Transforming Project Management While Respecting Our Diversity - Part 1

In this powerful first installment of a two-part series, host Mounir Ajam unpacks the deep-rooted challenges that continue to plague the project management profession—even after decades of certifications, guides, and frameworks.

Drawing from his paper, "Transforming Project Management While Respecting Our Diversity," Mounir takes a strategic lens to explore:

• Why project failure rates remain high across industries
• The persistent confusion between methods, tools, and delivery approaches like Agile or Hybrid
• The lack of a unified definition of success in project work
• And the urgent need for integrated, value-driven systems that move beyond task management

He also challenges the industry's current understanding of project phases, organizational maturity, and the myth of “project management software,” setting the stage for a bold transformation in how we define, manage, and deliver successful outcomes.

👉 Tune in to lay the foundation for part two, where Mounir introduces the Uruk Value Delivery Model and the blueprint for designing real, adaptable project management methods that fit your organizational context.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:27 Context and Persistent Challenges
• 3:09 Tools vs True Project Management
• 5:17 Diversity in Project Management
• 7:30 Practical Gaps Across Industries
• 9:04 Confusion About Agile and Success
• 10:46 Episode Closing and Next Steps

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the 4PM podcast, where ideas take shape and strategies find purpose. I am Mounir Ajam, founder and CEO of Uruk Project Management, and I have a deep-seated passion for project management and community development, growing on decades of global experience across diverse industries and roles. I am here to guide you through the transformative power of the 4PMs project program, product and portfolio management, and our focus on business integrated project management. Let's explore how integration unlocks unparalleled value for you and your organization. Welcome back to the 4PM Podcast. I am Munir Ajam, your host. I appreciate you joining me as we explore the evolving discipline of project management from a strategic and organizational transformation perspective. In today's episode, the first in a two-part series, we're diving into the core of what has long challenged our profession Persistent failure rates, misapplied methodologies and an overall lack of unified understanding about what project management truly is or should be. We will cover key insights from my paper titled Transforming Project Management While Respecting Our Diversity. This episode will address the foundational challenges, including the fragmented understanding of project success, confusion over terminology like agile and hybrid, and the lack of integrated system for true value delivery. In the next episode, we'll explore the Uruk value delivery model and outline a framework for tailored, results-oriented project execution.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Let's begin, let's start, with context. Project management associations have been around since the 1950s. For decades we've had various guides, training programs and certifications. Yet despite all this infrastructure, the success rate of projects globally remains stagnant. Even today, we struggle with basic alignment. There is no commonly agreed definition of project success, nor a clear understanding of what constitutes a true project management method. Meanwhile, debates over agile, waterfall and hybrid continue. But here's the irony None of these are actual project management methods. They are development approaches, often mistaken for full frameworks. Organizations frequently invest in PMOs only to dismantle them later due to poor performance or a lack of clear mandate. It's time to critically evaluate our current practices.

Speaker 1: 3:09

This paper offers a structured path forward, grounded in practice and designed for transformation. Let's take a moment to consider the tools we label as project management software. We label as project management software. Most are task management tools, perhaps with added features for timesheets, communication or basic collaboration. Others may be more sophisticated handling scheduling or risk, but they are still fragmented tools. Similarly, many of the formal guides in our field, like the PMBOK guide, focus primarily on technical project management. This often limits the project manager's role to the period after the business case is completed and ends with the operational handover. It leaves out discovery, stakeholder alignment and benefit realization. This narrow view reinforces the structural silos in organizations. The project is passed from one functional area to another with no cohesive ownership of the full value stream.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Despite our certification, bodies of knowledge and decades of theory, projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. The root causes, in our view, are the absence of a holistic, organizational-level project management system, a failure to focus on delivering business value through a structured methodological process, value through a structured methodological process. This paper advocates a shift from technical execution to a value delivery mindset. That means designing project systems that take a product or solution from concept through to implementation and measurable success. To do this, we need an organizational project management OPM system built on three core pillars People, competence, processes, methods, tools, technology. At Uruk Project Management, we've spent years refining this approach and developing the Uruk platform, a digital solution that helps organizations implement integrated portfolio and value delivery systems. But before jumping into models and tools, we must acknowledge the diversity in our field.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Project management is essential, but often undervalued or misunderstood, especially by executives. Many organizations lack the foundational system and fail to adopt meaningful digital transformation practices. There are also semantic and contextual issues. Consider this. Most guides provide generic project definition, but their application varies significantly by industry, organization size and project complexity. This is why practitioners often respond with it depends. That's not a sign of vagueness. It's a reflection of the real-world variation in how project must be led. So when we define what a project is or what project management entails, we must ask are we considering whether the organization is a project owner or service provider? Are we accounting for the project's complexity and scale? Do we recognize that different projects require different levels of process and rigor? Do we understand that the development approach agile, traditional or blended is not the same as the management method? More importantly, do we even have a shared understanding of what a project management method includes? Often, what we call methods are actually just tools or techniques, like the critical path method or earned value. Useful, yes, but not sufficient to structure an entire delivery lifecycle.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Let's talk about the practical gaps we see across industries First. Not all organizations operate the same. Some demonstrate maturity and use project management as a strategic differentiator, but many others are still navigating fundamental capability gaps. Some of the most common observations include project practitioners are unable to translate training into results. Organization over, relying on accidental project managers. A disconnect between business strategy and delivery functions. Lack of meaningful success metrics. Without well-defined system, many project managers revert to task-level oversight. That might work for smaller efforts, but it's a significant liability for large-scale or transformational initiatives. Most of the time, what we see practiced is technical project management delivery of an output, not ownership of outcomes. And this brings us to another persistent confusion mistaking process group for project phases. The process groups initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and closing occur within every phase or stage. They're not sequential lifecycle steps. Yet many organizations label their phases this way and even consultants reinforce this misconception. This misapplication undermines project control and creates reporting and governance chaos.

Speaker 1: 9:04

We also need to clarify terminology around agile. Agility is a mindset. It's about adaptability and responsiveness. Agile originally was a set of principles for software development. It is not a project management method. Many in the industry have stretched agile to fit their narrative, sometimes ignoring its limitations, especially when applied outside tech context.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Finally, let's address the big question of success and failure. Despite years of advancement, we still don't have a shared definition of what makes a project successful. Studies differ wildly. One report claims only 0.5% of capital projects succeed, another says 60%. Without clear agreed-upon criteria. Such data is anecdotal at best and we close this section with a core truth. Such data is anecdotal at best, and we close this section with a core truth.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Most of the so-called methods in use today are not methods at all Waterfall, agile, hybrid. These are delivery strategies or approaches. They do not constitute full project management methods. So what is a method? What does it include, and how do we build one that can flex to our project's context? We'll answer that in the next episode. That brings us to the end of part one of our two-part series on transforming project management while respecting our diversity. Today we laid the groundwork. We explored the systemic gaps that continue to challenge our profession, unpack the confusion around tools versus methods and emphasize the critical need to anchor project management within a value-driven organizational context. In the next episode, we'll walk through the components of a true project management method, introduce the ROOC model and discuss how organizations can build Adaptive Systems for Sustainable Success. To learn more, please visit wwwrookpmcom. You'll find publications, tools and information on the Rook platform and how it supports transformation at scale. Until next time, I'm Mounir Ajam. Keep your vision bold, your systems strong and your results visible.