Prof Peter Morris
The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management is an international centre of excellence in the teaching and research of project economics and management. We supply project-based organisations with exceptional graduates, and lead postgraduate research in the field. We are part of The Bartlett: UCL's global faculty of the built environment.
Profile
Biography
My career over the last 40 years has comprised a mixture of executive appointments, consulting, and academic work. Throughout, I have sought to understand the concepts behind what should be leading (best) practices in my area of work.
Apart from my research and teaching I lead an active consulting life - I am Executive Director of INDECO, a leading management consultancy specialising in the management of projects. I am a Vice President of the Association for Project Management (APM) (I was Chairman between 1992 and 1996) and sit on several government panels connected with project management and construction. In 2008, I was awarded APM's highest honour, the Sir Monty Finniston Award, for a life-time's achievement in project management. This followed the Research Achievement Award, given to me in 2004. I am currently editing the Oxford Handbook of Project Management (OUP, 2010).
Research Summary
An abiding interest is what constitutes the discipline of managing projects. I have shown in my research (The Anatomy of Major Projects, John Wiley, 1987; The Management of Projects, Thomas Telford, 1984; Translating Corporate Strategy into Project Strategy, 2004; The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects, 2005) that managing the front-end of projects is key to their success; that managing them in relation to their context (environment) is also important, as is managing the technical and commercial issues; and that above all, projects begin and end with people. This is a big canvas on which to work and it provides much scope for research and teaching. My work covers the energy sectors (oil & gas), ICT, general manufacturing, drug development, and construction. I am looking at the management needs for developing, delivering and operating built environment 'systems' over the next 20-30 years.
Research outputs
| Reconstructing Project Management | 2013 | Morris |
| Cleland and King: project management and the systems approach | 2012 | Morris PWG |
| The Oxford Handbook of Project Management | 2011 | Morris PWG,Pinto JK,Söderlund J |
| Research and the future of project management | 2011 | MORRIS P |
| Managing the Institutional Context for Projects | 2011 | Morris PWG,Geraldi J |
| A Brief History of Project Management | 2011 | Morris PWG |
| Managing the Front-End: Back to the beginning | 2011 | MORRIS P |
| Managing architectural competitions: empirical evidence from practices in The UK and Italy | 2010 | Manzoni B,Morris PWG,Smyth HJ |
| Research and the future of project management. | 2010 | Morris PWG |
| Implementing Strategy through Project Management: the importance of managing the front-end | 2009 | Morris PWG |
