Dr. Martin Barnes
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
1939 - 2022
Founder, Fellow, Former Chair and President, APM
Fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering
Dr. Martin Barnes, PhD, CBE was President of the Association for Project Management (APM), the professional body for project managers in the UK, until the end of October 2012. He was a founding member (no. 10) of APM in 1972 and was an active APM leader until recently. He was APM Chair in the 1980s and was named an APM Fellow in 1995. Martin has a civil engineering degree from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK. His doctorate was awarded in 1971 for research into improved methods of financial control for engineering projects. Martin Barnes invented the classic Time/Cost/Quality triangle and other project management techniques over the years. He built up his own PM business over 15 years until it merged with PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1985.
As a consultant in project management, Martin was also Executive Director of the Major Projects Association (MPA) for nine years until 2006. Dr Barnes advised on significant projects in many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, for the World Bank, other funding agencies, governments, promoters and major contractors. He worked on projects in the engineering, defense, aerospace, IT, financial, business change and media sectors. Martin’s BBC television programme on project management has been used as a training aid in many countries. He acted as expert witness in a number of arbitrations concerning major projects. Martin led the team that produced the New Engineering Contract (NEC), a system of contracts designed to facilitate and stimulate the use of modern project management across all the contributors on a project. The NEC is now being used in over 20 countries and has been adopted by the UK government for all publicly funded construction projects.
Martin Barnes was active in the IPMA since 1972, having attended all but one of its world congresses since that year. He presented papers at most of them. He is a Fellow of IPMA and a former board member and Chairman of its Council of Representatives. Dr Barnes is a recipient of the Chartered Institute of Management’s Special Award and of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Watson Medal in the UK, both for his personal contributions to the development of project management. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the UK’s highest engineering recognition, and is a Churchill Fellow. He received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), the highest-ranking Order of the British Empire award (excluding a knighthood/damehood), in 2009 for services to engineering.
Martin Barnes passed away on 5 February 2022 in Oxfordshire, UK.