People in Projects

Foreword

Jeffrey K. Pinto, Ph.D., Samuel A. and Elizabeth B. Breene Fellow and Professor of Management, Penn State-Erie

One of the most common snares people fall into when beginning to engage in project-based work is to assume that because there are well-defined tools and techniques already extant (PERT/CPM, earned value, duration estimation, and so on), project management is somehow more “objective” than other innovative practices or management disciplines. That is, the easy lure lies in assuming that project management has somehow solved its “people” problems and progressed to the point when all activities become technique driven. For those with even minimal project management experience, we know that nothing could be further from the truth. ...