Is Organizational Project Management Rocket Science?
I was reading a post by http://pauldrasmussen.blogspot.com/2009/02/project-management-so-what-is-project.html. While I don’t agree with everything in the post, I like the point made that project management is an art and a science. There is art in being effective when you have a temporary role and you are responsible for the leadership of change within an organization
My Dad is a physicist. Back in the mid 1960’s he worked at NASA as a contractor. They hired physicists to do engineering work because there weren’t clearly understood engineering principles around building rocket ships to go to outer space. They were figuring these out as they went. So Rocket Science at the time was part science and part art. I think we are pretty good at engineering rocket ships now. In fact, you can get a degree in engineering that teaches the principles they were proving in the 1960’s.
Project Management is where rocket science was back in the 1960’s. Theoretically we can get complex organizational projects done. Some people have even done them well. But many of them have not been successful and the practices are not fully proven. Project Management is a science and an art. It took 20-30 years for rocket science to move from theory to science to engineering. Where are we on the spectrum in project management for organizations today?
Tags: Project Management
