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CHAPTER 1
Change Management, Project Management, and the Project Management Profession: 1969–2015
By Ginger Levin, DPA, PMP, PgMP, OPM3 Certified Professional
Abstract
Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, stated approximately 2,000 years ago, "Change is the only constant." Project professionals, from team members to chief project officers, know that change is expected on portfolios, programs, and projects, and these people are often well versed in how to manage change in terms of changes to cost, schedule, quality, or scope, using proven methods such as configuration management and integrated change control. In this chapter, however, the term change management is defined in a broader way, as "a comprehensive, cyclic, and structured approach for transitioning individuals, groups, and organizations from a current state to a future state with intended business benefits" (Project Management Institute, 2013b, p. 119). This definition supports the approach of organizational project management (OPM) in which work is guided by the organization's strategic goals and vision and, in turn, serves as the basis for portfolio, program, and project work, along with operational activities. This OPM approach then emphasizes the overall benefits that will be delivered to promote business value. This chapter discusses project management, change management, and the work of the project professional from 1969 to January 2015.
The Importance of 1969
The concepts of change management and project management are not new. But the year 1969 is significant because that is when the Project Management Institute (PMI) was established by a group of five individuals. PMI's purpose was "to provide a means for project managers to associate, share information, and discuss common problems" (quotations without associated references in this chapter can be found at PMI.org).
Although PMI was established in 1969, it began with discussions by E. A. "Ned" Engman and three others in 1967 about forming a "project management organization." Mr. Engman wrote to five other individuals, and they met in 1968 to establish the Project Management Institute. By 1969, PMI was officially formed and incorporated, and 47 people became members.
At that time, literature in the project management field centered on tools and techniques, building from the Gantt chart in 1919 and focusing on scheduling methods, work breakdown structure, and earned value. Other literature discussed the need for matrix management and the use of teams to do the work on projects.
In the 1960s, the Southern Railway recognized the value of portfolio management, and established a group to implement it. The portfolio group's focus was to recommend the products and services that the railroad should offer to its customers to put the company in the best position to achieve its goals with an emphasis on return on investment and increased market share. Although there was no official standard available for guidance, The Southern Railway took an OPM approach, which supported some of the tenets later found in PMI's Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide (PMI, 2014), with its emphasis on organizational strategies and priorities. Southern Railway disclosed little about this group to others, recognizing that a confidential approach could foster a competitive advantage.
Literature in organizational effectiveness began in the early 1900s, with Frederick W. Taylor's use of scientific management for greater quality control in 1911. Wanting to create a more efficient workplace, Taylor focused on the internal organization, as opposed to external variables. A leading founder of bureaucracy, Max Weber, contributed to this line of thinking with his work in 1946, writing about defined processes and procedures which lead to more stability in individual behavior. In 1957, Simon softened this approach to one with a focus on administrative control to best simplify complexity and decision making. Others such as Barnard (1938) stated that there were generic principles that could be applied to organizations, such as defining an organization's mission, purpose, and goals, and focusing on structuring, organizing, and designing the organization with established roles and lines of authority. Mayo (1945) noted that commitment and loyalty from the people within an organization were more important in determining the behavior of each person in the organization, and Likert (1961) focused on networks, with a linking pin concept to show how people fit into the organization's structure. The linking pin was a manager who would report back to the people who worked for him or her to inform them as to what was under way. This manager then learned about the organization's undertakings from his or her superiors and thus was the linking pin between the two groups, and people who were considered as linking pins existed throughout the organization.
Lewin (1947) was considered the first to focus specifically on change management. He prepared a change model of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. During the unfreezing phase, stakeholders are prepared for change so everyone can see why change is needed. During the changing phase, the goal is to motivate stakeholders to change so they can see the importance of the change in their work. During refreezing, people have accepted the change, new ways of working are in place, people are following those new ways, and the change is reinforced and ingrained in the work people are doing.
By the time PMI was established in 1969, other work was under way in the areas of portfolio management, organizational project management, change management, organizational structures, and the importance of interpersonal skills to help set the stage for success in the next decade.
The 1970s
Beginning in April 1970, PMI published the first issue of Project Management Quarterly (PMQ), which was continued until 1983, when it was renamed Project Management Journal® (PMJ). As literature in the field was in its infancy, the first PMQ was only 27 pages.
PMI also held its first conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1970, which stressed, among other things, "the need to involve top executives in project management. New channels of communication to top management should replace the unsuccessful methods of the past decade." This conference further noted the need for a standard definition of project management and forecasted that project management concepts would be used extensively by line managers. Additionally, the conference emphasized engaging executives to support "the coming age of project management." The March 1971 PMQ included a bibliography of 89 items as a small sampling of the literature on project management to that date. By December 1971, the PMQ had increased in length to 51 pages. Houston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles formed PMI chapters in 1974, and PMI began to hold its Professional Awards Program. By the end of the decade, PMI membership totaled more than 2,000 individuals worldwide.
One example of the project field at that time was a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) program known as the Freight Car Utilization Program. This was a consortium involving FRA, the Association of American Railroads, and the railroad industry, with the FRA providing US$43 million per year in funding. At the time, the once-dominant railroad industry in the United States was losing market share to the motor carrier and barge industries through a lack of emphasis on customer centricity. Recognizing that change was necessary, a consortium was established and led by the FRA to demonstrate that the railroad industry could begin a major initiative to cooperate at switching stations to decrease the time it took to change freight cars from one carrier to another, thereby decreasing delivery time of products to its customers. Rail industry representatives recognized that to remain competitive, they had to work collaboratively to provide benefits to customers, and several projects were part of this program as the change process ensued. This program tracked to research done by Baker and Wilemon (1977) on the management of complex programs. Barker and Wilemon noted, among other things, that project managers had to cope with numerous challenges, including organizational design and the relationship of projects to the organization, the client, and external groups.
Youker (1978) also published a paper to serve as a manager's guide to implementing change in organizations at the 1978 PMI® Seminars & Symposium, which discussed how best to implement change in organizations, described problems in implementing change so the change is not resisted, and explained how best to manage change to handle anticipated problems, drawing upon tools and concepts from behavioral sciences. Interest in the fields of change management and project management was converging, along with a focus on the impact on programs and projects to organizations and to customers.
As another example, the Policy Review Office of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was responsible for regulating the railroad and motor carrier industries. The office had four people, including a manager, and the team reported to the chairman of the ICC. This team also performed the rudimentary functions of a project management office (PMO), because it reviewed possible regulatory changes and other internal changes and made recommendations before they were forwarded to the commissioners for approval. The airline industry had already undergone deregulation with Congress's Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, and railroad and motor carrier regulations were next in line for possible deregulation, meaning there would be numerous changes in how work was done at the time and how it would be done in the future.
The decade ended with the publication of many papers and books in the field, including the first edition of Dr. Harold Kerzner's (1979) Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling.
The 1980s
During the 1980s, PMI's membership, programs, and services continued to grow. In 1981, PMI published Implementation of Project Management: The Professional's Handbook, edited by Linn C. Stuckenbruck. The purpose of this book, a two-year undertaking by the PMI Southern California Chapter, was to further PMI's objectives, serving as a guide for project managers who were considering implementing project management in their organizations. Noting that the need to start a project correctly by establishing a roadmap was a stated goal to best ensure project success, Stuckenbruck (1981) wrote, "the most important of these actions is ensuring the organization is ready for project management" with executive commitment and follow-up by project managers with positive and continuous support (p. 11). Other chapters focused on the complexity of projects requiring multidisciplinary efforts, which project management could provide, focusing on its benefits; the necessity of an implementation plan for project management; desired actions by the project manager; best ways to organize to support project management; determining project strategy; and management involvement and values, along with an emphasis on which tools and techniques to use.
In 1982, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) formed a new PMO that reported to the FAA administrator. This PMO's role was to introduce project management to the silo-driven FAA as it began a major upgrade of the nation's airspace system. One team member in the five-person PMO lacked aviation expertise, but was offered the position because of her understanding of matrix management and experience with projects and programs. Stuckenbruck's (1981) book became extremely useful to this organization, along with other resources, and later, when a consulting company won a competitive contract to develop and conduct project management training at the New York City Transit Authority in the late 1980s, the client wanted a book by PMI to be given to each participant; Stuckenbruck's book met the criterion.
In 1981, PMI's Board of Directors established a project to develop procedures and concepts in three key areas: ethics, standards, and accreditation. The team involved was then known as the Ethics, Standards, and Accreditation Group. It had ten members assisted by 25 volunteers. Its results were published in the PMQ special summer issue in August 1983. It included a set of topic areas for the first body of knowledge in project management: human resources, scope, time, cost, quality, and communications management, providing the cornerstone for PMI's professional program. A code of ethics was also adopted and set forth in the same issue of PMQ. Western Carolina University was the first university accredited by PMI because it was the first to offer a master's degree in project management. Other universities around the world offered project management courses in master's degree programs or a concentration area within a master's degree in business administration.
With this "initial" project management guide in the 1983 issue of PMQ, work also was under way for a certification program in project management. The process for attaining the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification was announced in March 1984, and in October 1984, 43 people attained their PMP certification.
During the 1980s, PMI also began to publish a series of monographs or short handbooks. One related to this chapter was An Organization Development Approach to Project Management (Adams, Bilbro, & Stockert, 1986). It set forth a change management strategy to implement project management so people accept it, focused on key leadership competencies to do so, and identified ways to both maintain and nurture a project management organization, with people recognizing the change process as being implemented through projects until project management became pervasive. This monograph bridged the gap between an organizational development approach and project management because project management, at that time, was primarily instituted in silo-driven, bureaucratic organizations. Numerous other project management, change management, and organizational development books were also published around this time, along with journal articles in PMJ. Other universities began to offer graduate-level courses in project management, including concentration areas and master's degrees in project management. Numerous project management training and consulting firms were also established.
In August 1986, a special issue of PMJ presented a detailed report on the Project Management Body of Knowledge under the direction of R. Max Wideman. There were more than 50 individuals identified as contributors to this effort, and many more participated in the numerous discussions that were an integral part of the process. The PMI Board of Directors accepted this standard on 1 September 1987. The first edition added risk management and contract/procurement management as Knowledge Areas to the work done in 1983. As noted by Wideman in the Foreword to the 1987 standard, formal recognition of project management was seen in a variety of industries and government agencies, but because project management meant different things to different people, including what was involved in it, the concepts in this standard can assist in improving how resources are used through this documented body of knowledge. Wideman further noted, "The essential feature of those projects, indeed of any project, is to bring about change" (PMI, 1987, p. 11). He explained that project management involves managing change, whereas general management is concerned with managing the status quo, and technical management focuses on managing technology.
In change management in 1986, Levy and Mary classified changes into two kinds: first order and second order. A first-order change was one characterized by "minor improvements and adjustments that do not change the system's core and occur as the system naturally grows and develops" (p. 5). Examples included changes in processes, organization structure technology, communication systems, recognition and rewards, and the decision-making process. On the other hand, a second-order change was one considered a multidimensional, radical change or a discontinuous, deep structural change that led to a new identity for the organization. These changes took at least a year to implement, because they were complex and dynamic, and were often met by resistance. There was a need to learn from experience with such changes because there was little to no experience in working with them.
Bartunek and Moch (1987) extended these concepts to identify a third-order change in which organizations change as events require. In a thirdorder change, the commitment is to the unexpected, boundaries are not set, negative impacts are to be avoided, and there is a commitment to continuous improvement, process improvement, and embracing change.
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Excerpted from "How Successful Organizations Implement Change"
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