The Essence of Core Concepts of Project Management
To identify a set of project management postulates, we must set criteria for their inclusion or exclusion. The following criteria are proposed.
A Core Concept of project management must:
- Express a general and apparent fundamental truth, an idea that is applicable to most projects most of the time.
- Make for a high probability of project/product success in terms of acceptability of the product or outcome. The corollary is that the absence of the condition will render project success as 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 Core Concept 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.
If these criteria are not met, then the postulate should not be included in the list of Core Concepts.
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Terms and Definitions Relating to Project Management in This Paper
