Commentary on contested views of the scope of the project management (PM) discipline

in relation to PM involvement in earlier stages

of organisational strategic management

FEATURED PAPER

By Alan Stretton, PhD (Hon)

Sydney, Australia

INTRODUCTION

This commentary discusses two different perspectives in the project management (PM) literature on the scope of the project management discipline. These differences are essentially concerned with whether or not extensions of project-related services into early organisational strategic management stages should be regarded as part of the PM discipline. Such services are provided by many project-based Supplier Organisations (SOs), which have been previously described (e.g. in Stretton 2024i) as follows.

Project-based Supplier Organisations (SOs) derive most (if not all) of their revenue and/or other benefits from creating and delivering projects/programs to external customers.

We first present a basic organisational strategic management framework which has been used in many previous articles in this journal. We then show how a range of four project-related Supplier Organisation services, again from previous articles, relates to the first four stages of this framework.

These four supplier services fall into two groups. The first group of two is very specifically in traditional project management territory. However, the second group, which covers extended project-related services by Supplier Organisations into early organisational strategic management stages, is not in traditional PM territory.

Now, some sections of the literature contend that such extended services should not be regarded as being part of the project management discipline. However, others contend that they should be so regarded. This article will give examples of, and comment on, some of the arguments supporting each of these contentions.

We start with the above-mentioned basic organisational strategic management framework, and show how a range of four project-related organisation supplier services relates to the first four stages of this framework.

A BASIC ORG. STRATEGIC MGT. MODEL, AND PROJECT-RELATED SERVICES

The basic strategic mgt. model, and corresponding project-related supplier services

Figure 1 below shows the five stages of a basic (client) organisational strategic management model, most recently used in Stretton 2024g. Figure 1 also shows a range of project-related Supplier Organisation (SO) services, each of which is directly related to various stages of the strategic management framework model. These are based on several previous articles in this journal – e.g. Stretton 2022a.

Figure 1. A client organisation basic strategic management framework/model, and corresponding types of project-related Supplier Organisation services

The project-related supplier services fall into two groups

We can divide the project-related supplier services to Stages 1 to 4 into two groups.

The first group comprises the two components which relate to Stages 3 and 4, namely

• Project execution/delivery, and
• Project development + execution/delivery

Rather obviously, the two components of this group are firmly in traditional project management territory.

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How to cite this work: Stretton, A. (2024).  Commentary on contested views of the scope of the project management (PM) discipline in relation to PM involvement in earlier stages of organisational strategic management, PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue X, October/November. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/pmwj146-OctNov2024-Stretton-Commentary-on-contested-views-of-PM-front-end-involvement-1.pdf

About the Author

Alan Stretton, PhD     

Life Fellow, AIPM (Australia)
Sydney, Australia

Alan Stretton is one of the pioneers of modern project management.  In 2006 he retired from a position as Adjunct Professor of Project Management in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), Australia, which he joined in 1988 to develop and deliver a Master of Project Management program.   Prior to joining UTS, Mr. Stretton worked in the building and construction industries in Australia, New Zealand and the USA for some 38 years, which included the project management of construction, R&D, introduction of information and control systems, internal management education programs and organizational change projects.  Alan has degrees in Civil Engineering (BE, Tasmania) and Mathematics (MA, Oxford), and an honorary PhD in strategy, programme and project management (ESC, Lille, France).  Alan was Chairman of the Standards (PMBOK) Committee of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) from late 1989 to early 1992.  He held a similar position with the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), and was elected a Life Fellow of AIPM in 1996.  He was a member of the Core Working Group in the development of the Australian National Competency Standards for Project Management.  He has published 270+ professional articles and papers.  Alan can be contacted at alanailene@bigpond.com.au.

To see more works by Alan Stretton, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at http://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/alan-stretton/.