Criteria for Establishing a First PrincipleTo identify a set of First Principles of Project Management we must set criteria for their acceptance or exclusion. To this end, the following criteria have been identified. A First Principle of Project Management must:
- Express a general or fundamental truth, a basic concept applicable to most projects most of the time.
- Make for a high probability of project success as defined above. The corollary is that the absence of the condition will render project success on a majority of the key criteria as being highly improbable.
- Provide the basis for establishing logical processes and supporting practices that can be proven through research, analysis and practical testing.
In addition and ideally, a First Principle should:
- Be universal to all areas of project management application.
- Be capable of straightforward expression in one or two sentences.
- Be self-evident to experienced project management personnel, and
- Carry a concise label reflecting its content.
Coming Next
In PART
2 of this paper we will present eight First Principles of
Project Management together with explanations and discussions
on some of the issues that surround this topic.
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Project Management Success
