Research Into Revising The Apm Project Management Body Of Knowledge

International Journal of Project Management 18 (2000) 155±164

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Research into revising the APM project management body of knowledge P.W.G. Morris, M.B. Patel, S.H. Wearne* Centre for Research in the Management of Projects (CRMP), University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 88, Manchester, M60 1QD, UK Received 17 June 1999; received in revised form 22 September 1999; accepted 7 October 1999

Abstract This paper describes research to review the UK Association for Project Management's current Project Management Body of Knowledge. The research was commissioned by the APM and six leading companies. The paper describes how and why this work was carried out and sets out the new Body of Knowledge proposed as a basis for certifying competencies and benchmarking best practice and performance. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Body of knowledge; Profession; Certi®cation

1. Introduction The APM Body of Knowledge (BoK) is the document that the second largest professional project management body in the world, APM1 Ð currently with over 8,000 members Ð uses as the normative document governing its examination, certi®cation and accreditation practices. The BoK de®nes the topics in which APM considers professionals in project management should be knowledgeable. It was initially developed in the early 90s. This initial version was compiled by APM members

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44161-200-4615; fax: +44161-2004615. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.H. Wearne). 1 PMI (the Project Management Institute) has over 40,000 members. IPMA (the International Project Management Association) is a federation of national project management associations: it has approximately 35 members who combined represent the interests of about 14,000 or more individual members. 2 PMI has registered the acronym PMIBoK2 as the term for its BoK. PMI also, quite wisely, titles its PMIBoK2 a Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge recognising that no single document can cover the whole project management body of knowledge.

on the basis of their professional judgement rather than on empirical evidence as to what project management professionals need to know in order to be competent. Like other BoKs Ð principally PMI's Ð it is seen as being in need of updating. The research reported here was undertaken in support of APM's programme of work updating its BoK. It represents a sustained programme of activity aimed at discovering what topics project management professionals need to be knowledgeable in and it o€ers a visual model for representing this `Body of Knowledge'. The results of the research are now being adopted by APM as the basis for the next version of its BoK. The work also provides a basis for baselining competencies in project management and for benchmarking project management Best Practice and performance. Why is a Body of Knowledge important? Essentially, the project management Body of Knowledge identi®es and de®nes the elements of project management in which competent project management professionals should be knowledgeable.2 This is extremely important because, in e€ect, the Body of Knowledge should re¯ect the purpose of project management. It describes the levers that any

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professional could, or should, employ in order to ful®l this purpose. The Body of Knowledge thus re¯ects the ontology of the profession: the set of words, relationships and meanings that describe the philosophy of project management. A professional Ð as Schon and others have pointed out Ð is someone who is considered by society and his professional body as being competent to practice alone [1]. To do so, he (or she) needs to: . understand the necessary relevant body of knowledge . have the appropriate experience . be appropriately certi®cated/licensed to practice competently . maintain a programme of continuing professional development and education . subscribe to the code of ethics of the profession The Body of Knowledge in this sense of professional competence is thus crucial. Yet, amazingly, the professional project management societies currently have quite di€erent versions of the BoK. PMI's covers generic project management processes and practices. It does not address the technical, commercial or environmental a contextual issues that, as we shall see shortly, are so often crucial in determining whether a project will be a success or not. APM's BoK on the other hand does address these broader topics. The BoKs of France, Germany and Switzerland substantially re¯ect the APM model [2]. AIPM, the Australian Institute of Project Management, uses PMI's but as a basis of competencies rather as knowledge. APM, like other IPMA members, introduces competency assessment via an examination and certi®cation programme. The IPMA provides an international baseline for certifying competency and benchmarking best practice and performance in project management, covering levels of competence and considering knowledge, experience and personal attitude [3]. It sets out a BoK of 28 core and 14 additional elements based upon the BoKs of France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK (PMI is not a member of IPMA). The need to focus on what is the proper content of a project management Body of Knowledge is thus crucial. For if the professional project management societies cannot agree the elements of a project management BoK, how credible is the idea of professionalism in project management? The notion that there is such a thing as a professional in project management is itself a topic 3 A comment made both on the basis of personal experience and the research reported here.

worthy of debate. In the end, however, most people working in the subject do believe that there is a generic discipline that is core to the practice of project management across a very wide range of industries and applications, and that as a result it is worth trying to de®ne what this core is. Consequently, it is held, performance ought to be improved. De®ning what that core is obviously requires a view on what the task of project management ought to be, and hence what activities it should involve itself in. Again, this is a (very) big topic, but it is fundamental to where one starts. The di€erence between the APM and PMI models in essence boils down to whether the project management core is essentially about process, or performance. Traditionally, project management has been seen largely about completing tasks ``on time, in budget, to scope'' [4]. This is understandable and re¯ects the task and implementation orientation of project management. It is still very much the basis of PMI's BoK. In order to accomplish projects on time, in budget, to scope, says PMI, you need to manage scope, schedule, cost, risk, etc. Yet to many practitioners, and academics, this view fails to capture suciently the scope of the real challenge of project management. This certainly was the view underlying APM's decision to adopt a more broadly structured BoK. Academic research has shown that the factors that cause projects to fail or to succeed certainly include the traditional project management ones of planning and monitoring tools, teamwork, etc., but also Ð in fact, particularly Ð include (a) technical, commercial, and ``external'' issues, and (b) the way the initial requirements of the project are established Ð the Front End [5]. Most practising managers agree.3 Understanding what factors have to be managed in order to deliver successful projects is very important, for it addresses squarely the issue of what the professional remit Ð the ethos Ð is of project management. Put simply, is it to deliver projects ``on time, in budget, to scope'', or is it to deliver projects successfully to the requirements of the project customer/sponsor? In essence it has to be the latter, because if it is not, project management is an inward looking profession that in the long-term few serious managers are going to get very excited about. What managers in government, business, academia Ð just about everywhere in fact Ð are concerned about is that their projects are managed e€ectively and eciently: that they represent value-for-money and meet or exceed their strategic objectives. De®ning the scope, cost, and time targets properly is half the battle; ensuring that the technical, commercial, business, environmental, and other factors are e€ectively aligned with organisational

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Fig. 1. APM Body of Knowledge structure, revised 3rd version.

and control issues is generally fundamental to ensuring an optimum outcome.4 It was recognition of the importance of the wider remit that focussing on what delivering successful projects entails that in fact caused the APM, when it sought a BoK for its Certi®cation programme in the early 90s, not simply follow the PMI BoK model. APM's current BoK comprises four groups of topics (see Fig. 1): . . . .

general topics organisational issues tools and techniques general management

The central two cover some of these wider, more general and contextual matters. The APM model has worked well over the decade since it was launched. It is now widely used as the basis of competency assessment by many companies in Europe and elsewhere Ð as indeed is PMI's. It does however contain a number of areas that are in need of revision (as PMI recognises its BoK does too). Hence a proposal was prepared by the Centre for Research in the Management of Projects at UMIST in mid 1997 to conduct a research programme aimed at providing empirical data upon which APM could decide how it wished to update its BoK. The research lasted 14 4 This is the thesis of The Management of Projects, Morris, 1997 [5].

months and was ®nanced both by APM and by industry.

2. What was CRMP trying to do and how was the research performed? The aim of the CRMP work was to: . identify the topics that project management professionals Ð practitioners, educators, and others Ð consider need to be known and understood by anyone claiming to be competent in project management . de®ne what is meant by those topics at a generically useful level . update the body of literature that supports these topics It did not initially aim to produce a revised BoK structure, though in fact it ended up doing so as a result of the comments received. The research is, we believe, unique in that, so far, it is the only such research that has systematically sought empirical evidence for identifying the topics in which project management professionals need to be knowledgeable. The structure eventually chosen is also based on research: researches on the factors that project management professionals consider important to their professional work. The research was performed in the following sequence: First the then current version (Version 3.0)

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of the APM Body of Knowledge was critically reviewed. A new draft version (Version 3.1) was prepared Ð the so-called ``Strawman'' BoK. This version had more topics than Version 3.0, principally in the topics of Front End De®nition, Business and Marketing, Technology and Design Management, Procurement and Contract Administration, and at the project Completion and Operations and Maintenance/Integrated Logistics Support back-end of the project life cycle. Version 3.1 consisted of 44 topics. De®nitions of the topics were then reviewed, prepared, or revised. Questionnaires were then sent out to over 2,500 project management professionals. The work was also advertised widely in the technical press. Advice on literature associated with the topics was also solicited. In-depth interviews were then held with approximately 20 companies. Ultimately data was obtained, via the interviews and returned questionnaires, from over 117 companies or divisions of companies. (Valid questionnaire returns were only received from 6% of those polled: many stated that they were unable to respond adequately because they did not really understand what the purpose of a BoK was.) As a result of the questionnaire returns, the CRMP research team, under the supervision of its Steering Committee, deleted some topics and combined others, and modi®ed the de®nitions. It had been intended not to group the CRMP topics into any kind of structure. However, a strong input from the research returns was that the respondents found the number of topics too large. Max Wideman of Canada (who made invaluable input into the study) in fact reminded us of the work of Miller [6] that showed that people generally ®nd 7 (plus or minus 2) to be the optimum size of data sets for convenient handling. We therefore started developing potential groupings of the topics (now reduced to 37), relating them to the project life cycle. The revised version (3.2) was then sent out to the 117 companies which had responded and was published on the web. Returns were received from 30 companies. At this stage there were very few amendments to the de®nitions of the topics per se. There was however considerable comment on the structure, and the allocation of particular topics to the elements, of the emerging BoK model. As a result of this round of input a new version of the BoK was produced Ð Version 3.3. This version was then reviewed with the APM Professional Development Board and members of APM's accreditors and examiners. A few minor amendments were made and the ®nal CRMP version was released to APM. It was then taken by APM for full and formal review by its Special Interest Groups, assessors and examiners, and its Council. The revised version will then become Version 4.0 of the APM BoK.

In addition, CRMP conducted two analyses of the match between Version 3.1 and . all the papers published in the International Journal of Project Management and the Project Management Journal over the last 15 years . all the papers published in the 1996 and 1997 PMI Annual Seminars/Symposia and the 1996 and 1998 IPMA Congresses.

3. What we found The following represent the principal ®ndings of the study: . 100% of those responding felt that the APM BoK needed updating. . It was felt that the BoK should be less complicated and more inviting. . The English should be simple. . The text should be multi industry. . There should be an integrating diagram. . The emphasis should be on project management rather than on the project manager. Fig. 2 shows the respondents' views on whether the Version 3.1 topics should be retained or dropped. 100% agreed on the need for Leadership to be included, 100% on Legal Awareness, 100% on Procurement, 99% on Safety, Health, and Environment, 98% on Life Cycles, 96% on Purchasing, 95% on Risk Management, 94% on Financial Management, 93% on Industrial Relations, 93% on Scheduling, 89% on the Business Case, 89% on Project Organisation, 89% on Testing, Commissioning, and Handover, 87% on the Project Context, 86% on Close-out, 85% on Programme Management, 84% on Teamwork, 84% on Quality Management, 81% on Project Management Plan, 80% on (Post)-Project Evaluation Review, 79% on Contract Planning and Administration, 79% on Project Management, 78% on Monitoring & Control, 77% on Resources Management, 77% on Project Launch, 75% on Con®guration Management and Change Control. Losers included: 28% on Goals, Objectives, and Strategies (surprising considering how important these are), 32% on Requirements Management (ditto), 33% on Integrative Management (not surprising: it is covered by Project Management), 36% on Systems Management (not surprising: this has long caused diculty), 42% on Success Criteria (relatively surprising), 44% on Performance Measurement Ð i.e. Earned Value (this is very interesting considering how central to project management theory and `Best Practice' it is

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considered by writers and experts), 46% on Information Management. Fig. 3 shows how these agreements were split by industry sectors. There are some notable ®ndings. Construction and Information Systems (IS) rated Marketing and Sales 40%, and Goals, Objectives, and Strategies only 20%. This may be a re¯ection

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simply of the jobs/life experience of those who responded. On the other hand, it has a wry correlation with the reputation of those industries to concentrate on implementation and less on how to relate the project to the customer's real needs. Similarly IS rated Requirements Management only 22% Ð incredible considering (a) the generally high rate

Fig. 2. Respondents' views on the 44 topics.

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Fig. 3. Agreement % by industry sector.

on IS project failures, often associated with poor Requirements Management and Front Ð End De®nition [7], (b) that the term is particularly associated with systems projects. (The 32% for Requirements Management in Construction is more understandable since the term is not well known in Construction). Performance measurement scored only 29% in IS too (and 21% in Facilities Management Ð high everywhere else): again an interesting comment on the information systems sector. In general the research showed: 5 Subsequent work at CRMP is more accurately showing that it is more useful to talk additionally of di€erent supply chain con®gurations rather than simply di€erent industries Ð and of participants roles in those supply chains.

. the amount of di€erence in de®nition and usage of topics was less than anticipated . broad acceptance of terms is emerging . di€erent industries often concentrate on di€erent parts of the BoK5 . most people accept that project management covers the total project life cycle Ð including the vital front-end de®nition and the back-end hand-over and evaluation . it is extremely dicult to ®nd authoritative guides to many of the topics, and indeed to the BoK as a whole The research comparing Version 3.1 with the International Journal of Project Management and the Project Management Journal and with the IPMA and PMI

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conference proceedings has already been reported [8]. Brie¯y the ®ndings were as follows. In the conferences, Programme Management, Strategic Implementation Plan, Marketing and Sales, Project Launch, Teamwork, Project Appraisal, Information Management, Value Improvement, Design Management and Systems were all well covered. Project Planning, Control, Risk analysis, Contracts and related classical problems of project execution also had good attention. The other topics did not however, though possibly because they did not ®t the conference themes. In the journals we found the following: . Academic writing on the BoK is not even in coverage: there are some topics that have a huge amount written about them; some have next to nothing. Technical and commercial issues in particular receive little coverage compared with the traditional subjects Ð planning, monitoring, control, organisation, leadership, teamwork, etc. . US coverage of marketing and sales, integrative management, resources, and cost management is higher than in Europe; European coverage of the early stages of project formation, the project con-

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text, project management plan, project launch, and risk is higher than American. Fig. 4 shows the ®nal version of the CRMP BoK model. The topics have been grouped into seven sections: . The ®rst section deals with a number of General and introductory items. The remaining six sections deal with topics to do with managing: . the project's Strategic framework, including its basic objectives . the Control issues that should be employed . the de®nition of the project's Technical characteristics . the Commercial features of its proposed implementation . the Organisation structure that should ®t the above . issues to do with managing the People that will work on the project Areas of signi®cant di€erence compared with Version 3 of the APM BoK include the following: . Tighter de®nition of Success Criteria. . Value Management split from Value Engineering

Fig. 4. CRMP Project Management Body of Knowledge.

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.

. . .

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(because VM is Strategic and VE is basically Technical/Con®guration/Engineering). All aspects of Technical except VE and Con®guration Management Ð Design, Production, and Hand-over; Requirements Management; Technology Management; Modelling & Testing. Better description of Procurement. Better description of Life Cycle Design and Management. Organisational Roles in addition to Organisation Structure.

Several Version 3.0 topics have been incorporated into other topics or omitted entirely: . Systems Management Ð omitted as not suciently understood or relevant. . Project Appraisal Ð incorporated in Business Case and Finance. . Integration Ð incorporated in Project Management. . Control and Coordination Ð incorporated in the whole section on Control. . Delegation Ð omitted as not suciently substantial. . Management Development Ð incorporated in Personnel Management. . Estimating Ð combined with Budgeting and Cost Management. . Mobilisation Ð omitted as too Construction speci®c. . Operation/Technical Management Ð incorporated in the whole section on Technical. . Industrial Relations Ð incorporated in Personnel.

4. Discussion of proposed structure and general ®ndings We have found in presentation of our work and in discussion that initially most attention is paid to the structure of the BoK that we have devised. Our view is that while the structure is important as a means of presenting and communicating what in reality is a lot of information, in terms of the validity of the BoK itself it is not that important. The really important matters are two: . to decide what topics should be included in the BoK . to ensure that project management professionals' basic understanding of what those terms mean is agreed An important ®nding of the research is the extent to which the breadth of topics proposed was so strongly endorsed by the empirical data. Though this may comfort the original authors of the APM BoK, and indeed does ®t with the research data on success and failure etc., there is an obvious word of caution. Since most

of those providing data (though not all) were APM members, they would be biased to accepting the APM BoK view of project management. A more interesting result would be to ®nd what topics a cross section of project management professionals thought should be included. There is discussion among some quarters that ``we need to agree on the shape of the BoK''. The principal purpose of the BoK is for the professional societies to de®ne what they expect their members to be knowledgeable in. A subsidiary bene®t is that it can act as a sourcebook of information for practitioners, academics, and others. But in the same way as one would never get experts arguing over what exactly had to be the chapter structure and format of all textbooks on, say, marketing, so it is irrelevant, we believe, to argue over what should be the correct order, degree of detail, subheadings, and so on, for the Body of Knowledge of project management. Nevertheless, there are some important points about the potential structure of the BoK. First, there should be some indication of the project life cycle Ð there should be a process basis to the BoK. Second, the structure should be as simple and cogent as possible. Ideally the major headings should not number more than about seven (plus or minus two), as said earlier the maximum range that most people feel comfortable with. Third, too much should not be read into the actual position of a topic under a heading. Many topics could arguably be put under other headings. Many Control topics in the CRMP model for example are arguably Strategic; Con®guration Management could have gone under Control, as could Testing. Value Management would often be seen as very close to Value Engineering (often to the point of confusion in some people's minds): in the CRMP BoK they are separated because Value Management is strategic while Value Engineering is technical. There was great debate in the research about whether there should be a ``Technical'' heading. Indeed the debate about how much technical knowledge a project manager has to have is a very old one. We were persuaded of its importance not least by the weight of research data that shows that technical matters and their management can be major sources of projects failing to meet their planned requirements [4]. The heart of the BoK is in fact the text that describes each of the topics. Use of plain English has been the objective, both because this is sensible and because this is what our research showed people very much want. It is not as easy a challenge as it might sound. Surprisingly, in many ways, there are very few models on which to base such short, general, and yet useful, de®nitions. A constant challenge is the use of jargon. Should Requirements be used or Brie®ng, for example?

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Another issue is the extent to which one should follow or be prepared to lead in describing good project management practice. If most of the IS and Construction industries think that Requirements Management does not apply, should it be included? (There is so much research as well as anecdotal evidence, as well as plain logic for including it that we elected to keep it.) In several instances in fact we decided that we had to take a lead in de®ning what we believed the best practice model of project management is: the research data was to guide our writing, not dictate it. References to ISO and other standards, and to documents issued by other professional bodies are a particularly important case. ISO type documents are important because of their perceived authority and general pervasiveness. Yet they do not necessarily re¯ect perfect practice. How few books Ð almost none, struck us in fact Ð cover the contents of the total BoK authoritatively. Most books deal with particular aspects of the BoK, usually the Control, Organisation, and People parts. There is more coming onto the market now addressing Technical issues. Commercial and Strategic issues are probably the least addressed. The references for each of the topics were identi®ed in two parts: in the main text of the BoK only a small number of readily available texts were noted. A longer list of useful books and papers were given as Further Reading where appropriate. Since the text is in English, only English language texts were referenced. The references should of course be updated on a regular basis, as should the whole BoK itself. APM has accepted the CRMP structure as the basis of its revised new Body of Knowledge. In doing so it has agreed a Con®guration Management Board to manage the BoK through its further evolution.

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might be however. Journals and conference papers do not cover the range of topics evenly, and there are few books if any that cover the whole ®eld. A BoK should never be totally frozen. Practice changes. The BoK should be updated periodically. The points made in this paper likewise need challenging and reviewing periodically. The authors look forward to the next empirically based BoK update. References [1] Schon DA. The re¯ective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books, 1991. [2] Wideman M, et al. Set of papers on project management bodies of knowledge. International Journal of Project Management 1995;13(2):71±140. [3] Caupin G et al. IPMA competency baseline. International Project Management Association, 1999. [4] Archibald RD. Managing high technology programs and projects. New York: Wiley, 1993. [5] General Accounting Oce: various reports on US defence projects' performance. Morris PWG. The Management of Projects, Thomas Telford, 1997. National Audit Oce: various reports on UK defence projects' performance. Pinto JK, Slevin DP. Project success: de®nitions and measurement techniques, Project Management Journal 1989;19(1):67Ð75; World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department: various reports on World Bank project performance. [6] Miller GAM. Processing information. Psychological Review 1956;63(1):81±97. [7] Standish Group: see (www.standishgroup.com). [8] Themistocleous G, Wearne SH. Project management topic coverage in journals, International Journal of Project Management, in press; Zobel AM, Wearne SH. Project management topic coverage in recent conferences, in press.

5. Conclusions The Body of Knowledge is important in project management because it is one of the few general documents that gives a genuine cross-industry, authoritative view of what a professional in project management should be expected to know. Current BoKs have been notable (a) for the lack of empirical data upon which they are based (b) the signi®cant variation between the ``simpler'' PMI model and the broader APM/IPMA ones. This research found that of the 125 companies contributing to the CRMP BoK review, all supported the broader model (most were APM members however). All felt that front-end, business, technical, and commercial issues were important. This breadth of view of the scope of project management is not as well covered by the literature as it

Peter Morris is Professor of Project Management and head of the Centre for Research in the Management of Projects at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He is also Executive Director of INDECO Ð a leading projects based management consultancy. Until 1996 he was a Main Board Director of Bovis Ltd. He is the author of `The Management of Projects' (Thomas Telford, 1997) and `The Anatomy of Projects' (Wiley, 1998).

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Marsh Patel is a Researcher in the Centre for Research in the Management of Projects at the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology. With a ®rst class science degree, Marsh worked as a Project Manager in a number of countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He joined the CRMP team in 1997. His research work deals with several aspects related to project management and he has a special interest in using project management techniques in developing countries.

Stephen Wearne is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research in the Management of Projects, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester, UK. In industry his project responsibilities included engineering coordination of a large hydro-electric project in Venezuela and project management of a nuclear power project in Japan. He was Professor (now Emeritus) of Technological Management at the University of Bradford 1973± 1984.