Verktækni - 2019, Page 75

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as a part of a sum-up work session in conclusion of their 3rd of four semesters in the program. The
results are shown in Table 4 which also explains the simple grading system.

Table 4. Status of project management in Iceland.

For reference, we have assessed the status of project management in UK according to our simple
grading system. Our assessment is based on the fact that the Association for Project Management in UK
has become the Chartered body for the project profession in UK ("Royal Charter | APM", 2017). The last
column of the table shows our assessment of the status of project management in Iceland.

We argue that project management has not yet evolved to become a fully developed profession in
Iceland. ‘Scope creeps’ in projects are common and research has shown that cost overruns are the rule
rather than the exception in public construction projects. There seems to be a lack of standardization,
and even though project management has gained weight in society, there is a huge improvement
potential in all sectors, not least in the public sector, where project management maturity has been
measured and found to be very low, and where the government has not played any role in pushing for
the implementation of project management governance, even though this has happened in neighboring
countries.

From the beginning, the main drivers advocating professionalism in project management in Iceland were
motivated individuals who then gradually formed a community of practice that later became the VSF.
VSF has continued this development by offering the ICB3/ICB4 IPMA competence baselines in Icelandic
and a certification system based on it. The initiative to move the profession still further has perhaps
been transferred to the universities that now offer both diploma programs (VOGL, APME) and graduate
programs (MPM, MPM/MSc and MSc) in project management. Further, Icelandic businesses and
organizations that operate in an international environment, and have to comply to international
standards, such as the National Power Company, have had to meet variety loan conditions defined by
the World Bank. In recent years, we have seen an expansion of these drivers, with international
businesses that operate in the dynamic competitive world market and have had to apply modern project