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Peter Morris championed a holistic, integrative approach to construction management, developing a project as it evolved through a series of stages.
He put听this phenomenal growth down to the school adopting a three-pronged strategy: be focused, be relevant, and communicate. Each supports the other two. It started with his PhD.
The basis to Morris鈥檚 work was the 1966 book by Professor Marion Bowley,听The British Building Industry.听This showed that many of the industry鈥檚 problems were due to ineffective integration between design and production. Morris followed Bowley in seeing integration between design and construction as the key intellectual issue. His PhD, in 1972, showed that the integration required on a project should vary in response to project size, speed and complexity.
Project management but bigger
In 1987, he extended this argument, developing a perspective that was much broader than the view of project management that was common in the 1960s and 70s (and which is still pervasive today). Traditionally, construction projects were organised under standard contractual arrangements which kept the contractor at arms length from 鈥榯he client鈥檚 representative鈥�, usually the architect or the engineer.
As a result, problems, as they inevitably arose, were poorly managed; claims were the norm and overruns were common. There was no active overall management of the project. Morris鈥檚 research called for a more holistic approach; the focus being to build the project as it develops through a series of stages. He called it 鈥楾he Management of Projects鈥櫶�(Thomas Telford, 1994).听It was project management but bigger. 鈥淭he Front End is key,鈥� said Morris in 2019.
Project management prior to this research was seen as largely normative and deterministic 鈥� the 鈥榦ut-of-the-box鈥� application of techniques and tools, processes and practices, where the job is to deliver the project 鈥榦n time, in budget, to scope鈥�. But Morris says that this begs the question: who sets these targets? Who ensures the emerging project best fits its needs?
鈥淚t is pre-eminently the owner of the project 鈥� the sponsor 鈥� supported by such project expertise as may be required,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭his is essentially what managing the 鈥楩ront End鈥� is all about and why it is so important.鈥�
Managing the Front End, applying a systems framework, and adopting a contingency approach to designing management practices and organisational structures were the thrusts of CPM鈥檚 research strategy. Sexy but relevant, is how Morris described听it. 鈥淎dd to this a high regard for critical review and you have the intellectual bedrock of the school鈥檚 project management research.鈥�
Collaboration and critical thinking
Relevance was, and is, crucial: 鈥淲e were constantly asking the 鈥榮o what?鈥� question.鈥� Staff were encouraged to spend time with practitioner organisations, consulting and researching. The school became one of 果冻影院鈥檚 most frequent users of KTPs or Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.
鈥淲e had several PhD students sponsored by industry and at least two master鈥檚 programmes specially designed for industry, one being exclusively for Network Rail. Our aim was 鈥� and still is 鈥� to help people think critically. The scope of our work was clearly large. Not fearing to address them helped us come out top in our Unit of Assessment in the 2008 RAE.鈥�
The school set great store on communicating. While Head of School听Morris wrote five books. 鈥淲riting helps clarify the message and we addressed a great variety of topics. We kept reflecting on the philosophical basis of the discipline as we saw it,鈥� he reflected.
Some dealt with specific issues, both domestic and international; some were historical, others forward-looking. 鈥淚t is still a dynamic, crucial area of research and practice,鈥� said Morris. 鈥淲hile the track record of projects has certainly improved, they are still often late and over budget and, while this may reflect the real-life complexity and difficulty of managing projects, there is an ongoing need for research and teaching to help address this performance gap.鈥�
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