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Why top Business Schools

don't teach Project
Management
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Wharton, Insead, Harvard, Stanford, London Business School, Columbia, IMD,

MIT, Instituto de Empresa, Chicago,...the world most prestigious business
schools, don't teach project management as a core course to the future
business leaders as part of their flagship MBA programmes.

Senior executives seem to neither fully understand project management nor

regard it as an important means of business strategy execution. Yet, only a
few of the world top business schools Masters of Business Administration
(MBAs) teach project management as part of their core course curriculum.

My vision is that by 2020, most of the MBA programmes worldwide will offer
Project Management as a mandatory course.

While conducting my research, I discovered that most heads of organisations view

project management as a highly technical disciplinean area for engineers and
information technology (IT) professionals. Consequently, they:

Lack a basic understanding of how to link each of their strategic projects with
the companys overall strategy,
Do not devote much time developing in-house project management
competencies,
Fail to implement a formal project selection process and investment
committee, which discusses, prioritises, and decides on all the new project
proposals, and
Lack the means to monitor the success or failure of their strategic projects.

But why do so many senior executives feel this way? In an attempt to get to the
deeper reasons for their views, I discovered that:

1. Most of the highly regarded business management gurus, those that

influence the way businesses are managed (e.g., Professors Frederick Taylor,
Peter Drucker, and Michael Porter), do not mention project management
and/or the importance of its link with strategy execution in their theories,
2. Project management is not a highly regarded topic in most of the finest
business publications, and
3. Only very few of the world top business schools Masters of Business
Administration (MBAs) teach project management as part of their core course
curriculum.
I will focus on the third finding, which is the main theme of my article.

Ignored by most of the world Top MBA programmes

After determining that most business management gurus and the finest business
publications disregard project management and its link with strategy execution, I
wanted to find out whether the same was true at the top business schools.
Specifically, I wanted know whether the MBA programmes at world-renowned
institutions such as Harvard and INSEAD, which teach the worlds future chief
executive officers (CEOs) and senior executives, actually include project
management as part of their core business curriculum.

Over the past 40 years, the MBA has become one of the most sought-after degrees
in the world. Many of the current top managers have gone through this business
programme, and most future leaders will do. The traditional MBA programme has a
duration of between 12 to 24 months, and it is divided into two blocks. The first block
is composed of core courses, which are mandatory for every student. The second
block comprises an extensive list of elective courses, from which students select a
certain number that relate to their specialisation. (Note:I only look into the top 100
Masters in Business Administration, and no other kind of Master)

Research into the Inclusion of Project Management Courses

Using the Financial Times 2010 ranking of the worlds top business schools,[1] I
researched whether any of them taught project management as either a core course
or an elective. The chart below shows the results of my research:
The results are astonishing: Only two of the top 100 MBA programs in the world
teach project management as a core course. The first business school that required
its students to take a course in project management is the UKs Cranfield School of
Management[2], which is ranked 26th in the world. The second and last business
school that teaches project management as a mandatory course is the University of
Iowas Tippie[3] College of Business, ranked 64th in the world.

Why Project Management courses are absent from standard MBA Curriculum
Although the absence of project management from the standard MBA curriculum is
hard to believe, my research shows that there are a few explanations for this
omission.

First, no significant changes have been made to the MBA core curriculum since it
was first launched half a century ago. The programmes core courses still generally
include the following:
These core courses are intended to cover the most important areas of businesses
today and in the future. Their content strongly correlates with how companies are
organised and with the most discussed topics in the business press.

Second, MBAs reflect the theories of many of the business management gurus.
Some of these gurus teach or taught at these top business schools, and the fact that
their teachings largely ignore project management greatly influences the
composition of the MBAs.

Third, although project management has become increasingly important over the
past century, this trend has been unnoticed and its exact importance to the business
world is very difficult to estimate.

Why Project Management should be part of the core MBA curriculum

A company without projects is something that no one can imagine. Projects are the
best way to create significant value to an organisation. This can be done via new
products, international expansion, acquisitions. It is also a good way to increase
efficiencies or reduce cost. Without projects, there is no change and no
transformation. The selection and execution of the right projects can create
significant competitive advantage for a business. Project management has become
a core competency for business leaders and managers, yet, it is not taught in most
of the Top MBAs offered worldwide.

In addition, there are several reasons why I believe project management is

important for an MBA programme curriculum. The three main ones are:

a. All of the MBA students (have been) or will be (sooner or later) involved in
projects when they will join the business world after graduation. They might
play a role as a sponsor, stakeholder, project leader, or team member. But it will be
important that they know the basics of how to execute a project and make it
successful.

b. In the current market conditions, I see that many companies demand that their
high potential employees have basic project management and execution skills
and manage a large project in order to gain promotion to a more senior level (for
example: Philips, P&G, Siemens).

c. Since last year, some leading companies require project management as

number one competency for their Corporate Strategy jobs (see Nike's job offer
for a Corporate Strategy and Development Manager in 2014)

d. If business schools and MBAs do not teach future leaders how to choose,
prioritise and execute projects, who will?

PD.1. I wrote this article in 2014 for the business magazine Today's Manager, from
the Singapore Institute of Management
PD.2. Full research and more details can be found in my book, The Focused
Organization

References
[1] I performed my research during the autumn of 2010.

2. Cranfield University School of Management, 2013. From

http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p786/Programmes-and-Executive-
Development/MBA/your-mba-programme/The-Cranfield-MBA-Programme-structure.

3. The University of Iowa, 2013. Tippie School of Management Full-time MBA Core
& Foundation Courses. From
http://tippie.uiowa.edu/fulltimemba/academics/corecourses.cfm.

4. Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2013. MBA Program First-Year

Curriculum. From http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/academics/year1_detailed-
p.html.

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Maynard Tapp
Principal at Hawk Consultants LLC - Managing Member
I have known Dr. Giammalvo for more than 20 years. He again, as in the past, has
 been able to detect and describe a shortcoming in today's current university
curriculum and businesses body of knowledge. Paul has dedicated his living and life
to bettering all people's quality of life. He is a staunch advocate for project
management and believes, as I do, that better planning leads to a better quality of
life. It is hard for me to understand why these important institutions of higher learning
fail to recognize the importance and relationship between their top ten courses and
what ties them all together. Plan your work, Work your plan, succeed in business.

Like Reply 5 days ago

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Brian de Haaff
CEO, Aha! -- #1 product roadmap software

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The One Sign You Will Be Wealthy

Mar 16, 2015 % 111,158 & 596 ' 108 ! " # $

I have written in the past about how working harder than anyone
else will make you rich. And over 1 million people read that post. In
it, I was careful to define "rich" as achieving what you dreamed you
wanted. That means I defined rich as an abundance of anything
that is most important to you.

. I do believe that being rich is about sustaining happiness and following your
own journey. It is about becoming your best self and doing more of what you
love. I tell our team at Aha! (visual product roadmap software) this every
day.

This post is a bit different though. It is about what it takes to be financially wealthy.
Financial independence comes when you generate enough wealth to live
comfortably without having to work again.

A lot of people think about being financially independent. 52% of people say having
the financial freedom to do volunteer work or donate to charity is a very important
priority. And more than 65% of Americans say they wish they had more time to do
what they love.

. The thing is, money is a tool. And the wealthier you are, the more you can
afford to invest in yourself and others.

We all have different goals, but I think you will agree that most people want to gain
material wealth. But few who do think deeply about how they will make it happen.
So, do you know the one sign that you will be financially wealthy?

The one sign that you will be wealthy is that you "own it."

"Owning it" means possessing a unique asset that is in demand and will significantly
increase in value over time. Here are a few examples:

Business
Do you dream of being your own boss? Starting your own company is not for the
faint of heart. If you are successful, your business will not only build a solid
foundation of wealth, but could someday generate a substantial amount of money as
it grows or is acquired. If you are not in a position to start your own business there
are other options. There are plenty of companies that offer stock or equity to
employees as a part of an incentive program. Owning a small part of a company is
better than owning nothing at all.
Property
Owning real estate has historically paid off. As a property owner you have the
freedom to rent, renovate, or sell your property on your own terms. Depending on
your strategy, you can generate income and yield over the short term, increase
value long term, and gain tax advantages by deducting the cost of ownership.

Skill
My mom often complains that NBA players are overpaid, but I disagree. They have a
unique skill that people pay lots of money to watch. That skill increases the value of
their team and keeps countless others in business as well, from stadium managers
to ticket venders. The same can be said for cardiac surgeons who are highly trained,
scarce, and in the business of saving people's lives. If you possess a difficult to
obtain skill, think of it as your key currency.

. Now, some people are born with trust funds and other easy paths. In their
case, the one asset they own is money. And owning money is an obvious path
to making more of it.

For most of us though, we must study and work hard to gain financial wealth. It does
not come easy or overnight. And if we do make it, we were likely blessed by good
fortune and others helping us along the way.

I believe that "owning it" is the surefire sign that you will gain financial wealth. You
must have possession of something special that will increase in value over time to
become rich.

Do you agree that you must "own it" to gain financial wealth?

Also, if you would like to read my future posts then please click 'Follow' at the
top of this article and feel free to connect via Twitter

__________________________________________________________________
ABOUT BRIAN AND AHA!
 Brian seeks business and wilderness adventure. He has
been the founder or early employee of six cloud-based
software companies and is the CEO of Aha! -- the world's
#1 product roadmap software. His last two companies
were acquired by Aruba Networks [ARUN] and Citrix
[CTXS].

Signup for a free trial of Aha! and see why 10,000+ users
on the world's leading product and engineering teams trust
Aha! to build brilliant product strategy and visual roadmaps.

We are rapidly growing and hiring. Rails Developers. Customer Success. Marketing
Campaign Manager. Product Manager. Join a winning team -- work from anywhere
in the US and be happy.

Follow Brian on LinkedIn and @bdehaaff

Follow Aha! @aha_io

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Brian de Haaff Entrepreneurs Business

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