The notion the project management has a variety of definitions, approaches, and "theories" is popular these days. While those suggesting this are likely trained in their respective field along with the supporting practices in those fields if training - counseling is a popular starting point for the human interactions between project members. Software programming is another popular starting point. These professions and other are trained and have critical contributions to the domain of project delivery.
But in the end these professionals are amateur project managers, once they disavow the foundations of project management and attempt to replace them with their respective foundations for managing a project. While the conversations vary among the proponents of "making theories obsolete," "sweeping away the practices of the past," the biggest challenge is to connect the underlying principles of managing projects with these new proposals.
- How much will this project cost?
- When will it be done?
- What is the confidence in these estimates?
- How will I recognize done when it arrives?
- What skills, experiences, tools, and processes will be needed to successfully complete the project on-time, on-budget, on-technical and business specifications?
These questions are core to the principles of project management. The interpersonal activities are necessary but far from sufficient.
Explicit and Tactic Knowledge Are Both Needed
The suggestion that explicit knowledge is easy to capture and transfer is not based in the evidence. For example books, manuals, training courses, and the like are available for scheduling and the resulting programmatic risk management.
But still scheduling is a vague and confusing process. The accompanying tacit knowledge of how to usefully deploy a credible scheduling process is missing. It becomes missing when the "professional planner" is removed from the conversation. Being replaced by the Professional Amateur, who conjectures the methods of the past are not needed, not working, or inappropriate in our "new theory."
Leaders Drive Change
In order to drive the changes needed to connect the explicit and tacit knowledge areas, leadership is needed. A "learning organization" is needed. Leading the "learning organization," becomes the goal of the project and the supporting project management processes. But leaders don't do is denigrate all the efforts of the past without replacement of a new set of practices. And especially not provide some "yet to be revealed" magic potion for failure to apply the professional practices, when those failures are caused by poor understanding and even poorer implementation of project management processes to begin with. This is the Professional Amateurs approach.
Both explicit and tacit knowledge are needed. Both process and human interaction are needed. Professional practices on both sides of the success formula are needed.
