1.rethinking project management-researching the actuality of projects

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Rethinking Project Management: Researching the actuality of projects

Svetlana Cicmil a,*, Terry Williams b, Janice Thomas c, Damian Hodgson d

a Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY, UKb School of Management, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

c School of Innovative Management, Athabasca University, 1 University Drive, Athabasca, Canada AB T9S 3A3d Manchester Business School, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK

Abstract

This paper puts forth the somewhat controversial position that what is needed to improve project management in practice is not moreresearch on what should be done or the frequency and/or use of traditional project management practices. We argue that while a greatdeal is written about traditional project management we know very little about the actuality of project based working and manage-ment. This paper formulates a research approach that takes seriously practitioners lived experience of projects. We explore the ontolog-ical, epistemological and methodological assumptions underlying this kind of research and provide examples of some projectmanagement research originating from this perspective. We conclude by summarizing the findings from these studies and providinginsights into the map ahead for future such research. In this kind of work the attention is refocused on praxis, on context-dependent

judgement, on situational ethics and on reflexivity which enables social actors to see how power actually functions in context. 2006 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Actuality; Practice; Rationality; Project management

1. Introduction

The aim of the paper is to formulate and map a strandof research within the project management field that ade-quately addresses the actuality of project based workingand management. The paper draws on the aims, processand outcomes of the Rethinking Project Management Net-work, including the discussions that took place over itsduration within and outside formal meetings, and on a

number of joint initiatives among us, the authors of thispaper, which resulted from our shared interest in method-ologies and concepts relevant to this strand of research inthe field. Our central claim is that a better understandingof project actuality that is, of complex social processesthat go on at various levels of project working, will informequally beneficially the intended theoretical developments

in the project management field and practical action in pro-ject environments, and will contribute to more satisfactoryoutcomes of contemporary projects.

In the subsequent sections of this paper we will explainthis claim by proposing a framework for conceptualisationof project actuality and how we understand it. We do soby drawing on selected work in the field of sociology ofmanagement practice, on our own recent work in the PMfield, on examples and insights from discussions and expe-

riences generated from the Rethinking Project Manage-ment Network meetings and sense-making papers, andon the aims and outcomes of the RPM Network, outlinedand represented in Table 1 and Fig. 1 of the first paper inthis special issue [1]. We will particularly outline two keyaspects of the project actuality research that we proposeas unique in comparison with other strands of inquiry inthe domain of project management: (1) the underpinningconceptual and philosophical considerations and (2) themethodological approaches and treatment of empiricalevidence. These are seen as complementary to (and not

0263-7863/$30.00 2006 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.08.006

* Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Cicmil).

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International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 675686

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

PROJECTMANAGEMENT
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competing with) other strands of the project managementresearch and they, together, enhance the intellectual foun-dations of the field in terms of its practical relevance andtheoretical diversity.

2. Understanding project actuality

At this point, we draw the readers attention to thepaper in this issue by Winter et al. [1] which summarisesand discusses the principle finding of the Network theproposed shift in thinking and research orientation totackle the identified and so far neglected themes from prac-titioners experiences with project working and manage-ment in a novel way, thus creating knowledge which isrelevant to practice and reflects the interests of both aca-demic and practitioner communities. In a nutshell, theidentified themes for collaborative investigation are theareas of project complexity, social process, value creation,project conceptualisation and practitioner development.

Table 1 in [1] details the proposed directions, which havebeen used together with the methodological framework(Fig. 1 in [1]) to facilitate this paper.

3. Conceptual and theoretical considerations in project

actuality research

We would like to start with the premise that projectactuality encompasses the understanding of the lived expe-rience of organisational members with work and life intheir local project environments. Their actions, decisionsand behaviours are understood as being embedded in and

continuously re-shaped by local patterns of power relationsand communicative inter-subjective interaction in realtime. The underlying assumption, that reflects practitio-ners accounts, is that projects are complex social settingscharacterized by tensions between unpredictability, controland collaborative interaction among diverse participantson any project. Project management practice is conse-quently seen as a social conduct, defined by history, context,individual values and wider structural frameworks. Withthis kind of assumptions, actuality research, as a streamof thought, demonstrates a deep interest in livedexperienceof project actors, with the aim to understand what is actu-ally going on in the arrangements labelled project overtime, to give an alternative account of what project manag-ers do in concrete project situations and to explore skillsand knowledge that constitute the social and politicalaction in managing projects. Researching the actuality ofprojects means focusing on social process and how practi-tioners think in action, in the local situation of a livingpresent.

In conceptualizing such an inquiry researchers typicallyengage in a reflective deliberation about theoretical tradi-tions that address the issues of management as social con-duct in the above outlined way, which results in pragmaticphilosophical considerations of the issues such as complex-

ity, power, intuition, decision making, collaborative

working, learning and communication, and the relation-ship between agency and structure in the local context. Thisrepresents a shift from a model-based, instrumentalapproach to researching projects and project management,towards a praxis-based theory and research. The formerproduces universal theory which, while sound, is not

always useful in the specific context of application. The lat-ter focuses on the empirical reality of projects by takinginto account different contexts in which project manage-ment is enacted, thus addressing complexity, non-linearity,values, multiple perspectives and social processes in projectenvironments. Researching the actuality of projects, there-fore, consists of gathering, analysing, and disseminatingknowledge about people working in concert with things,technologies, and each other and the means through whichthese relations are coordinated and controlled, for whatends [2]. Similarly to what is being proposed with Table1 in [1] as the outcome of the Network process, actualityresearch invokes the need for integrative pragmatic theory

and the development of social knowledge and wisdom rel-evant to the context of project management practice.

Taking this research direction, scholars and practitio-ners may inspire the construction of theories which includethe moral dimension of human conduct in organisationsand explain the dynamics of complex processes over time[3, p. 877]. In contrast to other types of project manage-ment research which draws on models and objective,instrumental rationality of actors, a pragmatic researchof project actuality generates knowledge and builds theo-ries which have the following qualities [36, among others]:

the understanding of the actors moral and ethicalmotives (practical reason) and their sense-making pro-cesses (enactment) and how their actions unfold overtime and in connection with other, multiple events;

the experience of emotions and feelings that drive actionin complex environments;

closer insight into intentions, political agendas and per-sonal drives of individual actors; and

the identification of tensions, power asymmetries andpatterns of communicative relating among individualsand groups and how they are being negotiated in thecontext.

This kind of thinking is represented in Heidegers con-cept ofda sein or involved-in-the-world manager [7]; pro-cessual approaches to studying management such asbecoming ontology, e.g. [8] and complex responsive pro-cesses of relating in organisations [5,9]; and a number ofother works by writers who consider the relationshipbetween agency and structure, and methodologicalapproaches to theorising practice by connecting action toculture, structure, power, and patterns of intersubjectiverelating and dominant discourses, as being the key con-cerns in contemporary social theory [6,1014, among oth-ers]. In this kind of work the attention is refocused on

praxis, on context-dependent judgement, on situational

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ethics and on reflexivity which enables social actors to seehow power actually functions in context. The notion ofpraxis becomes central to theorising skills, knowledgeand competencies of managers. Praxis is a form of actionwhich is fundamentally contingent on context-dependentjudgement and situational ethics.

We believe that philosophically oriented research andwriting in project management, that actuality researchersargue for, is a good way to build a more pluralist commu-nity of researchers, one which takes stances on ethical andpolitical matters, frequently neglected in the main-stream PM work. Focused on serious consideration ofknowledge in action, actuality research provides aninsight into some shortcomings of the mainstream goal ofdisseminating best practice in project management tomasses of practitioners, where there is more often thannot, an implicit belief in the possibility of the progressiverationalisation of social action and of commodified PMbody of knowledge.

In order to fulfil its intellectual task, any inquiry thattakes project actuality as its focus, should combine practi-cal philosophical considerations and conceptual diversityin theorising practice with concrete empirical analysis[3,6,8]. In the section below we discuss the overarchingmethodological approach to project actuality research.

4. Methodological foundations of project actuality research

The preceding discussion poses an implicit requirementfor theorising practice to be listening to practitioners andtheir interpretation of their own experiences and actions.

Appropriate research strategies such as rich ethnographicstudies and action research are based on co-authorship.Co-authorship enables theory building by combining schol-arly theorising and practitioners narratives. The researcheris not interviewing nor surveying the participant butengaging in a critical dialogue with the practitioner whoreflects and interprets their own experience.

Calori [3], for example, proposes pragmatic epistemol-ogy as a methodological framework, involving reflectivepractitioners and pragmatic researchers who engagetogether in co-authoring theories and creating knowledgewhich is immediate, pragmatic and contextualised. Thekey principles of this methodological approach match thenature of actuality research in project management. Insummary, a study following the principles of pragmaticepistemology:

is designed as a participative cooperative inquiry wherethe primary emphasis is not on universals (i.e. elementsof perceived good practice) but on a range of atypicalthings and activities experienced as significant by actorsin the local context;

encourages both the participants and the researchers tothink more deeply about the research topic, and theimplications of potential outcomes of the research for

a wider range of interested parties;

allows for holistic and shared understanding of humanaction (practice) which, in turn, enables the constructionof epistemic theories (about practice) as the researcherand the researched should share time-space andaction-reflection in face-to-face situations [3, p. 878];

encourages reflection and a multiple perspectives

approach; and requires a conscious effort to understand the interrela-tionship and inseparability between agency (individualbehaviour and action) and structure (organisational pol-icies, procedures, and legitimised routines) in the con-text, rather than considering them as discrete anddetached from each other.

The underlying value embedded in this kind of researchmethodology is co-production of knowledge between theresearcher and the researched (e.g. PM practitioner) withthe aim to connect action and reflection through fusionand cooperation between reflective practitioners and prag-

matic researchers [3,1518].

5. Implications for the developments in project management

field

The studies dedicated to researching the actuality ofprojects subject to a critical examination the conventionalPM body of knowledge and the universal best practice pre-scriptions offered to practitioners in most of the main-stream texts, manuals and procedures. The mainstreamresearch into projects and project management has beencriticised in the recent years for its heavy reliance on the

functionalist/instrumental view of projects and organisa-tions [1925,38,39], where the function of project manage-ment is taken to be the accomplishment of some finite pieceof work in a specified period of time, within a certain bud-get, and to agreed specification (which is, in turn, a conven-tional definition of project). Project actuality researchattempts to respond to some of the critique. From this per-spective, projects do not exist as given, ready made andneutral, but are constituted by the actions of interdepen-dent actors through the process of power and conversa-tional relating in the medium of symbols which act asrepresentations of shared meaning and direction for action[8,5,26]. This perspective deliberately seek[s] out informa-tion for answering questions about what structural factorsinfluence individual actions, how those actions are con-structed, and their structural consequences [6, p. 138].

This violates the principles of positivist scientificresearch but provides a different kind of (useful social)knowledge which, combined with normative theoreticalapproaches and knowledge in project management, broad-ens the intellectual foundations of the project managementsubject and of the field as practiced. There are significantdifferences in theory and knowledge constructed on thebasis of studying knowledge objects such as projects andproject management processes as pre-existing, given, before

we become aware of them, and theory and knowledge

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which take practice as becoming, or emergingunder specificconditions of power, structures, history and intentions ofactors in a specific local context, and reflecting lived (notmodelled) experience of practicing project managers. Thepractitioners accounts presented and discussed within theNetwork indicate that practice based knowledge is

bounded by its contextual nature where actions and dispo-sitional behaviours of practitioners are influenced by theirown identity and processes of sense-making (of the contextand its circumstances) where actors apply their implicitrules in combination with the external ones explicated inmanuals and procedures. Similarly, the underlying norma-tive aspirations and functionalist agenda in a wider field ofmanagement have long been critiqued in, for example[2,6,16,2729] among others. Alvesson and Deetz [29] havecommented on the problems with narrow, conventionalapproaches to studying the practice of management whichfocus on planning, organizing, coordinating and control-ling, but which do not fully reflect organisational reality

as messy, ambiguous, fragmented and political incharacter.

6. Some illustrations of project actuality research

In this section, we illustrate how some of the keyissues raised in the Network meetings and sense-makingpapers on the theme of project actuality have beenaddressed in concrete research inquiries by the authors ofthis paper.

6.1. Researching complexity as an aspect of project actuality

In line with the conceptual and methodological founda-tions of actuality research, Cicmil and Marshall [30] havedrawn on processual theory of complexity [5,9,14] and abecoming ontology [8,31] to: (1) propose a critical frame-work for the conceptualisation of the complex nature ofconstruction projects; (2) evaluate the relationship betweenan innovative procurement mechanism and team integra-tion processes; and (3) identify alternative types of knowl-edge and skills relevant to practitioners involved in thiskind of projects. Positioned within the framework of prag-matic epistemology, the study deployed a longitudinal, casestudy based method framed as cooperative inquiry (wherethe researchers and the researched cooperated in interpret-ing the lived experience) to achieve the above three aims.The intention was to broaden our understanding of whatgoes on in project settings from practitioners point ofview, what kind of knowledge they consider useful in theireveryday practice in their local situations, and what kind ofskills and competencies are relevant to complexities of project arrangements.

Four key themes have been explored in a series ofco-operative participative interview sessions of this kind:

the practical use of formal project management tools

and techniques (planning and control) in context,

the way project managers participated in complex pro-cesses of intersubjective interaction, including both con-versational and power relating;

the way they coped with unpredictability, ambiguity andequivocality in the local project situation in the livingpresent; and

the kind of knowledge and skills that they used anddeveloped during the experience.

The participating practitioners became the researcherspartners in the process of the inquiry. The process of activeinterviewing (as a method of data collection) encouragedthe practitioners reflection and accounts in relation to dis-crete projects in a specific context of the living present.

The perspective of a becoming ontology (in contrast toa being ontology) which was used as interpretative frame-work, privileges activity over substance, process overproduct, and novelty over continuity [8, p. 866]; it empha-sises the role of language, the nature of intersubjective con-

versational and power relating, and emergent properties oforganisational arrangements as outcomes of disparate andambiguous political practices. Such a combination of theo-retical and methodological approaches enabled researchersand participating practitioners to address together theimportant issues of project management praxis such associal responsibility, judgement, emotions, the operationof dominant discourses, power-knowledge relationship,and practical wisdom, which are rarely captured by con-ventional research methodologies in project management.As a result, the authors were able to offer theoreticallymore coherent concept of project complexity that captures

the persisting concerns articulated by practitioners: (1)complex processes of communicative and power relatingamong project actors; (2) ambiguity and equivocalityrelated to project performance criteria (success/failure)over time; and (3) the consequence of time-flux (change,unpredictability, and the paradox of control). In addition,the study illuminated the nature of the actions and inter-ventions required to manage in complex project settings,particularly drawing attention to the practice of publicreflection and multiple perspectives approach in communi-cative interaction in project based work seen as a collabo-rative learning process.

6.2. Project management education and development

Another example of actuality research is the work byCicmil and Hodgson [3235] in which the authors aimhas been to revisit the concepts of project managementknowledge and skills from the position of critical manage-ment studies, and utilising the principles of phronetic socialscience [6] and the data collection method known as activeinterviewing [36]. This study has been dedicated to broad-ening our understanding of practical action and managerialconduct in project environments and of knowledge andskills that project managers use in their daily coping with

the complexity of projects.



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The rationale for the inquiry was a concern shared bythe authors that, governed by the tradition of natural sci-ences, the project management body of knowledge has forlong emphasised the role of project actors and managers asimplementers narrowing down their role to the issues ofcontrol (time and cost) and content (planned scope of work

reflecting a predetermined purpose and goal of the project),marginalising their wider potential role as competent socialand political actors in complex arrangements structured asprojects [37]. This assumes rationality, universality, objec-tivity, the capacity of individuals to collect, analyse andcommunicate information, in resolving problems of projectwork and make value-free decisions. This implies the imageof project mangers as skilful technicians with the associ-ated expectations regarding their personal behaviour,traits, knowledge and responses to complexity.

The methodological approach and the interpretation ofempirical material was guided by the proposition thatimprovisation is part of coping and acting, as external

rules cannot account for their own interpretation in situby actors. The actors responses are governed by skillsthat have in time and with experience become reflexivelyautomatic and intuitive, and as important for good resultsas are analysis, rationality and rules [2,4,6]. Knowledgeabout conduct in a local situation of the living presentcombines both epistemic knowledge (of universal regulari-ties) and practical knowledge (prudence) which arisesthrough action and experience. This implies heterogeneity,context dependent knowledge, reflexivity in learningand action, the social and psychological process ofknowing or adopting, and enacting knowledge and

recommendations.The view on management skills adopted in this study is,

therefore, less static and more processual, involving reflec-tion and prudence as part of human conduct in organisa-tions. This does not exclude instrumental rationality as animportant aspect of project management as a social skill,but insists on balancing it with value rationality, whichmeans recognising and coping with the operation of powerin any social setting, the need for intuition, multiple per-spective, holistic thinking, moral and ethical considerationas part of complex human interaction and relating. In thiskind of work the attention is refocused from theory forpractice (the heritage from normal science approachesto management) towards theory of practice (focusing onpraxis). This conception contrasts sharply with the func-tionalist assumption, implicit in many accounts of projectmanagement education, which limits itself to instrumentalrationality and therefore constructs the project manageras a skilful technician.

Instead, Flyvbjerg suggests phronesis to put forward hisnotion of the manager as a virtuoso social and politicalactor whose virtues include reflexivity, ethics value ratio-nality, and the use of judgement, and intuition in context.Citing Aristotle, Flyvbjerg thus argues in favour of practi-cal rationality in management, understood as . . .the pos-

session of the single virtue of prudence (which) carr(ies)

with it the possession of them all [6, p. 60]. Following thisapproach, two key issues emerged from Cicmil and Hodg-son studies. The first is related to the process of learning,development and mastering of project management skillsand competencies beyond those prescribed by the main-stream literature (Table 1). The research confirms the rele-

vance of value-rational intellectual virtues (practicalrationality and considerations of value and power) foraction in project environments. Here, context-dependent,reflection-based knowledge and a practitioners own con-crete experiences form the basis for the development ofintuitive, holistic, and synchronous management practicesthat are at the crux of a virtuoso performance in projectenvironments.

The second important insight from this research relatesto the ways of broadening the intellectual foundations ofthe project management discipline to include these virtues.by contrasting the traditional approaches based onrational, objective, and universal representations of the

project with a phronetic analysis of the ambiguous, frag-mented and political reality of project situations. This real-ity, we argue, is far removed from the vision of projectmanagers as rational technicians, dealing with technicalissues that are resolvable through the application of supe-rior knowledge of the planning and control techniques,while marginalising political and social aspects of projectreality. Because of this, we would underline the need toacknowledge prudence and value-rationality as importantvirtues in the context of contemporary projects aboveand beyond the traditional, mainstream view of projectmanagement as value-neutral competence (Table 2).

6.3. Making sense of project management

Yet another example of actuality research is the work byThomas and Buckle [3844] exploring the many representa-tions of project management that are present in everydayproject experience and the challenges the existence of thesevaried ways to understand this construct creates in the livedexperience of project participants.

The origins of this research lies in a very practical ques-tion If projects fail because of miscommunication andfailure to meet expectations, what is it about project man-agement that makes this happen so much in a project envi-ronment? Starting from this very pragmatic desire tounderstand the lived experience of project managers cop-ing with uncertainty and complexity while all the whilebelieving that there is an appropriate way to process thatshould be clear to all participants, the research found thatgrounding project management research in attempting tounderstand what really goes on in projects required a verydifferent theoretical perspective. These studies take a criti-cal stance using Weickian sensemaking theories [26,45],Foucaudian explorations of power-knowledge [46], andpost-positivist reconsiderations of management theory(i.e. 2, 7, 8, 15) to deconstruct not only the understandings

held by project participants but some of the origins of these



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understandings as embedded either in the professionalguidelines or textbook representations of the field.

This research is based on two types of data sources. Thefirst is interview transcripts from interviews collected usingactive interviewing techniques. Participants were firstasked to define project management and then to reflect

on and explore the lived experience of a specific projectexperience discussing the tools, knowledge, and skills theyused in that instance. In this way, the participants providedboth their understanding of the thing called project man-agement and their practical knowledge of the realities ofhow they conduct themselves in local situations in pursuitof managing projects. Towards the end of the interviewthe researchers engaged in more collaborative discussionsof the nature of the gaps or contradictions between whatthe participants knew to be good project managementpractice from the traditional discourse and what they hadto do on their project to be successful. The second datasource is standard project management texts and practice

guidelines which provide the foundation of the discourseas replicated and reified through training and best prac-tice dissemination. The objective in all of these studieshas been to explore the contradictions between theespoused theories of project management embedded incurrent project management discourse (both that of thetexts or the project participants themselves) and contrastit with the theories in use derived from the practicalaction and managerial conduct evident in stories of projectexperience and necessity.

Three different research streams contribute to the under-standings developed in addressing these questions. The first

stream conducted by Thomas [38,39] explored the gapbetween project management experience and project man-agement doctrine. This set of studies sought to make senseof these gaps and use them to understand the nature ofcommunication breakdowns on projects. Theoreticallythese studies contributed to the Weickean sensemaking lit-erature by tying individual and organisational sensemakingtogether and exploring the implications of these differentlevels of sensemaking on practical action. Another studyby Thomas and Tjaeder [40] examined the implications oftwo dominant approaches to making sense of project man-agement (that of control versus that of learning). Thesestudies also make a strong argument for the expansion ofproject management research by looking for other theoret-ical foundations for such studies than the rational, linear,empirically based studies that held sway at that time. Prac-tically these studies provided a foundation for understand-ing the need for a common language and understanding ofconstructs for the ability to develop a common mind onprojects. Methodologically these studies made a strong casefor the need for more project management researchgrounded in the lived experience of project participantsexpanding the interest from solely focussing on projectmanagers and expected actions to including the whole teamin explorations of project management activity looking at

the reality of project experience.

A second stream [4143] takes a more critical stance tothe guidelines and texts depicting traditional approachesto project management. This stream uses Foucauldian ana-lytical techniques to explore the underlying power-knowl-edge structures embedded in the traditional PMdiscourse. Highlighting the technical rational, universalistic

portrayal of project management discourse and contrastingthis with the claimed strengths of a project managementapproach in introducing flexibility and professional actionprovides insights into the role this particular form of project management plays in control and domination. Byexploring the embedded assumptions and purpose of someof the activities in traditional project management dis-course, this set of studies provided theoretical and practicalarenas to question some of the fundamental assumptions ofthe traditional discourse and provide alternative questionsto ask in thinking about what the traditional project man-agement perspective does not allow to be seen, spoken ordone.

The third stream conducted by Thomas and Buckle[44,45] examines the nature of the assumptions embeddedin the foremost North American project managementguidelines and compares this to the assumptions embeddedin competent project management practitioners discoursereflecting on their experience of project management.Exploring the language used to define project managementin this document and exploring the cognitive styles privi-leged in this document allows us to think about the natureof codification and what is lost in the process. Exploringthe discourse of successful practitioners and contrastingtheir epistemic knowledge with their practical wisdom on

the subject suggests the ways that this reification of the tra-ditional project management discourse can actually hinderthe development and identity construction of competentproject managers. This set of studies shows that competentpractitioners have a much broader and more intellectuallycomplex understanding of project management than thediscourse embedded in the PMBOK guide but that theyfeel they must apologise for using some of the virtuososkills as they are not recognised in the traditional discourse.The nature of the omissions from the guide and the differ-ences among the different practitioners provides interestinginsights into the types of knowledge and activity that isprivileged in traditional project management discoursesand highlights the project realities and complexities thatpractitioners are currently left to navigate on their own.They also show the gaps in training of project managers.Those that are knowledgeable in traditional project man-agement discourse may not value the virtuoso politicaland social skills necessary to be successful in the compli-cated and messy real world of projects.

6.4. Researching the actuality of failures of complex projects

Our understanding how complex projects behave hasdeveloped in recent years using management science mod-

elling techniques particularly through the work of two



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teams: Cooper and others at PA Consulting [4650], andthe Strathclyde Eden/Williams/Ackermann team [5053],the latter having been involved for some years in post-mor-tem analysis of a range of projects as part of claims prep-aration. While using different techniques, this latterstream of work has similarities to the Thomas and Buckle

work above, analysing the lived experience within actualprojects, and gaining results that have echoes of all of thestreams of work above.

The main results from this stream of work provideexplanations for project behaviour deriving from systemicinter-related sets of causal factors rather than tracingeffects to single causes. The work shows how the systemic-ity involved produces a totality of effect beyond the sum ofthe results that would be expected from individual causes.In particular, key results derive from dynamics set up bythese effects turning into positive feedback loops, orvicious circles. Many of the key loops identified in thiswork are set up and exacerbated through management

response to project perturbations hence the sometimescounter-intuitive effect of such actions, often highly magni-fying small effects. By taking actions that are implied orsuggested by conventional methods (i.e. according to theconventional PM body of knowledge) in order to try todeal with late-running projects, managers themselves areexacerbating the feedback and making the over-runs worse.

The systemic modelling work provided explanations forwhy some projects severely over-ran. But these explana-tions clash with the assumptions described for the currentdominant project management discourse, as described inWilliams [54]. The conventional PM body of knowledge

presents a set of normative procedures which appear tobe self-evidently correct: following these procedures, it isimplied, will produce effectively-managed projects; project-failure is indicative of inadequate attention to theproper project management procedures. The bodies ofknowledge are clearly positivist (dealing with an externalobjective world and focussing on value-free facts) andconcentrate on managing scope within the project. Theystrongly emphasise planning and seek to follow the originalplan throughout the project as rigorously as it possibly canbe effectively regarding the project as decoupled from theenvironment; they also assume a traditional managementcontrol mechanism within the project.

The systemic models show behaviour arising from thecomplex interactions of the various parts of the project;they demonstrate how behaviour arises that would not bepredicted from an analysis of the individual parts of theproject and thus show how the traditional decompositionmodels in some circumstances can be inadequate. The pro-ject behaviour shown in this body of work is complex andnon-intuitive. It shows causal feed-back, leading to non-linear behaviour, and produces effects which can sometimesmanifest themselves after significant time-delays; and thebehaviour of such systems is difficult for the human brainto predict and understand intuitively. Furthermore, the

models differ from the bodies of knowledge in their empha-

sis on soft factors; the factors within the feedback loopsare not only hard concrete factors: soft variables areoften important links in the chains of causality and are thuscritical in determining the project behaviour; such variablesmight include morale, schedule pressure, client changinghis mind and so on; in addition, there is a recognition that

the models need to incorporate not only real data butmanagement perceptions of data.Systemic models have been used to explain failures

occurring in projects which might have been well-managedby traditional project-management methods. The failuresanalysed by these methods are in complex projects subjectto uncertainty. Conventional techniques are designed forprojects with large numbers of elements, but the assumedstructures are subject to very limited types of interdepen-dence, and conventional methods are even more unsuitedto projects under high uncertainty. It is when uncertaintyaffects a traditionally-managed project that is structurallycomplex that the systemic effects discussed above start to

occur. But the systemic models demonstrated an importantaspect: it is management actions to accelerate perturbedprojects which particularly exacerbate the feedback; whenthe project is heavily time-constrained, so the project man-ager feels forced to take acceleration actions, and this pro-duces the problems from feedback. Thus we have identifiedthe three compounding factors which come together incomplex structures of positive feedback to cause extremeover-runs when projects are managed conventionally:structural complexity, uncertainty and a tight time-con-straint. Recognition of the problems inherent in conven-tional prescriptive procedures has led to the development

of contrasting project management methodologies. Whilebeing within a strategic framework, these methodologiesare usually identified by words such as lean or agile,and are particularly prevalent in the software industry[55] (perhaps due to the particular goal-uncertainties ofsuch projects). These methods contradict the underlyingemphases of conventional approaches: the project emergesrather than being entirely pre-planned; the managementstyle is much more co-operative, recognising that the Planprepared pre-project is fallible and incomplete, and there isacceptance that the plan cannot be fully prepared becauseof the influence of the external environment.

The systemic modelling work analysed the reasons forproject over-runs for many seriously over-run project, giv-ing explanations in terms of positive feedback, often exac-erbated by management actions, and importantlyincluding both hard and soft factors in the causalanalysis; the analysis shows that conventional methodscan be inappropriate and potentially disadvantageousfor projects that are structurally complex, uncertain, andheavily time-limited. Projects which exhibit these threecharacteristics would appear to lend themselves less toconventional methods and newer methods might be moreappropriate, such as agile/lean methods often calledagile or lean. However, the thesis of Williams [54]

is not that we should simply ignore conventional project



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management methods and move to these opposing tech-niques. Rather, with the understanding gained from thisanalysis of the systemic modelling work, we need to moveour discourse to take account of the effects encompassedin this work; then we need to categorise projects accord-ing to the dimensions which give projects a propensity

for the type of systemic effects, so that an appropriatemanagement style can be specified, in particular an appro-priate balance between conventional methods as espousedin the bodies of knowledge and these contrasting meth-ods. This work suggests that once a project is subject todisruptions and delays dynamics then the traditional project management tools are probably inappropriate formanaging the project. The use of traditional tools is likelyto unintentionally exacerbate the undesirable conse-quences and lead to greater overruns than need be thecase. Even the nature of the agenda at project progressmeetings needs to have a different focus and emphasis.Awareness of the potential consequences of mitigation

becomes important as possible traditionally obviousactions are proposed.

7. Conclusions, implications and the way forward

Our aim in this paper has been to discuss critically thenature of knowledge that could be created about the actu-ality of projects and how it contributes to our understand-ing of project environments, to improvements in practice,and to educational and developmental efforts. Weattempted to shed some light on the assumptions behindtheoretical and methodological approaches to researching

the actuality of projects and project management that, inour view, can be helpful in broadening the boundaries ofthe project management body of thought and contributingto more satisfactory processes and outcomes of contempo-rary projects.

Researching the actuality of projects, as presented in thisarticle, draws on:

a combination of practical philosophical considerationsand concrete empirical analyses towards understandinghuman action, and for that matter, managerial actionin the concrete situation and

requires a theoretical shift from more common norma-tive rational approaches to individual and projectperformance towards a more developmental one whichfocuses on practical action, lived experience, quality ofsocial interaction and communicative relating, opera-tions of power in context, identity, and the relation-ship between agency and structure in projectenvironments.

The research presented in this paper as exemplars ofactuality research provide some compelling and interest-ing insights into the actuality of managing projectsaddressing on-going gaps in our knowledge of how to

effectively manage complex undertakings. Cicmil and

Marshall develop an empirically grounded understandingof project complexity that incorporates processes of com-municative and power relating among project actors deal-ing with ambiguity and equivocality related to projectperformance criteria (success/failure) over time that is inconstant flux. Cicmil and Hodgsons work casts light on

the traditional foundations of project management practi-tioner development and demonstrates the need for devel-oping both instrumental and value rationality as the basisfor project management practice. The research by Thomasand Buckle questions the underlying assumptions embed-ded in traditional project management discourse andexplores the impact of these embedded assumptions onthe practice and practical discourse of practitioners. TheStrathclyde research teams work on understanding com-plex project failures contributes significantly to our under-standing of the complex interactions between the actualityof projects and the unintentional consequences of apply-ing traditional best practice control oriented project

management to complete projects under extreme timepressures. All of these research studies make significantcontributions to an understanding of the actuality of projects and provide insights into how project managementpractitioner development needs to change to address theseproject realities.

Methodological issues (epistemology, ontology, andrepresentation) are also of dominant concern in these stud-ies. The argument is that theory and empirical researchmust proceed simultaneously on micro and macro levelsof analysis and within both objective and subjective meth-odological traditions, focusing on action which is habitu-

ated, practical, tacit, dispositional, and at the same timestructured. From this perspective, it is important not onlyto explore or explain what is but also to examine why itis as it is and what activities are encouraged or discouragedby this focus, and how it comes to be. The recommendedmethodological approaches are capable of addressing amuch wider range of important project issues such as: thesocial responsibility of management, ethical conduct,bounded rationality, anxiety, emotions, the operation ofdominant discourses, power/knowledge relationship, cul-ture, and identity.

Despite this, we do not promote actuality research asa competing or privileged stream of thought to the moremainstream ones. We argue for it as an alternative lensthrough which new insights into projects and projectmanagement practice can be generated. One of the keyassertions is that the understanding which drives muchof project management literature does not satisfactorilyexplain the richness of what actually occurs in projectenvironments. This implies an alternative view onmanagerial knowledge and competencies, challenging the

traditional image of professional project manager as

thinking, purposive, decisive, and rational. Therefore, thetheoretical and methodological characteristics of actual-ity research may have significant implications for man-

agement education, training, development and ultimately



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the future of project management as a professionaloccupation.

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