Section I: A Look at Background Research in the Field

Chapter 1: Forty Years of Project Management Research—Trends, Interpretations, and Predictions

Chapter 2: Research Trends in the 1990s—The Need now to Focus on the Business Benefit of Project Management

Chapter 3: Project Management Research—Experiences and Perspectives

Chapter 4: Proposition of a Systemic and Dynamic Model to Design Lifelong Learning Structure—The Quest of the Missing Link Between Men, Team, and Organizational Learning

Chapter 5: What the United States Defense Systems Management College has Learned from Ten Years of Project Leadership Research

Chapter 6: United States Defense Acquisition Research Program—A New Look

Chapter 7: Project Management for Intensive, Innovation-Based Strategies—New Challenges for the 21st Century

Introduction

Section one contains a set of papers whose theme is an attempt to position the current state of project management research. Each of the papers addresses some aspect of the overall nature of research, including lessons learned, future directions, and missing pieces.

• Timothy Kloppenborg and Warren Opfer (primary authors) present the results of their comprehensive analysis and literature review of the past forty years of project management research. Their perspective points to a number of important trends and predictions for future streams of research. Chapter 1—Forty Years of Project Management Research: Trends, Interpretations, and Predictions.

• Peter Morris uses the current state of the project management body of knowledge developed in the United Kingdom as a framework for examining the research in project management over the decade of the 1990s. He suggests a number of areas in which the literature is underdeveloped and in need of additional research and theory building. Chapter 2—Research Trends in the 1990s: The Need Now to Focus on the Business Benefit of Project Management.

• David Wilemon draws on his extensive experience in project management research and practice to point to some current important research topics, as well as future areas that will require additional work. He suggests that project management is subject to enormous external pressures that require future research to focus on the new stressors and demands project managers will face to be successful. Chapter 3—Project Management Research: Experiences and Perspectives.

• Christophe Bredillet focuses on the fact that current project management research represents a paradigm that is not well defined. Theory building, based on the synthesis of dynamic models of human behavior, is vital for developing the sorts of lifelong learning models that are the key to effective knowledge transfer and future theory building. Chapter 4—Proposition of a Systemic and Dynamic Model to Design Lifelong Learning Structure: The Quest of the Missing Link Between Men, Team, and Organizational Learning.

• Owen Gadeken brings his years of experience in project management with the United States Defense Systems Management College to address the key lessons he has learned from project leadership. He offers a number of key suggestions for developing and nurturing effective project leaders. Chapter 5—What the United States Defense Systems Management College Has Learned from Ten Years of Project Leadership Research.

• Mark Nissen, Keith Snider, and Ira Lewis address an important subset of the United States program management function: the area of defense acquisition research and practice. They point out that the current state of research in defense acquisition management is still in its infancy and in need of more formal theory development and empirical research. Chapter 6—United States Defense Acquisition Research Program: A New Look.

• Christophe Midler creates an important view for the future in project-based research. He identifies some of the key external environmental shifts and pressures on project-based organizations and the need for project practice to take these changes into consideration when managing project development. At the same time, he argues, these changes offer some important opportunities for project management research at the start of the 21^ST century. Chapter 7—Project Management for Intensive, Innovation-Based Strategies: New Challenges for the 21^ST Century.