Journal Article Critique: Project Management and Organizational Change

This assignment is a journal article critique of Henry A. Hornstein's 2014 article, "The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity." The student analyzes Hornstein's argument that organizational change management (OCM) is crucial for project success, supported by a literature review. The critique summarizes the article's key points, including the historical evolution of project management, the development of Project Management Bodies of Knowledge (PM Boks), and the importance of human factors and OCM. The student agrees with Hornstein's conclusion, emphasizing the need for project managers to acquire OCM skills to effectively manage human elements and achieve project goals. The critique highlights the article's strengths in its research and argument, while suggesting the inclusion of real-world examples to enhance reader engagement. The conclusion reiterates the importance of integrating OCM with project management for overall project success.

Running Head: Journal article critique
JOURNAL ARTICLE CRITIQUE
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Journal article critique
Introduction
In his 2014 article The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity by Henry A. Hornstein, creates a strong emphasis on the aspect
organizational change as a key factor in achieving project success, the author is able to
substantiate his argument through the conduction of a literature review of other credible authors’
findings and analysis on management and organizational literature.
However for this to transition accordingly, project managers or aspiring project
managers must be conversant and trained in the application of the organizational change
methodologies and the social/psychological process integrational perspectives of project
implementation as well as competency in project teams which is sustainable through the
certifying agencies (Hornstein,2014).
Article summary
The author begins by basically depicting a simple definition of project management as
the disciplined application of, skills, tools, knowledge, and techniques to project activities to
meet the project requirements. However, a significant history of project management can be
credited to the US defense department where a need for management of project tools was
deemed necessary through the development of CPM (Critical Path Method)and PERT (Planning
and Evaluation Research Techniques).

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This lead to the need for integration through project managers which was considered as a
middle management function. This sparked academic research and ideas on organizational
integration. The author notes that initially project management was viewed as a middle
management function and the focused on the challenges centered on achieving the objectives
given and the techniques to do so, this often led to project poor performance(Hornstein,2014).
The drive to develop PM Boks(Project Management Bodies of Knowledge) was initiated
and it would play a large role in the creation of competence in project management which would
lead to good performance in the long run. This resulted to wider coverage of issues that would
affect project success and competence through research and revisions of the PMIs keeping in
mind, the environmental changes that occur from time to time (Crawford, Aitken & Hassner-
Nahmias, 2014). As earlier noted, success in project management has been the main focus that
has resulted in research on the factors that lead to determining it, creating a tendency to overlook
the impacts of human factors(employees, customers, managers, etc ) (Cameron and Green,
2015)..
Human factors are crucial especially today, where individuals involved, must be on the
same page in order to achieve project goals and objectives given, this is done through effective
management of people under OCM (organizational change management) (parker, et al 2013).
Employees or users must be engaged effectively in project management process which limits
chances of resistance in changes that may occur in work, which increases project team
competency (Al-, Haddad, and Kotnour, 2015).
Resistance can also be influenced by the presence or absence of decision making which
is handled by OCM. It is worth noting that there is a tendency for many firms to assume when

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forming project teams, that project managers are adequately conversant in handling OCM, while
that may be the case the author insists on the need of acquiring OCM skills as they lack sufficient
knowledge or experience (Muller and Turner, 2017)
Critique of the article
From the abstract and the introduction, it is clear that the author's intentions in his study
are clearly depicted, however for such an issue the author has conducted in-depth research and
analysis of the essential literature that leads to his intended objective of integrating project
management with organizational change. For a keen reader, the author has admitted that
project management has long been a concern among project managers and related professions.
It is evident from the paper how much effort has been put into project management
through his strong emphasis on its history and analysis of the available literature used, however
the paper should have used relevant examples with day to day experiences or relevant events
that have occurred and would have been solved by integrating project management with
organizational change in order to keep the reader more engaged as the author builds up to his
theory(Hornstein,2014)..
Although the PM Boks were initiated to create competencies in project management,
the author still maintains the need for project managers and related professions on the need to
learn OCM skills in order to achieve success due to the impacts of human factors that have
become crucial than ever before(Hornstein,2014). Generally, the overall article is clear and
concise despite it being long but mainly due to the in-depth research which offers a substantial

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argument to the reader. therefore the article as a whole is relevant and offers a convincing
theory, slow but eventually builds up a concrete way of coming up with a solution.
Conclusion
It is clear that project management success has long been a major factor for project
managers and related profession over the years, in-depth research has been conducted over the
years on how to achieve success. Despite this, there has always been a gap that has long been
overlooked and the author has created a substantial argument through conducting a literature
review,the gap is the importance of organizational change management which mainly entails
the management of human factors which have been underrated by many researchers when
trying to achieve project success, by heavily relying on the technical side but the author has
shown it to be crucial which implies that management of OCM impacts project success.
Moreover, success should include organizational change management. In order to achieve this
fully, it is essential for all project managers and related professions to learn OCM skills.
Therefore, I agree with the author that there is a need for integrating organizational change and
project management.

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References
Al-, Haddad, S., & Kotnour T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model
for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools, and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Crawford, L., Aitken, A., & Hassner-Nahmias, A. (2014). Project Management and
Organizational Change. Project Management Institute, Inc.
Hornstein, H. A. (2014). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Muller, R., & Turner, J. R. (2017). Project-oriented leadership. Routledge.
Parker, D., Charlton, J., Ribeiro, A., & D. Pathak, R. (2013). Integration of project-based
management and change management: Intervention methodology. International
Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 62(5), 534-544.