The AMA Handbook of Project Management, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 34Building Organizational Project Management Capability: Learning from Engineering and Construction

CHRISTOPHER SAUER, TEMPLETON COLLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY

The construction industry is widely accepted to have the most mature project management processes. IT project managers envy the accuracy with which their construction colleagues can estimate and predict progress on a building. They borrow their tools and techniques but struggle to emulate their results. They fall back on the conviction that “it’s different in IT.” Thus, they resign themselves to continuing levels of underperformance.

This is a strange response when even IT project managers would agree that there is a core of project management knowledge that is common to all projects—who ...