At present, there are many different views in the field of project management. The research of project management can be summarized into eight schools, and each school has different views on the focus of project management. The eight schools are:

(1) or system school.

(2) Process school.

(3) Organize schools.

(4) Successful schools.

(5) Decision school.

(6) contingency schools.

(7) School of Governance.

(8) Marketing College.

These schools discussed the key points of project management from different angles. The existence of each school does not mean that other schools are wrong, but that they hold different views on what the key points of the project are, so we should emphasize the key parts in the project management. There is a classic cartoon about nails, which looks round along one axis, square along another axis and triangle along the third axis. A standard cylinder looks like a circle from one axis and a rectangle from any axis at right angles, so depending on how you place it, you can put it in a round hole or a square hole. This nail is a cylinder, so it can be shaped into a rectangle along one axis and a triangle along the other axis. Some people may say that the nail is round, some people say it is square, some people say it is triangular, and some people say it is nothing. There is nothing wrong with it, but the perspective is different, and so is project management. As far as nails are concerned, if they need to be put in a round hole, they can be put in as long as the direction is correct; You can also put in square holes or triangular holes. Because of the different perspectives of project management research, we can use project management in different ways according to the needs of our own projects.

Gareth Morgan (1995) once wrote a classic book The Image of Organization. He gave eight metaphors to organizations, which he thought could represent organizations in different environments. He suggested that if you want to know your organization, it may involve two, three or four metaphors he put forward, and you should match your organization with these metaphors. If you want to change your organization, then you should decide which new metaphors you want to be; Maybe you just want to change one of the metaphors, then you should change your organization into a new metaphor. His metaphor is as follows:

* Organization is like a machine.

* Organizations are like organisms.

* Organizations are like brains.

* Organization is like culture.

* Organization is like a political system.

* Organization is like a prison of ideas.

* Organizations are changing and changing.

* Organization is like a leading tool.

These metaphors are very similar to the eight schools mentioned above, but they are not exactly the same. Therefore, I suggest that you first judge which school is most suitable for your project needs, and then choose the most suitable management method to meet the needs according to the matching schools.

Cultural or systematic school: a project as a machine

This is the earliest school of project management, which reflects the origin of project management in the field of operational research in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The earliest tool of project management is to try to find out the way to do the project. They include:

* critical path analysis, directly from the field of operational research, looking for the shortest path through the network.

* Monte Carlo analysis and planning evaluation and review technology, introducing three-point estimation and probability.

* Bar chart (sometimes called Gantt chart), indicating the time scale.

Subsequently, other tools were added, such as product breakdown structure, work breakdown structure, organization breakdown structure and earned value analysis. These tools are highly mathematical and are used to find out the results of the project.

The two main supporters of this school are:

(1) Cleland and King (1983): In this book (first edition 1968), they established a project management theory, which is based on the fact that a project is an optimizable system. This book has a far-reaching impact on the development of project management and has become a mainstream view.

(2)Kerzner(2003): This is almost the main teaching material of this school. Its title reflects the main contents of the school, focusing on planning and control, and the transformation of project results.

Several parts of PMBOK of PMI come from this school, especially scope management, time management, cost management and risk management.

Process school: a project as a rule system

This school was popular in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on defining the structured process from the starting point to the final goal. In my book (1999), I quoted a sentence from Adesh Jain: Project management is to turn vision into reality; For the destination you want to reach and the blueprint for the future you want to realize, you must first establish a vision. Project management is a structured process and a road map that can take you from the starting point to the expected future. In this sense, the project is like a rule system, which can help you solve problems and reach the expected future destination.

The two main supporters of this school are:

(1) Turner (1999): In my book, I have always emphasized the process of defining the ultimate goal. I defined the process of scope management, organization management, quality management, cost management, time management, risk management, project life cycle and project management life cycle.

(2) Roland gareth (2005): Roland has always advocated the viewpoint of process management. He defined the process of different components of project management, and established maturity model and benchmarking model on this basis.

As I mentioned, the concepts of project life cycle and project management life cycle have a place in this school. Several parts of PMBOK of PMI come from this school, especially the concept of life cycle and management process, integrated management, and components of quality management and risk management.

Organizational school: a project as an organism

This school is in sharp contrast with the first school, which regards the project as a temporary organization. In a series of articles recently published in the International Journal of Project Management, I am developing a project management theory. My definition of a project is as follows: a project is a temporary organization, which completes its work by allocating resources to produce beneficial changes.

This school was first put forward by Sweden in the mid-1990s (Lundin and Soderholm, 1995), and I supplemented this theory (Turner and Muller, 2003). Ralf Muller and I believe that treating the project as a temporary organization can lead to thinking about the principal-agent theory and governance. As a temporary organization, the project is neutral in the field of organizational research. But as far as I know, not many textbooks list projects as organizational views.

Success college: a project as a business goal

This school actually integrates the key points of the three schools mentioned above, and it focuses on the success or failure of the project. The literature on project success expounds two components of project success: * project success factors refer to those project factors that can be influenced to improve the probability of project success and independent variables that make the project more likely to succeed.

* Project success criteria refer to the indicators we use to judge the successful results of the project and the related variables to measure the success of the project.

The early important works of this school are the works of Maurice and Hof (1987). They studied several major projects in Britain in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to determine how people judged the success of the projects and what factors contributed to the success of the projects. For a review of this school, please refer to Jugdev and Muller( 1995). At present, the emphasis on project success in the literature is different from that in the 1970s: * Early research on project success criteria focused on achieving time, cost and performance goals, and thought that the contributing factors of project success were project planning and control, which was consistent with the chemistry school.

It is generally believed that stakeholders have different views on the success of the project, and there are more factors, from project authorization to operation, which are consistent with organizational school and process school.

These two textbooks are:

(1) by Morris and Hoff mentioned above.

(2) My book Turner (1999) was mentioned when discussing the process school. I used three chapters in this book to discuss the success of this project.

School of decision-making: as a project of brain

This school emphasizes two points. First of all, it emphasizes the decision-making process in the early stage of the project, focusing on why some decisions are made and their impact on the whole project. Many studies of this school focus on major failed projects, discussing the causes of failures and whether these failures can be avoided. This problem is discussed in the above-mentioned book by Morris and Hof (1987). Peter Morris also considered this issue in a later book (1997, chapter 8).

Another concern of this school is the information processing in the project. Graham Winch believes that the project is a means of processing information, which reduces the uncertainty in the process. Embodied in the process school, the project is a process of processing information, embodied in the success school, processing information can lead to better decision-making, which is a success factor of the project. Graham Winch relates this to the importance of decision-making, the importance of stage gate and the reduction of uncertainty.

Emergency school: the project is like a chameleon.

This is the theme of my last article, that is, adjusting the project management process according to the needs of the project. Every project is unique, so it is necessary to adjust the management methods and leadership styles adopted to meet the needs of the current project. The most important research work in this field is a research project completed by Lynn Crawford and Brian Hobbs and funded by PMI (Crawford et al., 2005). We show that the project classification system has two main components, namely the purpose of project classification and the attributes used for project classification. Most organizations that implement projects classify projects for two main reasons:

(1) Ensure that the project is consistent with the strategic intention, prioritize the project and allocate resources accordingly, which means choosing the right project.

(2) Allocating and developing appropriate abilities to manage the selected projects means doing the selected projects correctly.

We have determined the 14 group of project attributes, and there are many ways to classify the projects in each group of attributes.

Another recent study, reflected in the theme of my series of articles, examines the different leadership styles required for different projects. This study was also funded by PMI and completed by Ralf Muller and me.

Governance School: A Project as a Political System

Governance school has many areas worthy of attention:

(1) Transaction costs related to the project.

(2) Principal-agent relationship between customers and contractors.

(3) Governance mechanism, roles and responsibilities of the project.

(4) Politics and projects, conflicts, persuasion and negotiation.

1. Transaction Costs This study was conducted by Graham Winch (1989), who wanted to determine the transaction costs related to construction projects. Anne Keegan(200 1) and I also analyzed the transaction cost, governance mechanism, roles and responsibilities of the project. The first time I saw the words "project" and "governance" in the same sentence was in a paper five years ago. This is a widely studied field. )

2. Principal-agent relationship There are two parties in the principal-agent relationship. One party is the principal and relies on the agent of the other party to do the work on their behalf. Customers will encounter two problems. One is that they don't always know the real reason why agents make decisions (adverse selection problem), and the other is that agents may have opportunistic behavior (moral hazard problem). Someone once told me that these two problems are difficult problems in project management. Rulf Muller(2003) and I defined the principal-agent relationship between the client and the project manager. This has influenced some of our future research.

3. Governance mechanism The research I made with Anne Keegan (200 1) discussed the issue of governance mechanism. But the most important research work is carried out by the British Association of Project Managers.

4. The most important book in the field of political science was written by Jeffrey Pinto( 1997), but in my book (2003), there are also some chapters about stakeholder management and conflict in the project.

Marketing school: As a billboard school, the project also has many components. The most widely studied is stakeholder management, which I have already elaborated (2003). But this also includes selling your project to your customers (Pinto and Rouhainen, 200 1) and selling project management to senior managers (Thomas et al, 200 1).