Developing a True Sense of Professional Community: An Important Matter for PM Professionalism

Abstract

Project management (PM) has developed its own body of knowledge, standards, codes of ethics, certification, and education programs. All these are essential but not sufficient to PM as a profession. This paper argues that, to be a mature profession, PM also must develop a true sense of professional community in which its members are bound together by a common set of work-related values and beliefs, view PM activities as central to their life interests, identify themselves with the PM profession, use PM peers as a reference group, and carry out PM-related activities even in their leisure time.