Professionalization of Project Management

CHAPTER 8

Insights and Future Direction⁴¹

This research study set out to explore the theories and development of traditional and emerging professions, in order to derive insights to help provide guidance for future directions in moving project management toward a profession. We started out by reviewing the literature and setting out the key characteristics of, and processes involved in, developing traditional professions. The first section of this concluding chapter evaluates project management's progress toward attaining traditional profession status as defined in the literature. We then reviewed the progress of a set of comparable knowledge occupations (nursing, social work, and teaching) in attaining professional status over the last several ...