Verktækni - 2019, Qupperneq 60

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Figure 1. The timeline of Project Management (loosely based on Neal and Harpham (2012) but extended
by the authors).

In this paper, we will look at the development of the project management discipline in Iceland. We will
mirror it in the development of project management worldwide, but more importantly we will relate it
to ideas about how a profession emerges and gains strength through certain steps. We will thus try to
shed light on the present status of project management in Iceland and lay the foundations for further
work in this area with the intention of assessing the importance of project management within the
Icelandic economy.

The research questions we intend to answer in this paper are:
1. How did the project management profession emerge and evolve in Iceland?
2. What are the historical milestones and influencing factors in the development of the project
management profession in Iceland?
3. What is the present status of project management as a profession in Iceland?

To answer these questions, our theoretical overview will focus on the building blocks of professions and
how they evolve, and how project management reflects these ideas. Our research method will be to
accumulate written and verbal references about the progress of project management in Iceland and
compare these with the general ideas about how professions evolve, project management in particular.
Examples of specific projects will be given; they have been selected by us as they are considered, in one
way or another, to represent important milestones in the evolution of project management in Iceland.