Unfortunately, the Standish group’s study contributes to a project performance level that is already dystopian in its existence and stagnant in its progress. As a project management community, we must craft a plan that provides the level of project related acumen that helps us meets and exceeds the expectations of customers; in any industry. Walters Consulting believes project managers should aggressively seek to enhance their project management and business acumen to
become “leaders” who manage projects. Essentially, leaders who are equipped with business and domain knowledge, pragmatic tools and techniques, conflict resolution skills, and soft skills among others, that will galvanize their project teams and create an environment in which project success is the norm.

Project Management: Novice-To-Expert is a qualitative comparative case study approach that investigates how project managers in the context of the Engineering Procurement and Construction management (EPCM) industry initiate, navigate, and successfully traverse the arduous, but rewarding path that the author calls the “Novice-To-Expert Continuum”. Specifically, this book is an expose` on “how project managers become experts?” The book primarily focuses on the EPCM industry, but the information uncovered by this research, can be applied to other professions such as IT, Healthcare, Banking, library science, Real Estate, Marketing, Sales, Accounting, Finance, government, sanitation, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and beyond.
The three major constructs of expertise: Absolute, relative, and the theory of deliberate practice are used as the study’s conceptual framework, along with project management, continuing professional education (CPE) and informal learning to investigate, and ultimately expound on how project managers become experts in the context of the EPCM industry and other industries as mentioned above.