Science, objective knowledge and the theory of project management

Abstract

Though there is reasonable agreement on most of the formal tools used for managing projects, there is still a range of views on what constitutes the discipline of project management.This paper examines the knowledge we have of the discipline and, in particular, how testable and public it is. It suggests that while the ‘hard systems’ approaches of systems engineering and decision support have had a seminal impact on the development of project management, ‘soft systems’ thinking also has an important role, particularly at the front end of projects.The human side of project management is also extremely important. The paper concludes that while we can certainly identify good project management practice, there will never be an overall theory of project management. Indeed, the very notion is mistaken.