Is Project Management a Profession?
Glen Alleman is a really smart guy and I have learned a lot from his blog, Herding Cats, over the past few years. But I disagree with a recent declaration he made:
“Project Management is a practice NOT a profession. Even if PMI wants to call it a profession. “
This sounds like a semantic debate. So lets see what dictionary.com has to say. According to dictionary.com a profession is “an occupation that requires considerable training and specialized study”. I know a lot of people that make a living as project managers. There is also clearly a specialized language and a recognized set of principles you must apply to be a project manager. So by this definition I would say Project Management is clearly a profession.
My friend Hank Roark twitted me towards a blog by Chase Jarvis, a professional photographer, regarding the Secrets to Success in Photography. Chase says the secrets are to be undeniably good and to spend at least 10,000 hours mastering it. The PMP requires 5 years (about 10,000 hours) of unique non-overlapping project management experience. Or 6,000 hours and a Bachelor’s degree. You also have to pass a test on the Project Management Body of Knowledge. I would say the PMP shows a both a desire to be good at the profession and extensive effort. So by this definition, I would say project management is clearly a profession.
Not all Professional Project Managers are good at delivering projects. Few professional’s are as talented at our professions as Glen is at his. A joke I to use to demonstrate this point is…
What do you call the guy who graduates last in his class in Medical School?
Answer: Doctor.
Not all project managers are equally competent. Not all project managers have the ability to run programs, establish PMO’s, strategically align project portfolio’s, recover big projects, or manage risk effectively. Not every doctor is capable of heart surgery. But doctor’s get paid for being doctor’s, have demonstrated considerable training and understanding, have spent thousands of hours mastering their jobs. Doctor’s are professionals.
By any definition, Project Management is a profession.
Dennis,
Great Blog, added to my reader.
Here’s my problem with all the “profession” discussion – not that you and all other don’t have some point. If we speak about professional engineers (I once held such a title), or professional photographers, or professional volleyball players, and maybe even professional pianist – what do we speak about when we say Professional Project Management? Couldn’t we also say Professional Bagel Maker? Both require experience, some training, probably some kind of “official” assessment before being allowed to work for money.
But is it the same as the Profession of Law, Medicine, and Pilot?
In fact from the example above, a graduate from medical school is not a doctor yet. She has to pass the medical board exam. Same for Lawyers. Going to school is necessary but not sufficient.
So using the doctor example, where’s the state board exam for Project Management (Texas had an idea for Professional SW Developer at one time).
In fact PM’s have NOT spent 1,000’s of hours mastering their skills. They may have spent 1,000’s working as a PM. But mastering skills. In what way would a PM be assessed by 3rd party overseers on those skills.
In the end the statement “few are as talented as ‘me’…” is also not true. In the domain of aerospace and defense nearly everyone I know and work with is better or maybe equivalent to my experience and skills. I’m usually on the outside looking in, trying help them in some way.
This is the basis of my statement.
I’d like to hear from Paul Ritchie of SAP on his opinion of “professional.” I’d defer to his position for IT. But for us here in aerospace, the only way you get to called a Professional is to have PE on you card.
A short time ago on pmStudent.com I made a post titled “Everything You Know About Project Management is Wrong.”
I thought it would be catchy for other reasons but we ended up hashing out a comment storm on the topic of project management as a profession.
22 comments thus far with notables like Dave Garrett, Dr. Paul, John Reiling, Bill Duncan, and Craig Brown weighing in.
Personally, I tend to agree with Dennis and will continue to refer to PM as a profession. I think people are getting really worked up over it for semantics. What’s the value in arguing against it?
Please, leave your comments here on Dennis’ blog. What do you think about all this?
Josh Nankivel
http://pmStudent.com
This whole issue is very debatable, sometimes, you become a Project Manager all of a sudden (the accidental Project Manager type).
I’m among who see that Project Management can become a profession at one point (like being a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor, etc…), but maybe for now (again this is very debatable), it hasn’t reached the necessary maturity for a profession (other professions are thousands of years old).
I did publish an article a while ago on the profession of Project Management (written by a well established Project Manager). Have a look whenever you have time!
Colleagues,
While I am perfectly willing to agree the issue is about semantics, there are significant legal, political, economic and social implications that go with being a “professional” and with what you do being recognized as a “profession”.
To help clarify the semantics, let me jump in this discussion with an analogy from my own PhD research, exploring the question “Is Project Management a Profession? And if not, what is it?”
“Tiger Woods is unquestionably a talented golfer. One would be very hard-put
to dispute the obvious, which that he is very competent at what he does,
perhaps one of the best ever. Therefore he meets the first test of being a
professional (n) – skill and competence. In fact, he is sufficiently competent
that he makes a very handsome living performing for pay what most of us
consider a hobby; hence, applying the second criterion, he meets the
‘earnings test’ to be considered a professional (n). He is not an amateur.
Having met both tests (highly competent and earning a living at what most do
for a hobby) entitles him to be termed a professional (adj.) golfer.
However, just because Tiger Woods meets the criteria to be called both a
professional (n) and a professional (adj) golfer, golf does not qualify as a
profession, although Woods might call it his profession (his paid job).”
IF we use only dictionary definitions, then you are justified in your claim. However, you also need to look beyond merely dictionary definitions to legal, socio-economic and semantics before rendering a decision, and if you start to dig deeper into the topic, I think you too would find that “project management is not now, nor is it likely in the foreseable future, to be recognized as a profession”. (As quoted by Bill Zwerman and Janice Thomas in research funded in part by PMI- “Exploring the Past to Map the Future” published by PMI and available in their bookstore.
If anyone wants to see the full dissertation, email me privately at pauldgphd@gmail.com
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta