Ed Naughton, BE, C. Eng., F.I.E.I, IPMA-a, PMP, is the founder and Director General of the Institute of Project Management of Ireland, the leading authority on the project management profession in Ireland.  He is also an International Correspondent for PM World Today. Ed is a former Vice President of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). He has researched, published and presented many articles and papers on project management and is the author of the Irish Project Management Competence Baseline. During his thirty year career, Ed has worked as a project manager and/or project management consultant on a large variety of high profile domestic and international assignments. Ed Naughton is a graduate of University College Dublin (BE, civil), a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers of Ireland, a Chartered Engineer (Ireland), a Professional Engineer in Canada, and holds IPMA Level A certification.  He is former editor of the quarterly international publication “Project Management Practice”. Additional information about Ed Naughton can be found at www.projectmanagement.ie.  Ed lives in Dublin and can be contacted at info@projectmanagement.ie.

This interview was conducted via email in January 2011.

PM World Today (PMWT):            In a nutshell, what’s your background?

Ed Naughton:          I graduated as a civil engineer from UCD and soon after emigrated to Vancouver, Canada with five others from my class. I worked on many large scale capital projects in Canada, Iran and Nigeria before returning to Ireland as a member of the project team overseeing the construction of a £649m Alumina Plant in the southwest of Ireland.

PMWT :          How did you go from civil engineering to project management?

Naughton:    After that project my company was engaged by Dublin Gas Company to manage the conversion of Dublin city from town’s gas to natural gas. This involved the conversion of all appliances for about 140000 customers. The executive management of Dublin Gas was impressed with the effective management of what was a very difficult project.  When the project was completed they needed to downsize by almost 50% and they wanted to bring a project management discipline to that undertaking. I spent the next 20 years applying and refining what I learned in the construction sector to managing rationalization projects in the business environment.

PMWT :          Why did you decide to set up your own education business?

Naughton:    In Ireland in the late 80s project management was seen primarily as the preserve of the construction and IT sectors. I wanted to promote the philosophy that project management was a generic management discipline that could be applied to any sector. This is how it has grown and continues to expand robustly as more and more profit and not for profit sectors embrace it.

PMWT :          What would you do differently if you were doing it again?

Naughton:    Very little, to be honest.

PMWT :          What’s the most difficult part of your job?

Naughton:    I would differentiate between the most difficult and that which I like doing least. Writing proposals and responding to tenders that I truly believe that we have little chance of winning I find quite tedious.  I am not a natural wordsmith.  I lean more to the numerate wishing to express myself in as few as words as possible.

PMWT :          What is project management, in your opinion?

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