Special Issue on rethinking project management (EPSRC network 2004-2006)

摘要

Rethinking Project Management is timely. There is immense interest in the subject and some real challenges for both academics and practitioners which current approaches appear ill-equipped to deal with. The opportunity for rethinking removes the possibility that (to paraphrase Bertrand Russell) we, "go through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of this age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in our minds without the co-operation or consent of deliberate reason. [Without rethinking] the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected". It is clear that until recently, the ubiquity of projects has resulted in their being treated as something definite and obvious, with solutions to challenges and complexities justified as self-evident. It is a clear duty of academics in any field to challenge such 'common objects' to 'rouse the necessary questions' and consider 'unfamiliar possibilities'.