Eddie Obeng

This thought is about the future of project management and one of the greatest theorist and teachers in the area of project execution in the late 20^th and early 21^st century – Eddie Obeng. Who is Eddie Obeng? He has built a formidable reputation as Professor at the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Henley Business School and the founder and Learning Director of Pentacle (The Virtual Business School). Unofficially Obeng is known as a bit of an iconoclast in Project Management.

Unlike the many of your ‘pop business’ theorists he isn’t from the ‘break it and see what happens’ school but rather believes that there is much value in the traditional elements of project management. He also promotes transcendence of concepts such as Waterfall and Agile (which he sees as limiting rather than enabling) as we seek to understand and meet the needs of an organisation through sound execution (cue old project mantra – “It’s all just about ruthless execution done well!“) His approach is about being awarethat we have gone beyond the tipping point of our ability to synthesise and learn. The pace of change in our industries and the world is such as that maintaining comprehensive knowledge is beyond the capacity of most people. So perhaps the old, familiar methods need rethinking and rework so we build on what we know rather than throwing out babies with bath water.

Prof Obeng wrote the ground-breaking work All Change! The Project Leaders Secret Handbook . This is a handbook that is worth a read, a practical book providing guidance on how to facilitate successful project implementation. For my money the best part is that the book is written by a practitioner and incredibly easy to digest, and although it was written in 1996 it is still relevant to the challenges we all face today. It’s worth a look.
I would also recommend having a view of Obeng’s Seminars online if you have a spare moment.

So why is it important that we rethink our approach to project management? Because we are constantly under pressure to execute flawlessly in projects with high levels of ambiguity. Stakeholders are less tolerant of cost, duration and risk constraints, while we work hard to fully understand the businesses we work with in a timely manner. Obeng seeks to acknowledge and provide the tools to address these challenges.

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