Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage, Fifth Edition

Project Management Professionalism

1. LO 4.7 Understand the development of project management professionalism in the discipline.

At the beginning of 2003, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) kicked off an internal initiative to create a project management career path within its organization. The launch followed similar moves by a variety of organizations, including firms as diverse as Ernst & Young (consulting) and NASA. Bruce Carnes at the Department of Energy explained the reasoning for this move:

“Much of our work is accomplished through projects. In fact, our project managers are currently responsible for over 100 projects with a total value in excess of $20 billion, plus another $150 billion in environmental restoration work over the next ...