practitioner development: from trained technicians to reflective practitioners

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

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International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 722–733

PROJECTMANAGEMENT

Practitioner development: From trained technicians toreflective practitioners

Lynn Crawford a,b,*, Peter Morris c, Janice Thomas d, Mark Winter e

a University of Technology, Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australiab ESC Lille, Avenue Willy Brandt, 59777 Euralille, France

c School of Construction and Project Management, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UKd School of Innovative Management, Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca, Canada AB T9S 3A3

e Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, MBS East, Booth Street West, Manchester, M15 6PB, UK

Abstract

The EPSRC funded Rethinking Project Management Network produced several insights into new directions for project managementtheory and practise, highlighting gaps between current theory and practise in several areas. This paper reviews the discussions aroundproject management practitioner development that arose out of this rethinking process where project management is seen as growingfrom a predominantly technical skill-set to a broader practise of reflectively managing the things needed to provide a successful projectoutcome. In particular, the paper identifies and addresses the challenges of developing competent project managers in a world exhibitingincreasingly complex project challenges, and when skilled resources at all levels are often increasingly scarce. We provide examples ofpractical and academic initiatives that are designed to address these challenges: internal assessment and development programs, reflectivepractice thesis, and distance-based critical management MBA. We conclude by speculating on some of the further challenges in devel-oping reflective practitioners that have yet to be resolved.� 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd and IPMA.

Keywords: Project manager education; Reflective practise; Critical pedagogy; Project management careers

1. Introduction

In making sense of the proceedings of the ESPRCfunded Rethinking Project Management Network, Winteret al. [59] identify a move from seeing project managementpractitioners as pre-eminently trained technicians, able tofollow methodologies and use techniques on well definedprojects, to that of reflective practitioners, able to learn,operate and adapt effectively in complex project environ-ments. Rather than responding to a change in the natureof project management, this transition can be seen as abroadening of the application of project management anda richer conceptualisation of the nature of projects andthe reality of managing them. In the course of discussionsof the Network the focus could be seen to move from the

0263-7863/$30.00 � 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd and IPMA.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.09.010

* Corresponding author.

practice of project management and the need to developproject managers as practitioners to the practice of manag-ing projects and the need to enhance the practice of allthose involved in the process, a theme which is central tothe Morris et al.’s paper [32] from the Network on the nat-ure of the professions in project management.

Drawing on the discussions and proceedings of theRethinking Project Management Network, this paperbegins with a critique of the current status of project man-agement practitioner development. This is followed by areview of the changing environment and conceptualisationof project management and discussion of the implicationsand issues for the development of practitioners. Examplesof practical responses to the need to develop practitionersand enhance project management practice will then bedescribed, drawing on presentations made to the Rethink-ing Project Management Network and on the research andpractice of the authors.

L. Crawford et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 722–733 723

2. Current status of project management practitioner

training and development

Organisations interested in training and developing theirproject management staff look for help from professionaland academic authorities in the field. Prima facie, it wouldseem sensible to look for international standards that train-ing and development might help practitioners to achieve –in the hope that this would signify, to some degree at least,a certain level of competence. In fact, we contend, whatthey would find would not be adequate to address manyof their needs, certainly the needs of those managing inthe more challenging project, or program, environments.One of the first difficulties, then, is determining what aretaken to be the roles of practitioners involved in the man-agement of projects. For competency development is rolespecific [11,23] and whether one is an enterprise seekingtraining and development support for its key roles, orwhether one is looking for more general education, oneneeds a clear idea of the ‘role space’ the training and devel-opment is intended to support.

What roles are encompassed by the term ‘‘practitioner’’,and what are the most common forms of developmentavailable for these practitioners? One way of identifyingpractitioner roles would be to look at project managementjob families in organisations. However, one of the chal-lenges for project management practitioner developmentis that project management job families and career pathsare not well established. In fact, a major challenge for thefield has been the use of the term ‘‘project manager’’ tocover a very broad range of responsibilities from manage-ment of large, complex or urgent projects [48] to multi-pro-ject organisational change (which is almost certainly aprogram, and should be managed by a program manager).There is also confusion as to whether the project manageris only execution focused – delivering to time, cost andquality targets already set (by whom?) or is involved inhelping the project development functions define these inthe critical ‘‘Front End’’.

The qualifications offered, especially by the professionalassociations, provide a useful way of determining whatroles project managers are considered to fulfill. To datepractitioner development in the field of project manage-ment has focused on the role concept of a ‘‘project manage-ment professional’’, a term which may be interpreted asincluding project team members, project team leaders, pro-ject managers and project directors.

The term is laden with promise; the reality is more dis-appointing. First there is the issue of professionalism itself,then the question of whether the scope of the qualificationand its associated training and development material isappropriate to the real roles filled by practitioners; andfinally there is the issue of whether the form of trainingand development is appropriate to both these two.

There has been much debate in recent years concerningwhat constitutes a profession or a professional and whetherproject management has yet or will ever achieve the status

of a profession [32,62]. The nature of the predominant pro-ject management qualifications certainly demonstrates adifference between project management and related andestablished professions such as engineering and architec-ture. Whereas degree qualifications predominate in theestablished professions, certifications offered by the profes-sional associations, colleges and commercial trainers pre-dominate in the field of project management.

Whether or not we consider that project managementhas yet or ever will achieve the status of a profession, theterm ‘‘project management professional’’ has gained widecurrency largely attributable to the popularity of the Pro-ject Management Institute’s PMP� or Project ManagementProfessional certification. At July 2006, 198,048 peoplewere certified as PMP�’s [43].

Gaining the PMP� is of course not a guarantee of com-petence. The Project Management Institute itself makes itclear that the PMP� credential does not indicate that a per-son is qualified as a Project Manager, but ‘‘tells current andpotential employers that you have demonstrated a solidfoundation of knowledge from which you can competentlypractice project management’’ [42].

Qualifications for project management practitioners areoffered by other professional associations such as the Inter-national Project Management Association which has fourlevels of certification [37], that extends from a knowledgebased entry level qualification (Level D) through ProjectManager (Level B) to an international Project Director(Level A). Both the PMP� and IPMA qualifications arebased on a defined Project Management Body of Knowl-edge [33,13]. The Australian Institute of Project Manage-ment has a three level certification process covering TeamMembers, Project Managers and Project/Program Manag-ers which is based on competency standards describing per-formance criteria for workplace performance following astructure similar to that of PMI’s Body of Knowledge,the PMBOK� Guide.

Project management qualifications at the vocationallevel are offered within the National Qualification Frame-works of Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom,again addressing project team member and project man-ager roles. The Global Alliance for Project PerformanceStandards has developed globally applicable standardsfor two levels of Project Manager and is currently workingon Program Manager standards [11,14,19]. Other projectmanagement qualifications that are strongly promoted,particularly in the United Kingdom, are the PRINCE2Foundation and Practitioner qualifications which areessentially certifications of knowledge of the PRINCE2methodology.

Project management is offered as a significant compo-nent in a range of undergraduate and postgraduate aca-demic qualifications including construction, engineeringand IT. Academic qualifications specifically in project man-agement are offered primarily at postgraduate level includ-ing Graduate Certificates, Graduate Diplomas, MastersDegrees and more recently, Doctorates.

724 L. Crawford et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 722–733

In recognised and related professions such as engineer-ing, architecture and construction, a degree is a pre-requi-site for practice and the role of professional associations isin accrediting academic programs to ensure that they pro-vide suitable preparation for practice. In these professionsthe associations also offer post graduation professional cer-tification of understanding of the basic requirements forpractice including professional ethics. In project manage-ment, academic or degree qualifications are ‘‘nice to have’’rather than a pre-requisite for practice although many pro-ject management practitioners hold first degrees in otherfields. The most sought-after qualifications for projectmanagement practice, and those most likely to be requiredor supported by employers, are those offered by the profes-sional associations as described above or through internalcorporate accreditation programmes. Unlike degree quali-fications which require between 1 and 4 years of full-timeor equivalent part-time study, the most common (andnon-academic) qualifications for project management,offered by the professional associations, require up to 5days of study, and some or all of a knowledge test (largelymultiple choice), interview, simulation, and evidence ofexperience although there is growing interest in perfor-mance based qualifications, requiring presentation of evi-dence of competence against specified performancecriteria. In either case, getting this level of qualification isobviously easier than getting a degree, but which isappropriate?

Project management practitioner development is there-fore pre-eminently focused on roles of the project TeamMember and (an execution focussed) Project Manager;and primarily on the (explicit) knowledge required, as gen-erally defined in the professions Bodies of Knowledge. Thefocus is on short-term vocational training and increasinglyon demonstrated workplace experience rather than oneducation.

Even in academic programs, education in project man-agement is often pitched at the same level as the certificateand commercial training in project management, coveringlargely the same material based on the project managementbodies of knowledge (BOKs) [54,60]. This emphasis is rein-forced by the Global Accreditation Center (GAC) of theProject Management Institute, which is the first of the pro-fessional associations to seriously address accreditation ofacademic programs. Accreditation requirements state thatthe ‘‘core of a professional degree consists of the requiredcourses that address the generally accepted processes andknowledge areas found within the project managementprofession and as described in A Guide to the Project Man-agement Body of Knowledge (PMBOK� Guide)’’ [41]. Forthose who question the scope, and thereby the broaderappropriateness and relevancy of the PMBOK� Guide thisis not comforting, although the GAC currently has thisunder review.

The BOKs in fact exert an extremely strong influence onthe conceptualisation of the training and developmentdeemed appropriate for project management. The majority

of current offerings in terms of training, education andqualifications offered by professional associations, com-mercial training organisations and academic institutionsand supported by both practitioners and their employersare heavily weighted towards the knowledge areas of theseBOKs. In doing so, those following the PMBOK� Guideare de facto promoting a conceptualisation of projects ashaving well defined goals and being amenable to manage-ment throughout a life cycle with clearly defined beginningand end using a largely linear sequence of tasks and callingon codified knowledge, procedures and techniques. TheESPSRC Network [59] accepting that this characterisationhas significant value for much project management prac-tice, argue that it falls far short of the reality, particularlyof the larger and more complex projects.

As a result, practitioner development has tended toexclude or marginalise knowledge, skills and behavioursthat overlap or are considered as belonging to other areasof practice such as general management, human resourcemanagement and a range of technical fields. Project man-agement practitioner development to date may thereforebe seen as both narrow and shallow. Numerous currentarticles (see for example [20,38,53,60]) and presentations(see for example [28,54]) recognise these limitations in pro-ject management education, the challenges facing thoseinterested in practitioner development, and suggest someways to address them.

3. Challenges for practitioner development

As the main findings of the Rethinking Project Manage-ment Network show [59] the conceptualisation of projectshas been undergoing considerable change. Many practitio-ners are beginning to question whether the conceptualisa-tion of projects for which mainstream projectmanagement tools, techniques, training and qualificationshave been developed has ever reflected the actuality ofmanaging projects [60]. The knowledge and practices cov-ered by the project management bodies of knowledge rep-resent only a relatively narrow part of what is needed toeffectively to fulfill their roles. Many organisations are real-ising that effective management of projects in their organi-sations requires the development of practitioners beyondproject managers and team members, extending to thedevelopment of practice throughout all levels of theirorganisations from team members to members of theboard.

Specifically, the Network concluded [59] the real chal-lenges of the field and thus the specific implications forpractitioner development include the following:

� Application of project management to a range of projecttypes with characteristics that differ from those forwhich project management practices were first devel-oped (government funded defence/aerospace andconstruction).


� Extension beyond ‘‘execution-focused’’ project manage-ment to a whole-of-life concept of projects – from initi-ation, through operation to cancellation.� Change of focus from product creation to value crea-

tion, from well-defined outputs to less tangible outcomesor benefits. Extension of the breadth of project manage-ment to include program and portfolio management in abroader conceptualisation of management of projects asa strategic corporate capability.� Increasing actual and perceived complexity – for many

reasons including changing societal values; increasedstakeholder involvement and influence; more complexgovernance, ownership and delivery structures; andadvances in communication technology that enable glo-bal and virtual working, and accelerate time pressures.� Integration with rather than isolation of projects from

the business.� Aging of the workforce and the need for succession

planning.

The following section of this paper will addressthe implications of these challenges for practitionerdevelopment.

4. Implications for practitioner development

4.1. Change in focus and breadth of application

While the range of endeavours recognised as projectshas been broadening progressively over the last 30 yearsor 40 years, the extension of project responsibility beyondthe traditional focus on execution has been a more recenttrend. Both trends have significant implications for practi-tioner development.

First, the nature of the endeavours considered as pro-jects has broadened considerably since the recognitionand codification of project management practices used indefence and aerospace and large engineering and construc-tion projects. This has led to questioning of the validity andsufficiency of these traditional project management prac-tices for project types having significantly different charac-teristics [12]. Flowing from this is questioning of therelevance and sufficiency of the current curricula for prac-titioner development.

Second, wider application has increased the demand forcapable practitioners and therefore the need for appropri-ate practitioner development. It has also changed the nat-ure of project work. For instance, as organisationsrecognise more of their endeavours as projects they needmany more people capable of undertaking roles that willlead to the delivery of desired corporate outcomes. Manyof these people may be required to continue in operationalroles while also assuming project related responsibilities.They are often also required to simultaneously managemultiple projects, often requiring contributions from crossdivisional resources. Project boundaries are often ill-defined and shifting. This is quite different from the origi-

nal concept of a project manager as having full-time,‘‘undivided responsibility’’ for an entire project, for whichthe scope and governance would be clearly defined in acontract, from inception to completion [51]. Implicationsfor practitioner development are a need to review the cur-ricula for development and to provide development for asignificantly increased number of people.

Further, the nature and number of roles for which pro-ject management development is required is increasing as aresult of growth in the range of endeavours recognised asprojects and the scope of project management. The tradi-tional conceptualisation of project management responsi-bility is from initiation of the project to completiongenerally of a product or service which will be handed overto operations. Initiation of the project from an executionperspective generally involves the confirmation of the pro-ject definition and commencement of the plan for its deliv-ery. Project responsibility often now starts withformulation of projects and programs to implement corpo-rate strategy; portfolio decisions as to which projects toundertake; or working with a customer to identify needs,develop solutions then get approval for projects to deliverthose solutions. As an example of this, a global telecommu-nications company now considers all this upfront activityto be part of the project management life cycle and requiresit’s Project and Program Managers to be actively involvedwith customers in establishing the deliverability of the pro-ject, rather than leaving this, as was previously the case, tobe negotiated by an Account Manager. At the other end ofthe life cycle, concern now extends beyond the delivery ofthe products or services from a project, often referred toas outputs, to the realisation of the benefits from a projector program of projects often referred to as outcomes. Thisis a predominant theme of application of project manage-ment of internal projects such as IT and business changewhere the reaping of benefits is dependent upon successfulhandover to operations (and is recognised as such in meth-odologies such as PRINCE2). In such cases, the Project orExecutive Sponsor [15,22] is often required to carry respon-sibility from genesis through to the realisation of benefits.Responsibility, however, extends even further in somecases, such as the defence sector, where the sustainabilityof the product, service or facility is also considered a pro-ject responsibility, and may also include its ultimatedisposal.

One implication of these changes in application and con-ceptualisation, for practitioner development, is that thosein project management roles are in many cases beingrequired to develop a broader range of skills. Anotherimplication is that the range of roles that have projectresponsibility is broadening. It is no longer just the respon-sibility of the project manager. There are new project rolesemerging and being encompassed, such as that of the Pro-gram Manager, Portfolio Manager, and Project or Execu-tive Sponsor. Those in functional and operational roles areincreasingly being required to take part in projects in over-sight, managerial and contributing capacities. As projects


and programs are increasingly recognised as ways of deliv-ering strategy, senior management and members of theboard are also required to understand more about the nat-ure of projects and their management, especially in light ofmore onerous corporate governance requirements [4].

4.2. Increasing complexity

Modern project management, as it has developed overthe last 50–60 years, and as codified in the project manage-ment bodies of knowledge, places emphasis on planningand control and is arguably designed for management ofcomplicated projects. Projects may be considered compli-cated when their output is in the form of material artefactssuch as the construction of physical infrastructure or thedesign and construction of aircraft. Models developed forsuch projects can simulate the interactions of their manyparts and the impact of increased levels of differentiationand interdependency [5] with a high level of reliability.

Projects, such as those dealing with organisationalchange, are also subject to high levels of differentiationand interdependency, but additionally, they have non-tangible end products, cannot be isolated from their envi-ronment and are highly dependent for their success on theparticipation, reactions and interactions of people [12].The impact of differentiation and interdependency is muchharder to model and simulate in projects of this nature asthey are highly subject to the influence and reactions ofpeople with different agendas, values and responses [5,50].

Even projects of the type for which project managementwas initially developed, which may be considered inher-ently complicated rather than complex, are becoming morecomplex as their recognition and management as projects isextended beyond the execution phase to encompass abroader spectrum of the product life cycle. An engineeringor construction project may be essentially well defined inthe execution phase but becomes a more complex endeav-our if the focus is extended to include its genesis, mainte-nance and disposal. The rise of Build-Own-Operate andPrivate Finance Initiative projects in construction hasaccelerated this paradigm change. This wider perspectivealso introduces a broader range of stakeholders and stake-holder perspectives.

The delivery of what might have been considered welldefined but complicated projects also become more com-plex when new delivery mechanisms such as public privatepartnerships, strategic alliances and the like replace tradi-tional contractual arrangements. Ownership is often farmore complex than in the past and is frequently unstableor subject to change.

Increasing emphasis on corporate governance in recenttimes as evidenced by the OECD Principles of CorporateGovernance [36] and the pervasive influence of the Sar-banes Oxley Act 2002 has placed emphasis on a need forincreased transparency and accountability that raises levelsof complexity and places new demands on project manage-ment practitioners.

Advances in communication technologies haveincreased the potential for complexity in a number of ways.They have placed more emphasis on stakeholder manage-ment in terms of client reporting demands, the potentialspeed and expectations of information flow and hasincreased likelihood of media exposure. The Project Man-ager may need to be a good politician with ability to dealwith the media. Communication technology has facilitatedfar more complex ways of working, raising the expectationthat project management practitioners will be expected towork in virtual global teams. This introduces a range ofnew skill requirements from use of communication technol-ogies, to understanding and ability to work with peoplefrom different cultures (including professional andnational) and in different languages.

A further level of complexity affecting projects and prac-titioner development is the change in societal values. Thework ethic has changed considerably over the last thirtyor so years. Different generations (Baby Boomers, Genera-tions X and Y) display different work ethics which need tobe considered in workforce planning and in the formationand management of project teams. Changing societal val-ues also affect stakeholder management as there areincreased demands for and expectations of involvementand participation. At the same time, communication andother technologies have made faster response possibleand raised expectations, putting practitioners under accel-erated time pressures to deliver. Economic rationalism,enabled by technology, has reduced the level of supportfor all activities throughout organisations, requiring practi-tioners to operate with reduced support against shortertimescales, with higher levels of accountability in the faceof increasing demands.

Implications for practitioner development of thisincrease in complexity are considerable. First, it highlightsa need for re-thinking of the project management bodies ofknowledge and related qualifications. The expertise thatunderpins the development of project management practiceand standards is founded primarily in the management ofclearly recognised and defined stand-alone projects thatmay be considered complicated rather than complex. Thesepractices were first transferred and minimally transformedby application to information systems and technology pro-jects but they retain a strong and identifiable legacy fromtheir origins in major engineering projects. Combined witha process of simplification, codification, and commodifica-tion [33] to support generic application and ease of trans-ferability, the bodies of knowledge and practices used tosupport practitioner development provide little to addressthe ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty inherent intoday’s practice world [10,16,60]. They do not recogniseor offer a response to the systemic and complex nature ofbusiness projects, including implementation of corporatestrategy, change management, management of organisa-tions by projects and enterprise innovation.

Faced with a more complex and demanding environ-ment, employers are questioning the validity and usefulness


of the most commonly available project management train-ing and qualifications to develop and assess the competenceof practitioners. Although there remains an ongoing needfor ‘trained technicians’ for well defined roles on welldefined projects, employers are beginning to look for some-thing more. They are beginning to focus more on behav-iours or what are often referred to as ‘‘soft skills’’ inaddition to or in some cases rather than hard technicalskills and mastery of a relatively limited set of project man-agement knowledge and practices. There is increasing inter-est in the behaviours that distinguish superior fromthreshold performance. Further, as project managementroles become more complex and permeable, there isincreasing recognition that the project management bodiesof knowledge represent only one part of what is needed byproject management practitioners to be effective and thatthere is a need for extension of development to include con-textual, organisational, technical and general managementknowledge and skills as well as those of generic and organ-isational-specific project management.

This depth and breadth of development is not somethingthat can be accomplished in a two to five day course orassessed in a one-off multiple choice test. It requires a muchlonger term commitment and a far more multi-facetted andsystemic approach. The need for relevant practitionerdevelopment goes beyond the development of trained tech-nicians to that of reflective practitioners able to be effectivein demanding, diverse and complex environments.

4.3. Aging of the workforce and the need for successionplanning

This is a challenge affecting practitioner developmentgenerally. It is exacerbated by the drive towards economicrationalism, beginning in the late 1960’s and early 1970s, toprogressively transfer responsibility for practitioner devel-opment from the workplace into academic institutions.Prior to this, there was a general acceptance that the work-place had a responsibility for development of practitionersby imparting craft or tacit knowledge through demonstra-tion, practice with feedback and possibly even coaching[17]. From the early 1970s onward, streamlining of work-force numbers placed increased pressure on workers. Thelevel of practitioner development in the workplace was pro-gressively reduced and academic institutions were pressedto take increased responsibility for work readiness. Morethan thirty years on, those who now, after many years ofexperience, have developed the tacit knowledge necessaryfor effective practice, have had no role model for transferof this knowledge in the workplace. As these practitionersreach retirement age, many organisations are simulta-neously recognizing the value of this lost art and the conse-quent loss of much of their intellectual capital.

This trend has several implications for practitionerdevelopment. The combination of increasing demand forproject management personnel and impending loss of expe-rienced staff (and tacit knowledge) has raised awareness

amongst employers of the importance of practitioner devel-opment. Perceived inadequacy of training and of currentlyavailable assessment processes and qualifications to pro-vide assurance of competence has rekindled interest in awider range of development options, with particularemphasis on experience in the workplace. Whereas mentor-ing and coaching were at one time provided informally inthe workplace, many organisations are now introducingformal mentoring and coaching opportunities. To addressthese challenges, project management development mustbe flexible, customisable and real world enough to meetthe needs of this increasingly varied clientele.

5. Further issues in practitioner development

Current models of project management practitionerdevelopment continue to focus on transferring ‘‘know-what’’ based on the bodies of knowledge developed bythe professional associations through programs deliveredin traditional learning environments that emphasiseinstruction and training. To address the implications ofchanging conceptualisation and applications of projectmanagement to projects perceived to be increasingly com-plex, we need more emphasis on educational models thatencompass a wider spectrum of ‘‘know-what’’ and facilitatedevelopment of ‘‘know-why’’ and ‘‘know-how’’ that willenable practitioners to select appropriate combinations ofknowledge, practice and behaviours that will support andfoster continuous change, creative and critical reflection,self-organised networking, virtual and cross-cultural com-munication, coping with uncertainty and various framesof reference, increasing self-knowledge and the ability tobuild and contribute to high performance teams [28].

As the Rethinking Project Management Network con-cluded, there is a need for less separation between learningand actual practice accompanied by less focus on knowl-edge acquisition and more emphasis on holistic capabilitydevelopment that extends beyond knowledge to encompasspractical application and experience, attributes and behav-iours. Learning and development is considered more effec-tive when integrated with work and professional activity,encompassing diverse modes such as: work-based training,coaching, master classes, reflective practice, action learn-ing, special interest groups, simulation, double loop learn-ing and the like [7,25,29,55]. Learning should be viewed asa social process in which the individual is able to integratetheir learning (i.e., possessed knowledge) with the develop-ment of the organisation and its practices given that indi-vidual development is a component of organisationaldevelopment [47] {Wenger 1997 #8290} [27,52] and practi-tioner development is often expected to drive significantdevelopment in the organisation such as the general adop-tion of project modes of thinking for enterprise wide pro-ject management.

Another issue for practitioner development in projectmanagement is that it has to date focused on the com-mon denominator, on development of threshold levels of


competence based primarily on a relatively narrow spec-trum of possessed knowledge defined by codification of gen-eric knowledge and practices is presented in the projectmanagement bodies of knowledge and standards. Manyemployers, having endeavoured to raise the level of thresh-old competence in project management in their organisa-tions are now beginning to look for ways of recognizingand developing behaviours that are associated with superiorperformance [49]. This trend is associated with interest inmoving beyond development and assessment that recog-nises the ability to follow process or adopt best practice toways of measuring performance based on outcomes andthe development of contextualised and situated responses.

To demonstrate the types of responses that are beingmade to the challenges facing practitioner development inproject management, we provide two examples of initia-tives of academic institutions.

6. Practical responses

6.1. Practitioner development through reflective practice

Research shows that experienced practitioners can makesignificant advances in developing their knowledge andcapabilities through processes of reflective practice andexperiential learning (see for example [17,18,31,46]. Anexample of this is the development of a reflective practicedissertation for an industry-based masters program in pro-ject and program management delivered by the Universityof Manchester [58,60]. Originally piloted on an ExecutiveMBA program [57], the new dissertation is an alternativeoption to the classical research dissertation, which is notalways appropriate for busy managers on part-time pro-grams. In essence, the new dissertation is designed toexploit the significant learning and development opportuni-ties available to people studying on part-time programs, byenabling experienced practitioners to develop their knowl-edge and capability through a period of more deliberateand more reflective engagement in professional practice.As Brown and Duguid [9] state ‘‘learning to be requiresmore than just information. It requires the ability to engagein the practice in question’’. Such opportunities are lost,however, if the only option available is the classicalresearch dissertation. Also, the opportunity to engage moredeliberately and more reflectively in one’s own professionalpractice is highly relevant to professional development pro-grams where the emphasis is essentially on preparing peo-ple for the realities of real-world practice than onacademic research. This is not to suggest that the classicalresearch dissertation should be marginalised, only that ifthe core purpose of a project management program is pro-fessional development, then this suggests the need for addi-tional dissertation options to allow practitioners to learnand develop through processes of reflective practice andcritical reflection. More generally, the concept accords withthe increasing emphasis on facilitating reflective learning inhigher education [8].

The practice dissertation (rather than a research disser-tation), is rooted in Schon’s epistemology of reflection-in-action [45], which provides a helpful perspective on whatpractitioners actually do in practicing their craft. Accord-ing to Schon [45], practicing managers and otherpractitioners constantly have to deal with messy, indeter-minate situations, for which there are no ‘‘right’’ answers,and how they deal with these situations is not throughthe systematic application of textbook theories, butthrough sophisticated processes of reflection-in-action(e.g., thinking on one’s feet) and reflection-on-action(e.g., thinking back on events and planning the nextmove, etc.). From this perspective, reflection-in-action ismuch less a process of applying propositional knowledgeand much more a process of appreciating, probing, mod-eling and experimenting etc using intuition and experi-ence. Very importantly, the concept of ‘‘reflection’’ inSchon’s work is much less a reference to practitionersstanding back and learning from experience, and muchmore a reference to how practitioners actually thinkabout the issues and situations in the messy, indetermi-nate zones of practice. In this sense, Schon’s image ofthe reflective practitioner provides a helpful way ofunderstanding what it is that (more reflective) managersand other practitioners actually do in practicing theircraft. Like other new fields of study, however, there are(not surprisingly) different ideas about professional prac-tice (see for example [17,18,31], and there is no assump-tion here that Schon’s image is all-encompassing, onlythat it provides a helpful way of making sense of whatpractitioners actually do in practicing their craft, and(hence) an appropriate foundation upon which to developa new kind of dissertation for part-time programs in pro-ject and program management.

In practical terms, the practice dissertation isoperationalised through a cyclic process of learning anddevelopment involving four interrelated activities: (a) thestudent–practitioner’s role and responsibilities, (b) theactivity of reading literature around a number of relevantthemes, (c) the activity of relating the literature to the prac-titioner’s current work issues, and (d) the activity of mod-ifying one’s approach in the light of the reflective activityand the insights gained. The identification of ‘‘relevantthemes’’ is a crucial part of the learning and developmentprocess, with typical themes being leadership, managingchange, negotiation, conflict management, team develop-ment and the application of project management methods,to name but a few. Whatever themes are chosen, they arealways specific to the practitioner’s work issues and aregenerally identified by the practitioner in discussion withthe rest of the group. This enables the student–practitionerto focus on a selection of relevant literature for use inexamining the context, content and process aspects of theirprofessional role, thus enabling the learning process to bestudent-driven and directly centred on the interests andneeds of the people involved. Also, as part of the process,the student–practitioner is strongly advised to keep a learn-


ing journal of the key events, issues and reflections ‘‘alongthe way’’, in a format which is decided by the person doingthe dissertation. Moreover, the role of the academic super-visor in supervising this dissertation changes from that ofsupervising a research project to that of facilitating a learn-ing process involving the critical examination of real-worldexperience, relevant theory, and ongoing interaction. Therole of the student also becomes one of thinking and theo-rizing about the realities of managing rather than the the-ory of management. Both the student and the supervisorare encouraged to explore how and why theories work(or do not work) in a particular context and to learn fromeach other’s perspectives on the situations and theories, inorder to broaden and complexify their understandings ofthe problems being tackled. As Fish and Coles [18]state:

because practice is rapidly changing, it requires the prac-titioner autonomously to be able to refine and updatehis or her practice ‘on the hoof’, which is what reflectivepractice is about (and what professional developmentshould be about) . . . Here, to improve practice is to treatit more holistically, to work to understand its complex-ities, and to look carefully at one’s actions and theoriesas one works and, subsequently, to challenge them withideas from other perspectives [for example, from the lit-erature], and to seek to improve and refine practice andits underlying theory. Here, the professional is workingtowards increased competence . . . not towards acquiredcompetencies.

Interestingly, in fields such as teaching and nursing,practitioners engage in this kind of activity as a matter ofcourse in that they focus directly on the practices of teach-ing and nursing as part of their own professionaldevelopment.

The educational aim of the practice dissertation is nodifferent in project management: it is simply one of helpingexperienced practitioners to become more reflective andmore effective in the art and craft of managing projects.Moreover, the experiences to date suggest there is signifi-cant potential in this new dissertation and research isnow ongoing to develop it further.

6.2. Practical responses: Developing senior project managers

at a distance

Critical management pedagogy (see for example [8,44])puts heavy weight on the necessity to change the pedagog-ical approach from information pushing to criticalinterchange and from teacher or student centred tode-centred, and to focus on the interchange and sharing ofexperience and view points through critical reflection andsensemaking. One of the key characteristics of (and somewould say benefits) of this form of teaching is that it is ide-ally suited to experienced mid career professionals wishingto capitalise on and extend their experience through a per-iod of critical examination. The practice dissertation

described above is a clear example of embedding this sortof philosophy in one aspect of a project management aca-demic programme.

Our second example begins in early 2000 with the deci-sion by a leading distance University to develop a specia-lised Executive MBA in Project Management aimed atdeveloping the skills of senior project management person-nel. The new programme was envisioned to build from thefirst year of the existing, highly rated Executive MBA pro-gramme and then add one year of specialised course workin project management followed by three electives and afinal applied research project. Students would be drawnfrom a wide range of industries and job roles but all wouldhave a minimum of 5 years of experience in a project envi-ronment as well as the 8–10 years on average of generalmanagement experiences required of all our MBA studentsin the programme.

Three primary drivers motivated the development of thisnew programme. First, experience with a traditional face toface Management programme had highlighted the difficultymid career managers have fulfilling the requirements of thisform of education while maintaining their full-time workand family commitments. Second, surveying the existingMBA or Masters programmes in project managementrevealed that most programmes were very similar and fol-lowed closely the structure of the PMBOK� Guide definedby the Project Management Institute (PMI, 1996, 2000,2004). In essence existing Masters-level education in projectmanagement is often pitched at the same level as the certif-icate and commercial training in project management.Third, research into project management failures suggestedthat one of the key skills missing in many project managerswas a solid foundation in basic management skills (forexample marketing, finance, organisation theory). Yetfew if any project management programmes addressedthese topics and likewise few if any MBA programmes pro-vided in-depth coverage of project management. The deci-sion was made to differentiate the new programme byfocusing on developing ‘‘master’’ project managers capableof critiquing and revising ‘‘best practice’’. and questioningthe taken-for-granted assumptions that are considered doc-trine in the area of project management. It was felt that thegrowing number of certified project managers would be aprime source of students for the new programme as thesepractitioners sought to advance their project managementskills.

The existing MBA programme, delivered in a pacedasynchronous distance environment, is, designed to pro-vide a convenient educational environment to combinelearning from professional experience with academic learn-ing and critical reflection and review. Based on principlesof critical management pedagogy (see for example [44])and management skills development so strongly recom-mended for MBA reform [30] the programme puts heavyweight on the necessity to change the pedagogical approachfrom information pushing to critical interchange and shar-ing of experience and view points.


Distance education has made great strides over this dec-ade in gaining acceptance as an alternative delivery optionwithin graduate education. Numerous studies over the lastdecade have shown that, regardless of discipline, there is nosignificant difference in the learning outcomes of distanceversus classroom students in graduate programmes([21,26,34,35,40,56,61]); and that there are no significantdifferences in student satisfaction [2,6,39] or participationrates [1,3] between the two settings. Nevertheless, intellec-tual quality of online graduate programmes is still ques-tioned in many educational arenas. In particular, manyeducators still do not credit that interpersonal relationshipsbetween students and faculty can be developed effectivelythrough technology (see for example [24]). However bothinternal measures of student and employer satisfactionand external rankings (the Executive MBA programmedescribed here was ranked in the top 75 MBA programmesin the world by the Financial Times in 2003 and 2004) sup-port the value of distance learning as a way of addressingthe challenges raised above in educating mid career projectmanagers within the context of organisational learning anddevelopment.

In building an environment for shared learning and crit-ical reflection, three key decisions had to be made. First,there had to be some way to ensure a base level of under-standing of key concepts from which to explore theoreticaland experiential insights. Thus, the first major decisionwith respect to the design of the programme was to requireall incoming students to provide evidence of knowledge ofthe fundamentals of project management to the certificatelevel. Next, to ensure that the complex reality of projectswas not simplified by focusing on one aspect of projectmanagement at a time, the second important decisionwas to design a four-course core that dealt with the topicsof project management in an integrated fashion across thelife cycle. This approach made it possible, for instance, todeal more rigorously with issues of paradox inherent incontrolling the project while trying to maintain team spiritand drive during execution. Finally, given the need to avoida focus on one right way to manage projects, the thirdmajor design decision was to share a ‘‘library’’ of four textsthat would be referred to across all the courses and supple-mented by numerous research and practical readings. Thetexts were consciously chosen to provide different view-points on project management. The explicit contrastingof these different texts was meant to broaden the student’sconception of what project management is and triggersensemaking around how and why these different perspec-tives exist.

Each course is designed to introduce current research,theory and practice, encourage reflecting on current situa-tions facing students in light of this material, and thensharing and reflection on these experiences. Each studentcompletes a weekly assignment and then engages in critiqueand exploration with other members of the class and thefaculty member to flesh out the issue. Students are encour-aged to participate regularly (if they do not pass participa-

tion, they fail the course) and to be respectful but frank andcritical of ideas, situations, and theories. The faculty mem-ber acts as a coach/participant modeling questioning andcritical reflection by seeding questions particularly aroundunderlying assumptions, and avoiding being forced intothe ‘‘expert’’ role as much as possible. Students are assessedas much for raising good questions and issues as for shar-ing theoretical or experiential insights. Each weekly ‘‘dis-cussion’’ ends with a lessons learned discussion thatprovides synthesis and closure to the week’s discussion atthe same time that it raises additional issues for reflection.

Removing boundaries between subject areas allows us todeal with the whole project process while presenting multi-ple perspectives approach through varied texts and read-ings. This process of complication instead ofsimplification allows for the development of critical reflec-tion on practice realities. The technology required by thedistance format, facilitates the de-centreing of the powerroles in the classroom by separating the coach from theexpert lecture role and providing a focus on learning fromall discussion participants. Students and coaches explicitlyrecognise that they are to learn together. The asynchronousonline delivery provides for deep and thoughtful reflectionson the issues under discussion. Further, teaching midcareer students over a period of time allows them todevelop meaningful espoused theories of practice that canbe tested in their real world laboratories in real time asthe course progresses. The explicit adoption of a sensemak-ing approach moves the discussion from that of formulaicmanagement ‘‘best practices’’ to a messy and complicateddiscussion of managing.

To date the programme has been successful in meetingthe needs of senior project managers and executives fromaround the world. Connecting project managers of majorOil and Gas development projects in Kazakhstan withNurse managers overseeing the implementation of wholemedical systems in the middle east with foreign aid projectmanagers in Africa and high tech innovators in the USwith resin executives managing mergers and acquisitionsin Canada has resulted in deep rich discussions capableof delivering insights into the common practice of projectmanagement and the contextualise micro parties neededin local environments. The largest challenge facing the pro-gramme to date has been in helping certified project man-agers recognise that their certification is a first steptowards master practice not an end. Now that professionalassociations such as PMI are beginning to recognise anddevelop plans to deal with the lack of development pro-grammes for the certified practitioners this is likely tochange.

If you look at the development of practitioners of recog-nised professions, in addition to the advanced educationalfoundation requirements, they have all served some sort ofan ‘‘apprenticeship’’ or ‘‘internship’’ where they learn fromexperienced practitioners and their peers over an extendedperiod of time. Interestingly, one of the senior practitionersenrolled in this programme recently made the following


comment. ‘‘This programme is the closest thing I can imag-ine to a mentored apprenticeship programme for projectmanagers’’. If you look carefully at each of these threepractitioner development examples, you will see that eachof them provides evidence of attempts to reproduce thispractice based learning, assessment, reflection and refine-ment of practice.

7. Conclusion

Rethinking Project Management highlighted a numberof characteristics of current project management practiceand environment that deviates from the assumptionsembedded in many conceptions of the discipline today.The characteristics of:

change in focus and breadth of application,increasing complexity,aging of the workforce and the need for successionplanning,changing workforce conditions,concern for organisational learning and integration ofwork with learning;influence not only how we think about project manage-ment but also our options for developing future projectmanagers.

We have discussed above the implications of these char-acteristics and have provided examples. Let us just stressthat much of the existing project management educationis aimed at transferring foundation level knowledge of var-ious professional association bodies of knowledge. Thesetechnical tool kits have proven insufficient for the realityof managing complicated projects and are unlikely to beadequate for managing the complex projects that are evermore common in today’s organisations. Focusing educa-tion at this level, with delivery in the form of short coursesby professional trainers who lack significant, real-time pro-ject experience, is a trap that needs to be addressed as werethink project management.

Not only do we need new and better ways to think aboutprojects and their management but we need different waysto transfer knowledge and develop project manager compe-tencies that fit with these new realities and that can beembedded within the individual’s personal and organisa-tional experience. Project management education must beable to teach project managers how to be reflective practi-tioners in touch with the best and newest theory andresearch, and their day to day practice of managing. Thisrequires a coaching approach over a longer term aimedat developing, in the workplace, managers capable ofthinking critically about their own project managementpractice and anything presented to them as ‘‘best practice’’.Competent project managers need to be able to apply tech-nical project management tools contextualised for theirspecific project in a manner appropriate to the organisationand project type. Research and pedagogy is needed to

define these categorisations and more importantly how tothink about the differences in project management practicenecessitated by these differences.

We have provided examples of project managementdevelopment designed to address some or all of these chal-lenges. All of these programmes carefully balance the pushof theories and techniques with the constructive critique ofthese knowledge areas based in practical experience. Byrecognizing that practice is a valuable source of knowledgeabout how to manage projects, each of these programmestakes some important steps to developing reflective practi-tioners through a decentred educational experience that isbased in the particular and specific needs of the partici-pants jointly and as a whole.

There are many challenges inherent in recognizing thesenew approaches as fundamental to project management inthe future, not least of which is convincing certified projectmanagers that they have only begun the journey towardsproject management expertise. In addition, professionalassociations will need to devise flexible ways to update theirBOKs as practice evolves into, and later no doubt awayfrom these new realities (as discussed in the article by Mor-ris et al. [32] in this volume) and to monitor and coach theeducation providers to this new perspective. Organisationswill need to recognise the investment necessary to developexpert project managers as a cost of doing business.

From a research agenda perspective this review high-lights a number of potentially important research initia-tives that are needed to support the types of practitionerdevelopment initiatives discussed above. First, there is noempirical evidence that project management training ofany sort (tactical or reflective) actually improves a practi-tioner’s capacity to manage projects. Research of this nat-ure exploring what practitioners can get from training vsother development practices is long overdue. Second, giventhe demographic changes facing organisations today anddiscussed above, those interested in developing practitio-ners need to give some thought to how to do this appropri-ately for the different generations of workers we havetoday. In particular, how is tacit project managementknowledge best developed and transferred and how canwe leverage the ‘‘greybeards’’ before we lose them. Culturalresearch into how to develop a climate and reward systemencouraging passing on instead of hoarding of knowledgewould also be of benefit. Third, an important foundationfor the development of practitioners is the developmentof a categorisation system for projects or project manage-ment roles that would allow training to be appropriatelytargeted and delivered to relevant audiences.

Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally of all, in orderto develop appropriate training and development pro-grammes, we must first have a solid understanding of whatthe underlying knowledge base must contain. Given thecriticism of the BOKs and the conceptualisation of projectsand project management in other chapters in this volume,the increasing perception of complexity of projects andbreadth of application of project management practises,


it is almost criminal to propogate a ‘‘best practises’’ or‘‘one best way’’ approach to project management trainingwhen there is no empirical or theoretical foundation forthese assertions.

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