Project management and music in education and related fields

Project Management (PM) is a well-established field of research with the scope of inquiry now ranging far beyond the industrial and corporate sectors from which it first emerged. Starting from the premise that PM expertise is a valuable professional attribute and life skill of relevance to many if not all educational disciplines, questions emerge both as to how relevant techniques can be most effectively applied in educational contexts, and how insights might potentially be drawn from the study of different disciplines to enrich the PM profession. This paper focuses initially on higher education (specifically university level study) within the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries, and provides a contextual analysis of the discourse and practice of PM in undergraduate degree subjects. Discussion then narrows in on the discipline of music, as a specific context for consideration of PM through the educational and professional continuum. Identifying a relative absence of explicit PM theory or terminology in the vast majority of degree subjects at least in the UK, there is, nevertheless, an underlying presence of project-based activity at least implicit in all university education and music, in particular, presents a distinctive example of a creative, cultural, educational, where PM is an integral component and experience of subject and discipline. This paper concludes by identifying significant value in the development of a more explicit approach to PM in educational contexts and considerable scope for the development of professional relationships between PM organizations and the higher education sector in particular.

Project Management (PM) is a well-established field of research with the scope of inquiry now ranging far beyond the industrial and corporate sectors from which it first emerged. Starting from the premise that PM expertise is a valuable professional attribute and life skill of relevance to many if not all educational disciplines, questions emerge both as to how relevant techniques can be most effectively applied in educational contexts, and how insights might potentially be drawn from the study of different disciplines to enrich the PM profession.
This paper focuses initially on higher education (specifically university level study) within the United Kingdom (UK) and other countries, and provides a contextual analysis of the discourse and practice of PM in undergraduate degree subjects. Discussion then narrows in on the discipline of music, as a specific context for consideration of PM through the educational and professional continuum. Identifying a relative absence of explicit PM theory or terminology in the vast majority of degree subjects at least in the UK, there is, nevertheless, an underlying presence of project-based activity at least implicit in all university education and music, in particular, presents a distinctive example of a creative, cultural, educational, where PM is an integral component and experience of subject and discipline. This paper concludes by identifying significant value in the development of a more explicit approach to PM in educational contexts and considerable scope for the development of professional relationships between PM organizations and the higher education sector in particular.