Why blog about Selling Project Management?

The purpose of this blog is to discuss some of the key issues surrounding marketplace needs for Project Management services. One objective is to synthesize relevant themes about the Project Management market and trends in the existing body of academic work with trade literature, case history, and other sources of quantitative and descriptive data in a way that promotes discovery of best practices in order to create testable hypotheses that can be used to develop a go-to-market approach for a Project Management business.

Currently practiced in 161 countries, Project Management is a growing field. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the de-facto industry standards organization, at the end of January 2007 there were 212,622 certified Project Management Professionals around the world. Approximately 59% in North America. The number of certified Project Managers increased by 8.7% between January 2006 and January 2007 (PMI 2007).

“PMI professionals come from virtually every major industry including, aerospace, automotive, business management, construction, engineering, financial services, information technology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and telecommunications." (PMI 2007).


Despite the widespread growth of the profession, it has only relatively recently begun to attain occupational status in many industries. As a consequence, until the late 1990’s there has been little academic interest in the subject. In fact, the US Department of Labor does not yet classify Project Management as an occupation. (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2007). Since then, with few notable exceptions ( Thomas et al. 2000, 2002), there have been few studies that describe how and why consumers of these services purchase them.

Furthermore, partially as a result of the phenomenon of Globalization, the US Economy is expected to continue evolving from a goods-producing to a service economy through at least the next decade. (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2007). Core project management competencies[1] will play a greater role in business as the workforce continues to transform.



REFERENCES

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005). Tomorrow's Jobs. US Department of Labor. December 20, 2005. Retrieved June 22, 2007 from http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco2003.htm

PMI (2007). Introduction to the Project Management Institute Overview. Retrieved July 7, 2007 from http://www.pmi.org/info/AP_IntroOverview.asp

Thomas, J., Delisle, C., Jugdev, K., et.al.(2000). Selling Project Management to Senior Executives: What's the Hook? Paper presented at Project Management Institute Research Conference, June 2000: Paris, France.

Thomas, J., Delisle, C.L., & Jugdev, K. (2002). Selling Project Management to Senior Executives: Framing the Moves that Matter. Newtown: Project Management Institute.


[1] Such as the ability to balance time, cost, and quality while managing sets of related tasks over finite duration.