Winner of the 2018 Project Management Institute David I. Cleland Award for Literature

• Provides a clear, accessible introduction to the challenges involved in the organization and management of projects
• Shows how projects are becoming increasingly important for dealing with the accelerating change and uncertainty facing post-industrial societies
• Places projects in their long-term historical context of the agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial ages
• Explains how projects are understood in theory and identifies different dimensions of projects that have to be managed and organized in different ways: uncertainty, complexity, and urgency
• Discusses why projects are the primary organizational vehicle driving innovation in the modern world

 
What is a project? How are projects organized to deal with a complex, rapidly changing, and uncertain world? Why are projects the organization of the future? 
  
A project is a temporary organization and one-time process established to achieve a desired outcome. Projects range in size from small teams to large international joint-ventures and temporary coalitions of public and private organizations. What distinguishes projects from all other organizational activities - such as mass produced products and services - is that a project is finite in duration, lasting from hours, days, or weeks to years, and in some cases decades. Each project is disposable. It brings together people and resources to accomplish a goal and when the goal is accomplished, the organization disappears. When projects are complex, unpredictable, and changing, their plans have to be flexible and able to adjust to situations that cannot foreseen at the outset. 
   
In this Very Short Introduction Andrew Davies looks at how projects have developed since the industrial revolution to create the human-built world in which we live, work, and play. Considering some of our greatest endeavours such as the Erie Canal, Apollo Moon landing, Japanese product development, and Chinese ecocity projects, Davies identifies how projects are organized and managed to design and produce large and complex systems, cope with fast changing conditions, and deal with the immense uncertainties required to create breakthrough innovations in products and services. He concludes by considering how projects could be organized to address the challenges facing the post-industrial society of the 21st century.