It is important that an organization selects the right projects and carefully manages and governs them to deliver their intended benefits. This paper will describe a model for Organizational Project Management (OPM) to help organizations to do that. OPM is the integration of all project management-related activities of an organization linking strategic decisions (where the project management-related activities are to be carried out) with business decisions (portfolio management and benefits realization) with their management (program and project management) and their governance at both the strategic and project levels. This paper will describe a seven-layered model of OPM with its 22 elements – spanning from the organizational level to the individual project level – derived by the authors using academic literature and their own experience in managing projects.

Project management practices have evolved as the discipline grew from managing defence and engineering projects to delivering information systems, supporting organizational transformation, and managing megaprojects supporting national infrastructure needs. Thus, from starting as a tactical tool, project management grew to deliver organizational and national strategies. The next challenge for project management is to support the achievement of sustainable development goals to tackle societal challenges. How can it do this? In this talk we propose a way forward for project management to contribute to global sustainability by tracing the history of projects from prehistoric times to the 21st century. We outline the development of project management using the lens of socio-technical transitions to analyse technological niches developed to advance the field, and socio-technical regimes that have supported the development of project management to adopt these technological niches to meet changes that appear at the landscape level. By analysing the history of projects and project management, we argue that the discipline has continuously evolved as a transition innovation that can meet the challenges posed by sustainable development. However, further development of project management is needed to achieve that.

This presentation with Dr Tom Crow outlines the development process being undertaken by Engineers Australia to equip engineers for the governance role in projects and programs.