The National Centre for Project Management (NCPM) is an interdisciplinary centre of excellence, operating in collaboration with industry, government, third-sector organisations, national and international think tanks and the learned societies. We foster a trans-disciplinary perspective that covers all aspects of implementing successful project and programme management, regardless of sector.
NCPM was established in 2003 to encourage transdisciplinary thinking in project management and has earned a stellar reputation for thought leadership and shaping the profession through its engagement, dissemination, educational, consulting and business activities. In the autumn of 2018 it relocated to Lancaster University, where it is part of the Management School.
In exploring the new frontiers of project management knowledge and capability, NCPM endeavours to reflect the increasing role of projects and project management in modern society as well as the organisational, strategic, cultural, environmental and societal implications associated with instituting sound project practice.
This broad perspective positions NCPM as the leading centre of excellence specialising in all aspects of managing projects and strategic change initiatives.
Our vision
NCPM aims to set the national agenda and establish project management as a major profession and discipline in the UK.
Our mission
We aim to foster active dialogue about the integration of successful practice and theoretical research within project management.
Strategic objectives
NCPM focuses on developing the trans-disciplinary and essential facets of the discipline of project management, by means of:
providing thought leadership
disseminating and publishing new ideas through two established book series
directing the development of the project management body of knowledge
encouraging, fostering and participating in leading-edge research
developing innovative educational programmes and courses
launching the UK’s first professional doctorate in project management
Our expertise
NCPM provides a forum for addressing national issues and challenges and draws on industry, government and academia to promote best practice and foster improvement in project practice. Participants share a common concern over the understanding and skill levels in project management and seek to improve and build upon current knowledge and capability.
Background to project management
Project management has grown beyond its roots in the construction, engineering and aerospace industries and is increasingly recognised as a key competence in many organisations in both the private and public sectors. The award of Royal Charter to the Association for Project Management (APM), has established a formal recognition of the profession.
This has now been strengthened through the development and release of a revised body of knowledge devised by Professor Darren Dalcher, which repositions the profession as a strategic discipline concerned with delivering value and balancing portfolios of initiatives to deliver beneficial change. While projects are being employed in most sectors, it is now increasingly acknowledged that a large proportion of economic activity is conducted through projects, programmes, portfolios and megaprojects. Yet, many organisations require support, knowledge, expertise and capability development and enhancement in this area.
Project work accounts for a significant proportion of global economic activity. Moreover, governments, charities and industry heavily rely on policy implementation and strategy execution through projects, programmes, portfolios and megaprojects. Indeed, project work offers a framework to help organisations transform their mainstream operations and service performance through beneficial change. It is viewed as a way of organising for the future. Furthermore, in an increasingly busy, stressful, and uncertain world, it has become necessary to manage complex portfolios of initiatives to adapt and sustain success.
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The media are widely reporting soaring demand and premium rates for project managers. In an attempt to quench this thirst, the National Centre for Project Management is developing a range of programmes. Current worldwide estimates suggest that over 25 million people define themselves as project managers and many others are heavily involved in project management.
It is no exaggeration to say that the progress of modern society is totally and irrevocably dependent on the ability to deliver project outcomes as required. Project management is rapidly becoming a key skill that underpins progress and prosperity. The ability to control and manage projects has become a critical national capability that will play a part in defining success and determining sustainability, wellbeing and competitiveness.
The national dependence on projects raises many issues and challenges that must be addressed in a systemic manner. Such issues include understanding the role of projects in the national economy, reducing the national failure rate, ensuring competitiveness in managing projects, meeting public needs for trustworthiness in project outcomes and educating the current and future generations of project managers.
The NCPM will build on existing strengths and endeavour to provide a forum for addressing key issues. We will draw on industry, government and academia to promote good practice and foster improvement in project management practice. It will create a common focus on enhancing project management knowledge, expertise, insights and research and offer the guidance and thought leadership required to underpin and support local, regional, national and global excellence.
Our services
Engage with our leading international experts to address your business needs, develop tailored solutions and gain a competitive advantage.
Bespoke training and development
We offer training activities tailored to your needs, designed to address your specific challenges, including a range of diagnostic workshops and a variety of developmental activities designed to improve teams, interpersonal relationships, and project management skills and competencies.
Managing external projects
Consultancy and management support, or an actual service offered for managing a variety of externally funded projects
Project rescue
Help and support in the rescue and turnaround of live projects.
Assessment and evaluation
We offer a range of recognised and bespoke improvement, assessment and evaluation activities, including project assurance, benchmarking and a variety of maturity assessments and evaluations and process improvement workshops.
Mary McKinlay is a Teaching Fellow at NCPM and Managing Director of Mary McKinlay Projects Ltd Project Assessment and Training.
She is a former Board Member and Trustee of APM and a former Vice President of the International Project Management Association. She is an Adjunct Professor of Project Management at ESC Lille. Mary’s expertise is in project and programme management, risk management and systems engineering. Her special field of interest is aerospace and defence.
Mary has worked in project management for over 30 years as a practitioner, researcher and trainer. Following a degree in Systems Engineering, she started her career on the Tornado aircraft project and has subsequently worked on many large programmes. A further dimension was added by participation in research programmes involving collaboration between industry and academics (Alvey, SERC and ESPRIT). One of these projects was to generate a process model for project management. This underlined the need for project management improvement and influenced her later work.
The Industry Advisory Board (IAB) is a high-level independent advisory group constituted to provide guidance and direction to the NCPM in the areas of research, business and educational/training trends. The IAB is a volunteer organisation and represents industry, commerce, government and the professional societies through a combination of representative and individual members.
The IAB provides a defined mechanism to:
identify, assess and discuss new trends in project management
provide guidance to NCPM and the research and teaching communities associated with it
share experiences and perspectives across domains
offer a forum for interaction between researchers and academics, industry and government in shaping the national agenda and seeking improvements
propose new directions in education, training and research and development
provide the underlying support for the development and promotion of NCPM and the interdisciplinary approach to project management.
Our publications
Explore our collection of resources ranging from books to blogs written by international experts and thought leaders.
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As editor and academic consultant Professor Darren Dalcher, Director of NCPM, has played a key part in designing and editing the 7th edition of the Association for Project Management Body of Knowledge released in 2019.
The new edition repositions the profession of project management and lays out the path forward for the project management profession – emphasising the need to work for the benefits of society and the environment, as well as for business.
The Body of Knowledge has expanded over time to reflect the role of project-based working in achieving change at strategic and operational levels, encompassing the development of new or amended products, processes or other capabilities across the private, public and third sectors.
The Advances in Project Management book series published by Routledge provides short, state of play guidelines to the main aspects of new emerging applications, comprehensive monographs and edited anthologies that summarise key developments, including sustainability, human factors, project capability and organisational improvement.
The companion book series, Fundamentals of Project Management, published by Routledge provides short guides to a set of key aspects of project management, including risk, governance, stakeholder management, costing and programme management. Each guide aims to provide the fundamentals of the subject from a rigorous perspective.
Professor Darren Dalcher
On the evidence of the authors of Advances in Project Management: Narrated Journeys in Unchartered Territory, there is a sea change coming. That change will affect the way projects are perceived, lead and governed, particularly in the context of the wider organisation to which they belong; whether that is in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors.
Many organisations have struggled to apply the traditional models of project management to their new projects in the global environment. Anecdotal and evidence-based research confirms that projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. A major part of the build-up to failure is often the lack of adequate project management knowledge and experience.
Advances in Project Management covers key areas of improvement in understanding and project capability further up the management chain; amongst strategy and senior decision makers and amongst professional project and programme managers. This collection, drawn from some of the world’s leading practitioners and researchers and compiled by Professor Darren Dalcher of the National Centre for Project Management, provides those people and organisations who are involved with the developments in project management with the kind of structured information, new approaches and novel perspectives that will inform their thinking and their practice and improve their decisions.
Professor Darren Dalcher
Projects are ubiquitous to modern society, yet, concerns around successful delivery, value realisation, resilience and making change stick force a significant re-evaluation of the scope and extent of the ‘normal’ project discourse. The common thread for all of this is around capabilities, skills, attitudes, values and perspectives that are needed for successful delivery and the sustained realisation of interest, relationships, benefit, value and impact.
The chapters collated in this volume bring together leading authorities on topics that are relevant to the management, leadership, governance and delivery of projects. Topics include people, communication, ethics, change management, value realisation, benefits, complexity, decision-making, project assurance, communication, knowledge management, big data, project requirements, business architecture, stakeholder engagement, strategy, users, systems thinking and resilience.
The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.
Professor Darren Dalcher
Project practice has undergone significant changes requiring new ways of thinking about and managing projects. The single focus on the staged delivery of artefacts is gradually being replaced by a wider interest in stakeholders, value, benefits, and complexity. As a result there is a growing interest in the development of practitioner capabilities, grounded in the recognition that dealing with permeable boundaries and unstructured situations transcends normative processes. Modern practitioners increasingly utilise deliberative and reflective approaches, often challenging received wisdom and traditional interpretations.
This volume provides a sampling of some of the best writing in the project domain, enabling readers to access a wider group of authors, ideas, and perspectives. Key topics covered include agility and programme management, planning, people, business cases, contracts, teams, sponsorship, collaboration, strategy, patterns, context, change, and benefits.
The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and, to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.
Professor Darren Dalcher
Project management is at a crossroads: There is a pressing need to rethink the approaches used in initiating, managing and governing projects, programmes and change initiatives. The aim of this book is to progress the dialogue around project practice by shifting the focus from instrumental methods and prescriptive techniques towards a context-sensitive consideration of people, strategy and change.
Projects are initiated to deliver agreed outputs that can be translated into meaningful outcomes capable of satisfying the wishes and expectations for improvement and development. Yet, people, strategy and change, which are largely ignored by the conventional bodies of knowledge, are clearly central to the sustainable and enduring success of projects, efforts and initiatives.
The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on key topics including trust, ethics, people, psychology, requirements, project performance, audits, uncertainty, anti-fragility, strategic initiatives, governance, change management and commercial management. The collection offers an invaluable new resource for informed managers looking to engage with the latest thinking and research.
Professor Darren Dalcher
People play a vital part in the success of projects, initiatives and organisations, yet traditional project management sources offer limited guidance and insights that extend beyond technical roles and prescriptions. Leading the Project Revolution delves into the dynamics of people, teams and organisations exploring their impact on leadership, strategy, success and achievement.
The book offers a progressive agenda for improving project practice, enabling the dialogue to advance from the typical coverage of static toolsets towards an understanding of flexible mindsets. Flexibility, agility and resilience are addressed as the social, cultural and complexity dimensions of leadership, strategy, organisations and project execution are examined and practical insights are synthesised into pragmatic models and frameworks.
The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on teams, leadership, corporate culture, human behaviour, organisational dynamics, psychology, complexity, strategy, execution, innovation, social media and decision sourcing.
