Martin Barnes (engineer)

The former "NEC awards", awarded in 7 categories which aim to "recognise excellence in project delivery and showcase examples of good practice through collaboration from across the world", were renamed as the "Martin Barnes Awards" in 2022.

The triangle emphasises "the importance of managing 'quality' besides time and cost". Speaking to APM’s journal, Project, in 2012, Barnes said of the triangle that he "really didn’t know just how important it would become". He stated that he created it because, when he was first running projects, "they weren't even referred to as projects. You had cost engineers to look after the money, planning engineers to look after the time and nobody was really looking after the value or quality of what was actually being produced. Nobody was in charge of making sure that the end product was the useful or valuable thing that the client wanted." In a later publication, Barnes referred to the triangle as "the triangle of objectives".

From 2008 he chaired an independent dispute avoidance panel set up to avert contractual disputes on work to build facilities for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Nicholas Martin Limer Barnes (18 January 1939 – 5 February 2022) was a British civil engineer and project manager noted for his role in the development of the New Engineering Contract (NEC), and a founding member and longest-serving president (from 2003 to 2012) of the Association for Project Management (APM). He served also as the chair of the APM from 1986 to 1991, and was named an Honorary Fellow in 1995.

Born on 18 January 1939, Barnes earned a civil engineering degree from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Manchester in 1971. His doctorate was awarded for research into improved methods of financial control for engineering projects. In the same year, shortly after completing his doctorate, he set up his own project management business, which merged in 1985 with what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers. Later, he worked as a consultant in project management. He was active from 1972 onwards in the International Project Management Association (IPMA), where he was a Fellow, board member and chairman of its Council of Representatives, and one of the creators of the original Civil Engineering Standard Method of Measurement (CESMM), which was published in 1976.