Market Research and Free Tools for Project Business

Welcome to Project Business

Projektgeschäft  *  Negocio de Proyecto  *  Affaires de projets  *  Business di Progetti  *  مشروع عمل  *  项目业务  *  プロジェクト事業  *  परियोजना व्यवसाय  * ธุรกิจโครงการ

The way we do projects in the 21st century is undergoing a mega-trend from internal, cross-functional Project Management to cross-corporate Project Business. 

This is one of the most significant game changers for today's projects and their managers.

Project Business happens, when two or more organizations come together as customers and contractors for the project. It is not new, but its relevance is rising. Project Business brings:

  • Customers: Agility and easy access to external know-how. 
  • Contractors: A business model and a source of íncome.

However, organizations and individuals in this field are left alone by education providers, professional associations, literature, academia, and more. Project managers reported that most are insufficiently prepared to manage projects as businesses.

Responding to this support gap, the Project Business Foundation provides a not-for-profit platform for research, discussion, tools, and templates as active help. In the coming weeks, we will add further functionality to advance the project business management profession. Stay tuned and come back from time to time.

Project Business adds layers of complexity and risk:

  • The commercial layer
  • The contractual layer
  • The legal layer

Project business is high-risk business for all parties involved that deserves research, development of tools and methods, and intensive exchange between the people involved in it.


Who Benefits from the Project Business Foundation?

Project Customers

Project customers tap into the assets of contractors for their projects and turn them into resources for their projects. 

Project Contractors

Project contractors supply valuable goods and services to customers. The payments they receive are their business, often, they are the only income they have.

Prime Contractors

Prime contractors serve customers as contractors, but are at the same time customers of their subcontractors. While project business is high-risk business for all players, prime contractors have the highest risk exposure of all.

Training Providers & Consultancies

There is a dramatic shortage in Project Business Management of educated and experienced consultancies and training providers. The Project Business Foundation helps such companies expands into this field.  

Freelancers

The Gig economy, which is driven by fast changing clusters of freelancers bringing agility and new competencies to organizations, is the most dynamic form of Project Business Management. The dependency of Project Business on freelancers is growing. 

Banks & Insurance Companies

Project Business is high-risk business for all parties involved. This gives Banks and insurance companies an opportunity for commercial success by helping build trust and covering risks. 


  Your Success Matters:
How to Benefit from the Project Business Foundation

Find Practical Advice

Project Business often comes with difficult situations, in which decisions can have detrimental effects on the project and the own organizations.

The Project Business Foundation is your capable partner for 3rd-party advice based on decades of experience and real-life research.

Find Training and Consulting Providers

The number of capable education and consulting providers in Project Business Management is small.

Ask the Project Business Foundation for contacts that match your needs.   

Develop Business Acumen and Mindset

A core pre-requisite for successful work as a project contractor or customer is business acumen and a mindset of project managers that raises them beyond the technical and organizational aspect and include commercial and legal facts that matter for the project.

The Project Business Foundation helps develop that. 


The Driving Force behind the Project Business Foundation

Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc, ACE, PMP

In 2019, Oliver F. Lehmann was a co-founder and the President of the Project Business Foundation, a professional association established under Swiss law. Under this name, the association existed until June 2022.

In July 2022, Oliver F. Lehmann readjusted the Project Business Foundation as a think tank with a pure focus on not-for-profit work, such as 

  • Research 
  • Provision of practical resources (tools, templates, etc.)
  • Offering a platform for discussion among experts and practitioners
  • Advancing the art of managing project business

Some functionality is already available, more is in work.

Oliver F. Lehmann is a trainer from Munich, Germany. Click below to see his profile:

Web profile  -  Linkedin profile  -  Downloadable PDF profile


Project Business Management - The Book

ISBN 9780367522070
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315277387
Published 2018, 2020 by Auerbach Publications
362 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations


Description: Roughly half of all project managers have to lead customer projects as profit centers on contractor side with two big objectives: making the customer happy and bringing money home. 

Customer projects are a high-risk business on both sides, customers and contractors, but the dynamics of this business have so far been mostly ignored in literature. The book fills this gap. 

The book helps project managers better understand the dynamics of customer projects under contract from business development through handover and find solutions for common problems. A central aspect is international contract laws, an often underestimated factor in projects.

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