than me! I am member 010. I was very soon on the committee alongside great men still with us like Arthur Tulip, Jim Gordon and Dennis Gower. Our first president was Professor Geoffrey Trimble of Loughborough University. Later, of course somebody else usurped the name Internet, so the international body became IPMA (International Project Management Association) and Internet (UK) became the Association of Project Managers, abbreviated to APM.

PMWT: What were some of the ideas and objectives for the new organization?

Barnes :   Most of us had had a wonderful experience at the Internet Stockholm congress and wanted to do things like that at home in the UK . Most of it was about network analysis and computer programmes which helped you do it. Intense arguments about whether ‘activity on arrow' was better than ‘activity on node'. I was a passionate ‘activity on node' person as this was the only way my cost model software could work. The argument went on for years – long after the answer became blindingly obvious. In the beginning we had no vision for the long term. An association for network enthusiasts was what we were.

PMWT: Did you have any involvement or interaction with IPMA founders elsewhere in Europe ?

Barnes :   Of course we did, as we were an offshoot from IPMA. Most of the great men of IPMA at that time are still with us. Russ Archibald, Ivars Avots and Larry Bennigson of the USA (who went on to help set up a project management association in the US called PMI), Bob Gillis from Canada, and a host of super guys from all the countries in mainland Europe.

To read entire interview (click here)


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