Detecting the early essence of ‘modern’ project management – An historic case study approach (HMS Barham 1912-1915)

Turner, Aidan

Abstract

This thesis investigates the management methods and tools and techniques used in the delivery of what we would today call a major project, but one which was completed some 50 years before Project Management was recognised as a management discipline.

The research takes a case study approach and researches, from a project management perspective, the management records and artefacts found relating to John Brown and Sons construction of HMS Barham, one of the Queen Elizabeth Dreadnoughts built between 1912 and 1915. It considers the means by which one of the central UK shipbuilders of WWI was able to meet the country’s need for battleships and contrasts this with the approaches used today by Modern Project Management. The purposes of these artefacts, from a project management perspective, are tested with today’s project managers in order to gain independent and expert confirmation of their function. Through this approach, the study sheds light on the understanding of Project Management from an earlier time than has been previously recorded to this degree of granularity. It helps to answer calls in recent academic articles for the more detailed study of project management histories that can add value to future studies, seeking to develop the study of project management, either from a practical or theoretical standpoint.

The study shows in detail the documents used and hence the functions carried out during what we would today refer to as a project’s lifecycle. In addition, the study directly addresses and answers questions raised by the call for more research into project management history and establishes that it is indeed possible to research projects at this level of granularity, which the study establishes had not been done previously to this level of detail. The primary outcome of the research is to provide a better understanding of the practices and techniques of early projects, with its associated benefits for those developing project management theories and to provide a systematic exploration of an historical project, enabling current research to be better informed by knowledge of past practice and past empirical explorations.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 4, 2022
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7915829
• Award Date: Jul 4, 2022