Modern business is said to be in a "project age." This "age" involves
the creation, management and
delivery of projects. Business projects, product projects, service projects, government projects.
Project Management is the management of projects. The precise definition of a project
and the
management processes is difficult without first establishing a context and a business domain.
As well the "normative" approaches are being challenged by heuristic and
participative approaches.
These challenges bring new and important ideas to the domain of project management. This also
brings out diversions to the established definitions and practices, through attempts to be innovative
or replace the thread bare processes that have failed us in the past. In some cases the challengers
have not "done their homework" or desire to "skip to the end" with new and innovative
approaches
without first having verified that they are appropriate to the domain and context or that they actually
work in real worlds situations.
An Integrative Approach
I have spent several years now in the aerospace and government program management
domain. A
fundamentally critical concept I've come to understand is that systems engineering provides a
unique and powerful tool for integrating many of the issues found in traditional project management
methods. Systems Engineering does not replace any of the normative project management
process. But it integrates the heuristic and participative processes as well as blend product with
process management.
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING PRODUCES BOTH THE PRODUCT AND
THE PROCESS FOR
PRODUCING THE PRODUCT
With this understanding in mind, Project Management as a Systems Engineering process
takes on
new meaning. This meanings removes the distinction between process and product found in the
"traditional" (PMI) approaches to project management. In these (traditional) approaches the
processes of project management are separated from the delivery of products. These processes
are discussed, project managers trained and methods applied independent to the actual work of
producing products or services inside a business. But the joining a process and product is not
described in these traditional approaches - at least not in the way Systems Engineering does.
This web site is the beginnings of a larger more focused work. Maybe a book, but certainly
a set of
essays and papers. The goals include:
- Bringing the Systems Engineering
processes found in aerospace to a broader audience.
- Exposing the traditional project
management advocates to the Systems Engineering view.
- Connecting Systems Engineering process
with the Agile Project Management processes. This
connection is a natural one., since the Agile Project Management process combine product
and process.
