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This chapter takes a look at the future of project management. It starts with a historic view of the development of project management in the last five decades including the present. It shows that the role of the project manager has changed from an engineer manager to a business developer and a leader capable of dealing with multi-perspectives.

Projects are positioned in the context of changing organizational forms, including silo and network organizations. This leads to the conclusion that projects will play a key role in the future, especially in change management, business modeling, and value creation.

A section will discuss increased emphasis on learning and knowledge sharing, suggesting focus on the reflective and experimenting project manager, and planning as a social process.

A section will look at project management as a profession and point to the risk that the profession may become too narrow focusing on a well-defined body of knowledge. Current trends suggest that a broader view of projects be adopted including its strategic role and interplay with stakeholders, as has been discussed at length in this book.

We conclude the chapter by proposing a shift of paradigm.

The project manager plays a key role in projects. This chapter first presents five dimensions and aspects of the project management task: (1) manage the project task – developing and implement solutions, (2) manage outwards – cooperating with stakeholders, customers, suppliers, etc., (3) manage inwards – leading the project teams, (4) manage resources – allocating competencies, work force, and facilities, and (5) manage activities – planning and controlling the process, quality, activity, time, resources, economy, and documentation.

Then we will discuss personal leadership and project management competencies. The difference between leadership and administration will be dealt with.

A final section will discuss that top management also leads the project.

Forming a project organization is, in our opinion, the most essential characteristic of the project-working mode. A project task calls for contribution from several parties, e.g., user representatives with knowledge of the application situation, specialists with professional knowledge and experience, and management that can provide the overall support and position the project strategically. Cooperation across professional areas and organizational units is required.

A project organization should be designed in view of the project task. In this chapter, we present and discuss a basic pattern of a project organization consisting of three generic parts: a decision, a management, and a working part. The specific appointments to these parts will depend on questions and issues related to four aspects: professional contribution, management contribution, anchoring of the project results, and influence (where should stakeholders’ influence and involvement be dealt with).

The chapter discusses adjustment of the project organization as the project comes along. We also discuss organizational issues when there are several independent partners, e.g., joint ventures and partnering.

The chapter explores project management in action in a large public research organisation – NLAT – which decided to change its internal organisation from team- to project-based organisation a few years ago. Because they focus on the realisation of a particular set of tasks for a specific client, project management practices are oriented towards optimising the process of providing clients with answers and solutions. Based on a systematic and comparative analysis of eight NLAT projects, the chapter reports technological success as project achievements, but at the same time the systematic violation of project management principles. Three elements have been identified as enhancing learning, cumulated knowledge and competencies: low project core staffing levels, which lead to the circulation of engineers and researchers around different projects; the building and managing of thematic projects and the encouragement of ‘bricolage’ as a project management style.

This chapter describes a student team project that involves the creation and delivery of a fundraising event business plan for a nonprofit organization. The project challenges students to become active learners and apply managerial accounting concepts associated with cost behavior, planning, and control in a realistic environment that sensitizes them to the missions of nonprofit organizations. It requires students to research and use real-world operational and financial information in a setting to which they can relate, and develops their understanding of how various business disciplines are integrated. We have used the project in introductory managerial and intermediate cost accounting courses to target specific core competencies identified as critical to a successful accounting career by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

The wide spread application of projects to many areas of society has led us to identify five generic elements that every project will have to address. They are: project management, project task, stakeholders, resources, and project environment. Each element will be further divided into five sub-elements. This five-by-five model will be used to identify the nature of a specific project and to develop appropriate approaches and means. It will also allow a circular planning process that gradually will lead to coherence among the five elements.

To illustrate the broad spectrum of projects that we see in practice, we have identified five types that will be characterized by the five-by-five model.

In view of the complex nature of most projects, the chapter will introduce four complementary perspectives: a technical, a business, an organizational, and a stakeholder perspective. Each perspective will describe key features of a project and is supported by theories, models, and methods. Although the perspectives are complementary, they are strongly interdependent.

The chapter will give an overview of the book.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce library and information science professionals to the idea of combining the tools and techniques of project management and change management to support the success of their projects. Combining these two methodologies can assist professionals not only in carrying out their projects efficiently, helping them to meet project objectives, but can also increase the likelihood that their project objectives will be accepted by their organizations.

This chapter provides an overview of project management and change management methodologies with numerous examples from academic and practitioner literature and supplements them with concrete, specific examples of how these tools and techniques were implemented in an information management project.

This chapter contributes to the development of change management and project management competencies for librarians by providing explanations of project management and change management which include advice and evidence from the literature combined with examples of how these techniques and processes were applied in a library and information management project. This chapter should therefore serve as an educational tool for library and information management practitioners seeking either to develop their project management and change management skills or to apply these techniques to their own projects.

Articles which combine project management and change management methodologies are rare. This chapter takes these concepts and applies them in a library and information management setting in a way that should be practical and approachable to library and information science practitioners.

There has been a growing interest in the field of strategic management to understand the relationship between the organizational capabilities of firms and (a) the direction of strategies pursued and (b) the impact on competitive performance. Much of this literature has been influenced by the resource-based view of the firm. As indicated in early formulations of this theory, one implication is that the organization of resources is equally important as the resources themselves. Accordingly, the organizational and integration of resources and knowledge can be viewed as a core facet of the organizational capabilities of firms that are difficult to imitate for competitors. This paper explores a particular kind of organization referred to as the “P-form corporation” (Project-Form), its organizational capabilities and options for strategic alternatives. The chapter addresses three broad questions: (1) What are the main characteristics of P-form corporations? (2) What are the capabilities acquired and developed by P-form corporations and how are these acquired? (3) How do these capabilities vary across different strategic alternatives in the P-form corporation? The chapter concludes with a discussion about the implications for strategy and management.