A long time ago my job was in pharmacokinetics, the branch of pharmacology dedicated to determining the fate of substances administered to a living organism. In addition to principles of physiology, at its core pharmacokinetics has also a strong mathematical basis and this latter part always fascinated me. I spent a lot of time dealing with pharmacokinetics and pharmacological “models”. Decades later, that modelling has long gone (sigh!), but I still deal with “models”, of completely different nature.
Those who get into the project management profession will have on their desks not only “models“, but maybe also “theories” and many “frameworks“. I thought it was going to be interesting to talk about these terms in a short series of articles and see if I could pin down some useful principles. The problem with the definitions of these terms lies in the fact that these terms apply differently depending on field, sector and industry. The terms have also evolved over time and in some fields they are often used interchangeably.
I am personally comfortable with the following definitions:
A ‘theory’ is a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
A ‘model’ is a representation for the operations, mechanisms, processes or structure of something.
A ‘framework’ is a way of describing and representing the empirical relations between every aspect of the operation, mechanism, process or subject that it is being studied or analysed.
I hope this new series of articles could be of help, especially to those who are approaching the PM profession in the early days of their career, to help them to distinguish between the terms, to appreciate their importance and to use them appropriately. And if there are expert professionals reading this series, well… I would love to get their feedback and their critique!
The article on Theories is now available, as the ones on Models and on Frameworks.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
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