John Turchek

Project management characteristics associated with Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives

Critical thinking skills have traditionally played an important part in solving the unique and demanding tasks associated with Project Management (PM). Higher-order thinking skills usually involve the top three levels of Blooms (1956) Taxonomy, which includes analysis, synthesis and evaluation. A survey of practicing project managers in the Pittsburgh, PA area revealed several significant groups or clusters through principal components and factor analysis techniques. These constructs help define some of the major concerns of PM practitioners. Related to higher levels of critical thinking and PM tasks/problems, these constructs include the following: Quality Assurance and Response, Quality and Training, Project Resource Concerns, Project Goals and Team Concerns, Project Data Base and Resources, Computer Tools, Internet and Computerised Scheduling, Outsourcing and Prototyping, Project Acceleration and Design, and Co-Locate Project Personnel. These learning levels and related tasks/problems should provide useful insight into the PM discipline in order to develop the required critical thinking skills.