The world is screaming for solutions. We are facing massive challenges, including lack of sustainable use of resources, health problems, climate problems and conflicts and wars (see also Otto Scharmer’s eight acupuncture points). Luckily, we have also a lot of good ideas to put to the test and try and implement in practice.
The road from idea to action can however be long and winding – not least, as the world of today is complex. We need many types of competencies in order to create solutions. And typically, it is not possible to find all these competencies in one single person, so we need to cooperate. Furthermore, the problems are sufficiently big to demand huge organizations and even cooperation across nations, in order to be solved. This partly explains why solutions are not yet materializing. Even when we hear about succesful pilot projects and new technologies, whether it be within education, health or the energy sector – it still takes years before we see any concrete results in big scale.
There are many reasons for this, but my allegation is that we also need to develop the way we solve problems. Including the way we run and lead projects. We spend too much time attacking the problems in the same way we always did, and it’s not efficient enough.
My aim with making this site is to offer a suggestion as to how the concept of project management should be expanded, in order to fit better to the complex and complicated world we live in today. My hope is that you and your colleagues will be inspired to test this in your own projects – in order to see what works and what doesn’t. And then adjust and add and take away – and share your experiences with the rest of us. So that we can inspire each other, and cooperate with each other, in order to find a much better way of implementing solutions. I have called it integral project management, inspired by the integral theory, but the name is not important. The results are, however!
This is probably not a site for someone who hasn’t participated in projects before or never heard anything about project management. I have assumed that you know the basics, and if not, there are many good sources out there, I have suggested some here : Learn more . A couple of places I will probably also go back to basics in order to simplify and create an overview.
I will especially share my 20+ years of experience with projects, development projects in particular – and put them into an “integral framework”, inspired by the Theory of Everything by philosopher Ken Wilber. It’s probably a bit bold to call this “Integral Project Management”, and I will not claim to possess the finite or absolute truth about what that might be. I would rather hope that you see this as an idea for further discussion and improvement coming from a practitioner. An ambitious wish to inspire current and future project owners, project managers and entrepreneurs, in order to optimize our joint process of implementing useful and sustainable solutions – to the benefit of organizations, societies, and nations. Let’s get to work!