Section Four: Introduction

ISSUES AND IDEAS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Project management practice is dynamic; it responds to changes in the environment—technological, cultural, and sociological changes. In this section, authors highlight areas in project management where new trends and problems are creating new ideas and solutions.

The issues are broad and multifaceted, and the topics covered illustrate specific approaches to dealing with project management, ranging from political and cultural issues to alternative methodologies that can be applied together with project management principles.

Power and politics are always an overriding issue. Rather than simply complain about them, Randall L. Englund offers a proactive way to plan for and succeed at organizational politics.

Critical Chain and Six Sigma methodologies are proven approaches that, in certain contexts, can be applied jointly with project management. These methodologies, relatively new to the practice of project management, are described by Frank Patrick and by Rip Stauffer.

Communities of practice are a way of organizing project personnel to improve knowledge management and transfer, as well as to provide the satisfaction of social learning and rewarding professional relationships; DeLisle and Rowe are well versed in both the human and technical aspects of CoPs.

Dinsmore and Codas provide an overview of the challenges project managers face when working with the increasingly common multicultural and/or international project team.

Finally, a new chapter by Alan Levine, CIO of the Kennedy Center, explores the ways in which new communications technologies, such as blogs, Twitter, wikis, social networking and the like have the potential to boost the speed and collaborative spirit of project management.