in projects and making
progress with a program
FEATURED PAPER
By Thomas Walenta
Hackenheim, Germany
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores wisdom as a practical set of competencies that support mental health, resilience, leadership, and effective behavior in life, projects, and programs. Building on psychological research by Kai Baumann and Michael Linden on wisdom competencies and wisdom therapy, the paper connects concepts from psychology, philosophy, emotional intelligence, leadership, and project and program management to explain how wisdom can help individuals survive and thrive in complex and uncertain environments.
Design / Methodology / Approach
The paper is a conceptual and reflective synthesis combining insights from psychology, philosophy, leadership theory, and practical experience in projects and organizational transformation. The discussion is structured around 10 wisdom competencies identified by Baumann and Linden. The author complements these concepts with examples from leadership practice, project and program management, cultural observations, and philosophical traditions.
Findings
The paper argues that wisdom is not merely accumulated knowledge or age-related experience, but a combination of emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and ethical competencies that can be consciously developed. The ten competencies contribute to resilience, adaptability, better decision-making, healthier relationships, and more effective leadership. The paper further suggests that these competencies become increasingly important in modern project and program environments characterized by uncertainty, complexity, cultural diversity, stakeholder conflict, and continuous change.
Practical Implications
The paper provides readers with a practical framework for self-reflection and personal development. It encourages individuals to assess their own wisdom competencies, seek external feedback, and deliberately strengthen areas such as emotional regulation, empathy, humility, and tolerance for ambiguity. The competencies are presented as particularly relevant for leaders managing complex projects, programs, and organizational transformations.
Originality / Value
The paper uniquely combines psychological wisdom therapy with perspectives on leadership and project/program management. It presents wisdom as a trainable, applicable competency model that links mental well-being, resilience, ethical leadership, and practical problem-solving across both personal and professional life.
- Introduction
This paper refocuses a 2023 paper, ‘How wisdom helps to live a good life4’ (Walenta, 2023), on project management. The question is how the ten competencies of wisdom apply to project management and program management, and can be used to make projects more successful, and programs deliver more benefits.
Research published in German by psychologists from the renowned Berlin Charite Hospital addresses how to treat mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder, and suicidal thoughts (Baumann & Linden, 2009). In their work, they identify a set of ten competencies related to the goals of standard psychological therapies, which they collectively call wisdom. Wisdom helps you stay mentally healthy and live a good life.
These ten competencies are not new to the development of human maturity or leadership, and in their book, they are grouped under the label of wisdom. However, a lack of any one of them can lead to mental weakness, illness, suffering, and problems in life or in projects. The ability to survive, or even thrive, when we experience disruptions to our projects and programs is sometimes called resilience (survive) or anti-fragility (strive, a term coined by Nassim Nicolas Taleb).
More…
To read entire paper, click here
How to cite this paper: Walenta, T. (2026). How wisdom helps with success in projects and making progress with a program, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue VI, June Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/pmwj165-Jun2026-Walenta-Wisdom-in-Projects-and-Programs.pdf
About the Author
Dr. Thomas Walenta
Hackenheim, Germany
Dr. Thomas Walenta, DBA, PMP, PgMP, PMI Fellow, worked as a Project and Program Manager at IBM from 1983 to 2014. Most recently, he was responsible for a program encompassing all of IBM’s business with a global client in the EMEA region, with teams in India, Japan, and across Europe. Thomas built his first PMO in 1995 and started his first program in 2002. He led the PMI Frankfurt Chapter from 1998 to 2005, increasing membership from 111 to 750 and the annual budget to 100K Euro. He teaches PM at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt and has been a project management consultant since 2014.
Thomas he held a variety of volunteer positions for PMI, including serving as the final juror for the PMI Project of the Year award, a member of the PMI Board nomination committee, an auditor for PMI‘s Registered Education Provider Program, a writer/reviewer of PMP Exam questions, and a significant contributor to PMI‘s first standards on Program Management and Portfolio Management. Thomas served on PMI’s Ethics Review Committee from 2011 to 2016. He received PMI’s Fellow Award in 2012.Thomas has been a member of GPM/IPMA since 1996.
He was elected by PMI membership to serve on the PMI Board of Directors from 2006 to 2011 and for a second term from 2017 to 2019. As a speaker at global project management events in Tokyo, Moscow, São Paulo, Little Rock, and across Europe, Thomas significantly expanded his professional network and is regarded as an experienced and skilled advisor and mentor. He has been an honorary global advisor for the PM World Journal since 2019. Thomas is based in Hackenheim, near Frankfurt, Germany and can be contacted at thwalenta@online.de or www.linkedin.com/in/thwalenta/
