Abstract
Hwaseong Fortress was constructed during the years 1794 to 1796 at Suwon, Korea. In 1997, UNESCO officially listed it as a world cultural heritage and in 2007, referenced the documentary report of this project, called Hwaseong Seongyok Uigwe, as a "Memory of the World". This remarkable document contained the project plan, the methodology of fortification and their associated elaborate drawings and figures. The report contains mundane but crucial information pertaining to the inner workings of the project.
Information such as expenditures relating to budget, time, material and employment give insight into project management practices used before the establishment of modern project management. Further enhancing this report is records of project communication detailing instructions and meetings between stakeholders. These include the project sponsor King Jeongjo and formal letters between the project office and other government offices.
Could this report, written over 200 years ago, provide insights that might improve our modern project management practices? Perhaps. So, the goal of this case study research is to compare project management practices used to create the Hwaseong Fortress with modern project management guides and standards that are considered to be the modern project management benchmarks. By comparing the past with the present, can we even project that into the future for our future advancement?
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Editor's Note
