on some early developments in
project management in Australia
PERSONAL STORY
By Alan Stretton, PhD (Hon)
Auckland, New Zealand
PREFACE
As far as I am aware, no-one has attempted to put together a comprehensive coverage of early developments in project management (PM) in Australia. After so many years, this would be a Herculean task, particularly since the majority of the key players in these developments are no longer with us.
By an accident of history, I was one of the players substantially involved (directly and indirectly) in some of these early developments in Australia – in my case, primarily with Civil & Civic. Although my recollections/reflections cover only a small part of the totality of Australian developments, it has been suggested by a couple of my colleagues that I should record them for the benefit of potential researchers in this domain.
These recollections/reflections will be discussed under the following broad headings.
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- Progression to project management in Civil & Civic from the 1950s
- Introduction and deployment of network planning techniques in Civil & Civic from 1962
- The formation of the Project Managers Forum in Australia in 1976
PROGRESSION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN CIVIL & CIVIC FROM THE 1950s
Introduction
To the best of my knowledge, Civil & Civic Pty. Limited (C&C) was the first company in the Australian building and construction industry to develop and implement project management approaches. These pioneering initiatives have been discussed as parts of broader company initiatives in Murphy 1984 and Clark 2002 but have not been specifically consolidated as a record in the project management context. This short consolidation will discuss the progression of background initiatives which eventually developed into Civil & Civic’s Project Management Services. In brief, this progression moved from the introduction of professional engineers as construction “site managers”, and of “project engineers” for management of design; to the introduction of integrated design-and-construct services with joint governance arrangements with clients via Project Control Groups (PCGs); then to “Project Management Services” (PMS); and then further extensions into “front ends”, helping customers first establish/confirm their business needs via Client Needs Determination (CND) services, before specifying requirements of projects to best help satisfy these needs.
We now look at the steps in this progression in more detail
Deployment of professional engineers as construction “site managers”
Civil & Civic (C&C) was formed as a construction company in 1951. At that time there was not a single professional engineer in the general construction portion of the Australian building industry. The people in control of building firms had generally come up through the ranks from carpenters to leading hands and foremen and then branched out on their own. There was little if any concept of professional management on building construction projects. Initially, Civil & Civic engaged professional engineers to concentrate on the management of construction operations, to improve performance on site. They were effectively construction project managers, but were called “site managers” in C&C…
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How to cite this work: Stretton, A. (2025). Recollections and reflections on some early developments in project management in Australia, personal story. PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue XI, November. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/pmwj158-Nov2025-Stretton-Recollections-reflections-on-early-PM-in-Australia.pdf
About the Author
Alan Stretton, PhD
Life Fellow, AIPM (Australia)
Auckland, New Zealand
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
To see more works by Alan Stretton, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at http://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/alan-stretton/.
