A Paradigm Shift

In a recently published book called "The Fifth Risk" written by Michael Lewis, he covers the transition of the Federal Government from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. Early in the book there is a focus on the Department of Energy and the Chief Risk Officer, John MacWilliams. MacWilliams' charter was to "go beyond financial risks to all other risks that weren't being properly evaluated." He subsequently identified the top 5 risks, and they are:


1. An accident with nuclear weapons
2. An attack by North Korea
3. Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon
4. Shut down of the country's energy grid
5. Project management


Who would have ever thought that one of the top five risks within the Department of Energy would include project management? This list highlights the importance of project management simply by comparison to these other catastrophic events. Project management, with its 16.5 million project managers, is the influence that drives the economy through product development, construction, medical advancements, emerging technology, mitigating critical risks and simply keeping organizations like the Department of Energy moving forward.


This book was written because the topic of project management has become stale, repetitive and has reached somewhat of a plateau. Over the past 20 to 30 years, the focus on project management as a career has grown tremendously. Training materials and books are available everywhere, but significant and continuous evolution of project management has been limited. Project management has been around forever but for most of that time the improvements to the art and/or science of it has been stuck in neutral.


Contrary to the current two-dimensional description of project management, which includes hard and soft skills, this book defines and explores the 3rd dimension of project management which includes cognitive skills. Cognitive skills are basic mental abilities that we use to think, study and learn. This book focuses on thinking skills which are the mental processes we use to do things like solving problems, making decisions, asking questions, making plans, organizing information and creating new ideas.


As part of exploring cognitive skills, this book also defines the journey toward becoming the best project manager that you can be and hopefully to achieve what your peers and leadership might refer to as a great project manager. The focus on cognitive skills and the journey from good to great defines a new and refreshing view of project management.