Nine Schools of Project Management (Bredillet, 2007-2008)

 9 Schools of Project Management

In his series of editorials for the Journal of Project Management Bredillet outlines 9 different schools of project management thinking and when they were created. He also identifies research questions for each of them.

  1. Optimisation School (1950)
    Earned Value Management
  2. Modelling School (1960)
    Integrating hard-soft systems
  3. Governance School (1970)
    PMOs, portfolio management, project selection, regulatory compliance
  4. Behaviour School (1975)
    Virtual teams, HR management in project-oriented companies
  5. Success School (1985)
    Refinement of success criteria, stakeholder satisfaction, causes of failure
  6. Decision School (1990)
    Anchoring estimates, organisation strategy & impact on portfolio, portfolio management decisions
  7. Process School (1980)
    Project categorisation, refinement of processes, project audits & reviews, maturity models
  8. Contingency School (1995)
    Clarify differences in approaches, methods of adaptation, link to success criteria
  9. Marketing School (2000)
    Strategy/tactics for business success, linking projects and strategy, align senior level thinking to projects, CRM and PR on projects

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