Selling project management to senior executives

the case for avoiding crisis sales

Article Leadership, Stakeholder Engagement 1 June 2002

Project Management Journal

Thomas, Janice | Delisle, Connie L. | Jugdev, Kam | Buckle, Pamela

How to cite this article:

Thomas, J., Delisle, C. L., Jugdev, K., & Buckle, P. (2002). Selling project management to senior executives: the case for avoiding crisis sales. Project Management Journal, 33(2), 19–28.
Despite the organizational value that project management has enabled global companies to realize, executives often fail to support project initiatives. Without such support, projects usually fail. This paper discusses an approach practitioners can use to convince executives that project management is a necessary, value-enhancing practice. In doing so, it expands the phase-one findings of a two-phase, PMI sponsored study, findings previously published in PM Network (January 2001). Like the 2001 report, this paper identifies arguments that can help project managers demonstrate to executives the organizational value of project management. It first details a framework--distilled from a literature review--for selling project management to executives; it then analyzes the findings of interviews with 25 project professionals, findings which focus on the organizational value of project management. From this, it explains the traditional process of selling project management and analyzes the problems of using the tradi
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