‘Panta rhei’ was the immortal wisdom, spoken over 2,500 years ago by the Greek
philosopher Herakleitos. ‘Everything flows’; everything changes and nothing
remains the same. More than ever, this is true for the competitive environment
of many organizations. Whether resulting from technological progress, new
regulations, globalizing economy or inventive competitors, new developments
change the marketplace every day. Organizations are continuously reacting to
these changes, or anticipating new ones, by introducing new products and services,
improving business processes, changing resources, expanding their activities or
discarding obsolete activities. Selecting the right changes and organizing and
managing them in an effective and efficient way is, for many organizations, a
critical success factor for business agility and continuous success. Many of these
changes are managed as projects: unique efforts that require the mobilization of
resources of different disciplines, capabilities and organizational units. Project
management is developing into the key organizational skill in order to execute
these changes in a controlled manner
