Project Management Journal

A major source of risk in project management is inaccurate forecasts of project costs, demand, and other impacts. The paper presents a promising new approach to mitigating such risk based on theories of decision-making under uncertainty, which won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics. First, the paper documents inaccuracy and risk in project management. Second, it explains inaccuracy in terms of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Third, the theoretical basis is presented for a promising new method called “reference class forecasting,” which achieves accuracy by basing forecasts on actual performance in a reference class of comparable projects and thereby bypassing both optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Fourth, the paper presents the first instance of practical reference class forecasting, which concerns cost forecasts for large transportation infrastructure projects. Finally, potentials for and barriers to reference class forecasting are assessed.

Although most organizational projects have many interested parties or stakeholders, the executive with the fiscal authority, political clout, and personal commitment to see a project through is the project sponsor. Certainly, there are project sponsor tasks associated with the successful completion of a project. Yet, very little research exists that attempts to identify and validate a set of executive sponsor behaviors necessary for successful project implementation. Using a previously established database of project risk avoidance and mitigation strategies that was supplemented by an updated literature search, we examine and classify behaviors associated with the role of a project sponsor. The scope of this exploratory research includes: (1) identifying project sponsor-related behaviors; (2) validating and prioritizing the sponsor behaviors utilizing an established procedure; (3) empirically validating the behaviors; and (4) empirically testing the association of the project sponsor behaviors with various dimensions of project success (project outcomes).

Novelty has substantial implications for project management. Because novelty is not objectively determined but perceived by project initiators and participants, diverging perceptions establish first-source managementtasks. Also, novelty is a multidimensional construct. A review of dimensions proposed in empirical measurement of novelty shows that, although about 20 items are used in many studies, no standard measurement approach has yet emerged. This hinders comparability and learning from empirical research on project management. Novelty should be considered as moderating the effects of management on success, because this is the more encompassing approach. The paper presents empirical research results on role structures of project management, team performance, autonomy of project management and clarity of objectives as well as ideal versus real characteristics of project managers. These results are primarily taken from studies by German authors with the aim of introducing this research to a broader audience. Although a substantial wealth of research results is available to support project management, optimisation is not yet possible. But, “one size fits all” is certainly not the right approach, and research results give some indications of how to respond to specific project characteristics. Furthermore, radically innovative projects call for more specific characteristics of projects managers than for more sophisticated planning aids.

This paper contributes to the ongoing work and debate on the value of project management, accomplishing this through an empirical investigation of practitioner perceptions on the relative value of different project management practices and their potential to contribute to improved project performance. This investigation is based on a large-scale survey of 753 project management practitioners. This paper aims to answer four questions relating to the value of project management. By identifying the most valued practices, practitioners and organizations can identify their priorities when developing their project management competencies. This can also guide the profession in selecting priorities for future development. When choosing priorities to develop and implement, organizations can look to the tools that practitioners identify as most valuable, as having the most potential for increased contribution to project performance, and as presently under-utilized. In order to fully understand the nature of project management practices, and the mechanisms through which these create value, researchers must better clarify the distinction between the project phases and project processes. These findings can help project management professionals in selecting priorities for future development.

This exploratory study focuses on the problem of inter-project integration and how the perceived uncertainty and structural complexity affect the importance of different integration mechanisms used. Four case programs from four companies were chosen as a source of empirical data. Data collection in the selected case programs was multifaceted and included in-depth interviews, questionnaires, and documents and archives. Fifteen integration mechanisms were identified and further categorized into five different classes based on the formality of the mechanism and whether the integration mechanism is personalized or impersonalized in nature. This study provides valuable insights for both researchers and program managers challenged to introduce strategic or large-scale changes in organizations. The study demonstrates that proper mechanisms for inter-project integration are dependent on the uncertainty and complexity of the program, and that the proper integration strategy in multi-project programs should allow the use of various alternative mechanisms for information delivery.

This paper examines and identifies core dimensions of assessment frameworks, including five core requirements for conducting assessments, two key processes of assessing organizations (audit and self-assessment), and two dimensions of improving performance (delivering data and applying data). It discusses the evolution of using maturity models to assess organizational capabilities and the development of maturity models to assess project management competencies. It then outlines a five-level project management maturity model that the authors used to assess the way 550 international organizations practice project management. The paper lists the challenges, advantages, and disadvantages of using this model; it identifies the practices synonymous with improvements in demonstrated maturity. It also compares the results ofdata collected since this benchmarking study's inception, results that show underlying project management trends, such as changes in organizational capabilities and performance. It reviews the impact of these trends on the studied organizations and the way they manage their projects. It concludes by detailing four key—and unexpected—results.

This paper traces the evolution of conceptions of project management from the use of tools and techniques on standalone projects to the conceptualization of project management as an organizational capability. Working from the premise that project management is a socially constructed field of practice that has developed through the conversations and deliberate efforts of practitioners, principles of discourse analysis are used as a framework for studying the extent to which practice reflects the espoused theories of organizational project management capability development. The actuality of practice is represented by periodic reports over a five-year period by the “owners” of project management in an organization with an expressed commitment to development of organizational project management capability and is analysed with reference to the related espoused theories of practitioners as represented in the project management literature, including bodies of knowledge, standards, and guides.

This paper examines project-based management as an organizational innovation. Institutional theory and innovation diffusion literature suggest that the drivers for adopting an organizational innovation may differ across organizations, and that the drivers may be linked with the timing of the innovation. A survey questionnaire was used for data collection, and the sample consisted of 111 companies representing a variety of industries. The results of this study identified external pressure and internal complexity as drivers for introducing project-based management. The degree of process change, depth of project-based management adoption, and local success of project-based management introduction as changes caused by adopting project-based management are examined. The study also reveals benefits from introducing project-based management in the form of improvement in project culture, and efficiency improvement.

This study addresses two aspects of a topic under-researched in the strategic management literature: the alignment of project management and business strategy. Two areas of this alignment were studied: (1) The reciprocal influence between project management and business strategy, which we call the nature of the project management/business strategy alignment; and (2) the process used to align project management and business strategy. Then an empirically based theoretical framework, which highlights the impact of business strategy on project management—and the impact of project management on business strategy—as well as the mechanisms used to strengthen these alignments, was developed. This study expands on the previous, mostly anecdotal work, by using a rigorous theoretical approach to develop the proposed framework. This framework is contingent upon the type of business strategy—simple to understand and use—developed through numerous projects that are typology-free and not restricted to any particular business strategy typology, through projects that are empirically based on real-world data.

This paper provides avenues for a broader engagement with the conceptual considerations of projects and project management with the aim of creating new possibilities for thinking about, researching, and developing our understanding of the field as practiced. Attention is drawn to the legacy of conventional but deeply rooted mainstream approaches to studying projects and project management, and implications of the specific underpinning intellectual tradition for recommendations proposed to organisational members as best practice project management. The identified concerns and limitations are discussed in the context of project management evolution where taken-for-granted advantages of project management as a disciplined effective methodology and its popularity are reexamined. The paper sheds light on a variety of voices from both scholarly and practitioner communities that have attempted to respond to this paradox and move the field forward. Taking issue with conventional labels of project success or failure, and drawing attention to alternative theoretical and methodological propositions, the argument turns toward critical management studies, outlining the implications of this intellectual tradition for studies of projects, project management, project performance, and individual skills and competencies to cope with social arrangements labelled “projects.”