Literature Review Essay: Project Management Perspectives And Debates.

Traditional Approaches to Project Management

Question:

Discuss about the Rethinking Project Management Education.

This is a literature review on the practices of project management which explores a part of the current debates about the subject. It was conducted using an explorative and unstructured method of review which explored the project management process by studying different textbooks and articles on project management that offered different insights and perspectives on the discipline. The purpose of the review is to identify different perspectives that exist on the practice of project management.

Over the past decades, new perspectives on project management have emerged thanks to the introduction of new tools, methods, and practices that move beyond the traditional Corporate Perfomance Management (CPM) thinking. The traditional approaches to project management have been broadly criticized by researchers who felt that CPM is an incomplete and insufficient method as it lacks the level of detail required (Svejvig & Andersen, 2015).

Complexity of projects and the complexity of their environment are part of the main arguments that call for rethinking traditional project management. This rethinking has shifted the perspectives from single project exploration in isolation to the management of multiple projects.

Aretha et al. (2009) has argued that a multiple project environment presents challenges that is very different from the single project management challenges (Aretha, et al., 2009). He used the complexity theory in order to understand the multi-project environment and identified it as a combination of complex adaptive systems. Mayor et al. (2006) reflected on the programs and portfolios that can be seen as mechanisms for managing projects in organization. According to him, they create different issues than those in a single project face (Jones, et al., 2011). Thus, there is a need that a project manager and his team must obtain transferable project management skills

Leybourne (2007) describes a perspective which sees project management as an open value system that focuses on social and political aspects rather than on the tools and procedures  (Leybourne, 2010). These social and behavioural considerations have expanded the discipline of project management. Clarke (2010) explored the impact of emotions on the behaviour and decisions of a project manager with respect to projects (Clarke, 2008). His empirical study showed that emotional intelligence has a direct posititve effect on the success of projects. Sense (2009) focused on the social learning that is obtained by a project team during projects, showing that this can help  to build a learning culture and organisational learning, both positively impacting a companies’ success (Sense, 2009). Small and Walker (2010) state that the social complexities on a project are created from the human plurality and thus, the project management strategy used must follow a continual adaptation to be able to respond to the changes in power and political scenarios on projects (Small & Walker, 2010).

Emerging Perspectives on Project Management

Over the last decades, alternative methods, approaches and perspectives have been identified that allow practitioners to rethink on the traditional project management practice. This helps them to better cope with the complexities and uncertainties during projects. Berggren and Söderlund (2008) identified how education practices have affected the knowledge and production capacities of project managers (Berggren & Söderlund, 2008). According to Louw and Rwelamila (2012), project managers can be linked with the reflective partitions that emerge from educational institutes (Louw & Rwelamila, 2012). Sewchurran (2008) supported the view by presenting an alternative model that focuses on the education side of the discipline and explored the reflective practices through improvisation and contingencies (Sewchurran & Barron, 2008). Crawford et al. (2006) suggested that the increasing complexities on projects demand more education (Crawford & Brown, 2009) and practitioners who are willing to explore new theories on project management to acquire new skills that include more than just the technical skills (Sankaran, et al., 2010).

Thomas and Mengel (2008) stressed on the importance to be able handling complexity and uncertainty in the modern project environments (Thomas & Mengel, 2008). Thus, he suggested that newer forms of professional development are required to prepare and educate project managers to deal with such complexities. According to Kreiner (2002), a project manager needs to be prepared to adapt plans in a  changing environment (Kreiner, 2002). Supporting this view, Leybourne (2010) suggests that companies must provide the freedom to their project managers (Leybourne, 2010) for experimenting through unstructured practices and task management methods (Sherrer, 2010).

Most researchers are convinced that despite a vast exploration of traditional project management practices, very little has been explored about the actualities of project management. Subsequently, empirical investigation is needed in order to understand modern project management practices. Arguments have also been presented on whether the traditional practices have diverted from the models and concepts. There is very limited empirical investigation done on the practice of project management. Thus, more exploration is needed as the field is only broadening crossing its current limits and perspectives that are present currently (Dana, 2014).

With these explorations and added perspectives of multiple project management researchers, some new models and theories have emerged in the recent past including evolutionary management and self-organization and systems thinking.

Self-organization Theory: This theory sees projects as a self organized concept which exists in nature with a tendency of growth and evolution. The growth is influenced by interactions between people, where for example new functions can emerge leading to self-organization. These self-organized systems have energy channels that enables both energy and information to flow in order to grow through a feedback loop (Hoda, 2011). The process of self-organization can be seen as a combination of positive and negative feedbacks that expand the horizons of knowledge. These feedbacks can be obtained from external parties or internal stakeholders. For example, approval and acceptance from external parties are positive feedbacks while rejection of criticism from them are negative feedbacks. Similarly, assertiveness and compassion within internal teams have signals of positivity while lack of confidence and disinterest in them would reflect negative feedback. Thus, these feedback cycles are important to study, in particular when  it is about understanding the evolution of project management (Blois, 2013)

Newer Models and Theories

Systems thinking: System thinking makes it possible to manage the complexities and issues in modern project scenarios through identification of different elements that exist in a multiproject environment. It begins with the understanding of a problem solving process in which project managers have to explore problems to identify their core and the behavior patterns that are affecting project efficiencies. System thinking is a holistic approach to problem solving that builds on the network of interactions, role plays, and approaches to creativity and adaption in the project teams (Kopczy?ski & Brzozowsk, 2015).

Conclusion

The traditional project management approaches like CPM have been criticized by researchers as they lack the level of detail and new perspectives have emerged with introduction of new tools, methods, and practices. Among the main arguments to rethink traditional project management is the fact that complexity of projects and the complexity of their environments are much higher nowadays then ten or twenty years back, when a lot of research was done in the field of project management.

Several debates can been observed with different new approaches being presented and discussed. For example, some researchers believe in systems thinking which is a holistic approach to problem solving while others focus on the self-organizing concept during projects. The literature review made clear that further investigations are needed on how these new methods can help resolve problems usually faced by traditional methods. If evidences can be obtained on these efficiencies then the debate can make a big step forward as researchers begin to prove the superiority of new methods.

References

Aretha, D., Panteli, E. S., Kiekkas, P. & Karanikolas, M., 2009. Patient and/or family controlled palliative sedation with midazolam for intractable symptom control: a case series. BioMed Central, 2(136), pp. 1-4.

Berggren, C. & Söderlund, J., 2008. Rethinking project management education.. International Journal of Project Management., Volume 26, pp. 286-296.

Blois, 2013. The "self-organizing" project": a "systemic" view of the design and project processes, s.l.: Systematic Designs.

Clarke, N., 2008. Projects are emotional: How project managers' emotional awareness can influence decisions and behaviours in projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 3(4), pp. 604-624.

Crawford, P. & Brown, B., 2009. Mental Health communicatios between service users and professionals. Mental Health Review Journal, 14(3), pp. 30-39.

Dana, J., 2014. Chaos Theory in Project Management , s.l.: Masaryk University.

Hoda, R., 2011. Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory, s.l.: Victoria University of Wellington.

Jones, A. M. et al., 2011. The Impact of Arabidopsis on Human Health: Diversifying Our Portfolio. NCBI, Volume 133-136, p. 939–943..

Kopczy?ski, T. & Brzozowsk, M., 2015. Systems thinking in project management: theoretical framework and empirical evidence from Polish companies, s.l.: Poznan University of Economics, .

Kreiner, K., 2002. Tacit knowledge management: the role of artifacts. Journal of Knowledge Management, 6(2), pp. 112-123.

Leybourne, S., 2010. Project management and high-value superyacht projects: an improvisational and temporal perspective.. Proj. Manag. J. , Volume 41, p. 17–27..

Louw, T. & Rwelamila, P. D., 2012. Managing Projects in Africa. Project Management Journal, 43(4), pp. 2-85.

Sankaran, S., Haslett, T. & Sheffield, J., 2010. Systems thinking approaches to address complex issues in project management. Asia Pacific, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, PMI® Global Congress.

Saynisch, M., 2010. Beyond frontiers of traditional project management. Project Management Journal, 41(2), pp. 21-37.

Sense, A. J., 2009. The social learning character of projects and project teams. International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 3(4), pp. 195-208.

Sewchurran, K. & Barron, M., 2008. An investigation into successfully managing and sustaining the project sponsor–project manager relationship using soft systems methodology. Project Management Journal, 39(S1), p. S56–S68.

Sherrer, J. A., 2010. A PROJECT MANAGER'S GUIDE TO SYSTEMS THINKING, s.l.: Projectsmart.

Small, J. & Walker, D., 2010. Providing structural openness to connect with context: Seeing the project entity as a human activity system and social process. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 4(3), pp. 389-411.

Svejvig, P. & Andersen, P., 2015. Rethinking project management: A structured literature review with a critical look at the brave new world. International Journal of Project Management, Volume 33, p. 278–290.

Thomas, J. & Mengel, T., 2008. Preparing project managers to deal with complexity–Advanced project management education, s.l.: Research Gate.