Organizational Learning in Project‐Based Companies: A Process Thinking Approach

Although a traditional project model is clearly useful for laying out the patterns of relationships surrounding a project, it does not provide the temporally embedded accounts that enable us to understand how organizational learning takes place. The process thinking perspective offers a means to solving this problem. This article provides an analysis of how different processes interact dynamically in order to benefit project‐based companies' organizational learning. Two findings from this study are: (1) organizational learning is a dynamic concept that emphasizes the continually changing nature of a project‐based company and (2) sensemaking and negotiation of meaning are ongoing processes in project‐based companies.     

Knowledge transfer in project‐based organizations: An organizational culture perspective

This conceptual paper investigates the process of knowledge transfer in project‐based organizations from the perspective of organizational culture. The paper identifies obstacles to knowledge transfer in project‐based organizations and emphasizes the importance of organizational and project cultures in this process. The study provides some suggestions for improving knowledge transfer in project‐based organizations and notes the implications of the paper for project management.     

The role of project management maturity and organizational culture in perceived performance

This study investigates whether project management maturity (PMM) relates to perceived organizational performance and how an organization's cultural orientation is a contributing factor. Perceived organizational performance is defined as project effectiveness and efficiency followed by resulting business performance. A survey‐based research was conducted with 86 project professionals from various U.S. service and manufacturing organizations. The study revealed that PMM is significantly related to business performance but not to project performance. Furthermore, while clan organizational culture is a sole contributing factor for project and business performances, PMM interacts with market culture in improving business performance. This study shows that in order to deal with project time, budget, and expectations issues, an organizational culture change toward sharing, collaboration, and empowerment is a must. Furthermore, an increasing project management maturity along with a results‐oriented organizational culture improves an organization's competitiveness, resulting in cost savings and increased sales. PMM efforts are therefore crucial. PMM accompanied by an understanding of cultural orientation is a best strategy for today's project‐based organizations.     

Building value through sustainable project management offices

Organizations' attempts to implement and gain value from investments in project management have resulted in the rapid growth and, in some cases, demise of project management offices (PMOs). The recent research literature on PMOs provides an ambiguous picture of the value case for PMOs and suggests the tenuous nature of their current position in many organizations. In studying project management implementations for the Value of Project Management project, we chose to use three detailed cases and comparisons with the remaining 62 organizations in the value project to study how PMOs are connected to value realization for organizations investing in project management. Specifically, we sought to understand how PMOs deliver sustained value to organizations. Using the theories of Jim Collins (Collins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 1994) as an interpretive framework, we explore these cases to understand how to create and sustain project management value through investment in PMOs.     

基于关键链的项目进度管理方法研究

关键链项目管理方法是约束理论在项目管理中的应用。在对关键链项目管理方法的基本思想和理论基础分析介绍的基础上,针对如何利用关键链将项目计划与项目进度控制更好的结合进行了研究和评价;利用项目管理领域相关知识,补充了缓冲区管理的方法和实施步骤,并运用实例进行了求证。     

An analysis of interrelationships between project management and student‐experience constructs

This article seeks to explore, through the utilization of correlational analysis, how the parameters that impact the student experience may be interrelated. We found that the experiences of students studying project management appear to be heavily influenced by e‐resource provisions and the actual experiences that the students are subjected to when using virtual learning environments (VLEs). These findings support previous research acknowledging that information and communications technology (ICT) plays an important role in teaching and learning project management. Students' experience of interpersonal skills also correlated uniquely and significantly with other constructs, supporting the premise that learning is integral to the development of interpersonal skills. Discussion surrounds the interdependency of student experiences adding to their learning and how future research should consider larger and more diverse samples to establish exactly what constructs detract and/or add to their learning in project management, which could then contribute to pedagogical discourse in other disciplines.     

Government and governance: The value of project management in the public sector

Governance is an emerging theme that has been associated in the public sector with a real political need to satisfy stakeholders by demonstrating accountability and transparency while effectively implementing policy. Many initiatives relating to governance are generated by a need for improvement of organizational performance and ability to implement and adapt to change. These generally take the form of projects and programs encouraging a variety of project management implementations in the public sector. This article reports on examination of the expectations and realization of value from investment in project management in four Australian public‐sector organizations with particular reference to the government context, the perspective of public value management (PVM), and the support that project management provides in meeting the demands of public‐sector governance.     

Managerial Complexity in Process Industrial R&D Projects: A Swedish Study

Process industries often have features that differ from other businesses, such as round‐the‐clock production and costly and specialized production processes—features that have not been dealt with in the project management literature. We highlight and identify the complexity of R&D projects in the Swedish process industry and its interrelated process development and product development activities based on results from interviews and a case study. The different competence areas in which a project manager must integrate and manage R&D projects is illustrated. We conclude that a project manager needs both production and product‐related competence, including customers' processes.     

Developing an effective project: Planning and team building combined

In this article, the process of developing the project plan and the project planning and control (PP&C) is analyzed and compared to the process of developing the project team to identify opportunities for integrating these actions to produce more successful projects. Results of structured research across some 137 different organizations and representing a wide range of approaches to establishing projects are reported. The results of this cross‐organizational research strongly support the proposed integration of project planning, PP&C development, and project team building. A recommended process for accomplishing this integration is proposed.     

Promoting corporate social responsibility and sustainable development through management development: What can be learned from international service learning programs?

In this article, we discuss how the human resource development (HRD) function can support corporate sustainability strategy by designing and implementing leadership development programs incorporating international service learning assignments. We describe “Project Ulysses,” an integrated service learning program that involves sending participants in teams to developing countries to work in cross‐sector partnerships with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social entrepreneurs, supporting them in their fight against pressing global problems. We present the findings of a narrative analysis of learning stories produced by Ulysses participants. Understanding how participants make sense of, and learn from, their experiences abroad provides us with insights into how service learning programs can help managers to develop the knowledge, skills, and mind‐set that will enable them to successfully support a company's global sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. We conclude by discussing the implications for leadership development, specifically how organizations can incorporate a responsibility and sustainability focus in their management development programs.     

Toward High Reliability Project Organizing in Safety‐Critical Projects

High reliability organizations claim to be special organizations that have consistently demonstrated safe performance in operating environments, which are simultaneously of high technical complexity, high consequence, and high tempo. This article argues that the literature on high reliability organizing, which emerged through studying day‐to‐day operations in the nuclear industry, air traffic control industry, and U.S. navy aircraft carriers, might hold important lessons for how the project management community can approach the management of safety‐critical projects—projects in which safety is of paramount importance. Its aim is to consider how high reliability organizing might be realized in these safety‐critical projects.     

Jobs requiring a capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST): Selection using an interest inventory

Systems thinking is recognized as a critical ability for engineers who take a leading role in complex projects. Identifying those engineers with better systems‐thinking capabilities is critical in many projects and organizations and enables organizations and project managers to select and place the most suitable engineers for jobs requiring a Capacity for Engineering Systems Thinking (CEST). However, up until now, no tool aimed at assessing individuals' capacity for engineering systems thinking has ever been developed. This paper presents principles for developing an interest questionnaire aimed at selecting engineers for jobs requiring systems thinking as well as preliminary results regarding the tool's reliability and validity.     

Exploring PMOs through community of practice theory

This article explores project management offices (PMOs) through community of practice theory. Preliminary results from a national health care case study are used to confirm the legitimacy of this approach. Today's knowledge‐based economy calls for mechanisms to share knowledge. The issue of making more with less is at stake in order to reuse good practices, support innovative practice, and prevent the reinvention of the wheel. Members of these communities are at the heart of the learning process. The originality of this research is that it sheds light on PMOs in a new theoretical perspective within the field of knowledge management.     

Retaining and satisfying project managers – antecedents and outcomes of project managers’ perceived organizational support

Although theory and research from the domains of organizational behavior and human resource management suggest that individuals’ perceived organizational support (POS) plays a crucial role in enhancing job satisfaction and in reducing turnover intentions, there is a lack of research applying Organizational Support Theory to the realm of project management. Project-based organizations have an increasing demand for highly qualified project managers who feel supported by their employing organization and intend to remain in their positions. Therefore, the primary objective of the present study was to investigate predictors of project managers’ POS (both from a career management and from a project portfolio management perspective) and to examine how this variable related to their job satisfaction and intention to quit their project manager position. Using a sample of 541 project managers and 135 project portfolio coordinators nested in 135 firms, the analysis revealed that POS related positively to project managers’ job satisfaction and negatively to their turnover intention. A career path for project managers was positively associated with POS, especially when it was accompanied by adequate qualification opportunities. Results further stress the significance of top management involvement and the support of project management offices for project managers’ POS.     

Doing it for themselves? Performance appraisal in project‐based organisations,the role of employees,and challenges to theory

We explore performance appraisal in project‐based organisations and provide novel insights into appraisal processes in this context. These include the central role of employees in orchestrating the appraisal process, the multiple actors that have input to appraisal including project managers, the distance between employees and their official line managers, and the weak coordinating role of human resource specialists in these systems. We draw attention to the drawbacks of current theorising on appraisal to predict and explain outcomes from appraisal systems that are not premised on stable line manager/employee dyads. Theorising based primarily on social exchange theories needs to be reconsidered in this context and new theories developed. We also question how human resource specialists can better support employees, and managers of all kinds, in their implementation roles in polyadic human resource management systems to ensure transparency, equity, and fairness of appraisal processes in a project‐based organisational context.     

Understanding the adoption of project management in Serbian organizations: Insights from an exploratory study

The article contributes to our understanding of the drivers behind, and the nature of, project management implementation in the complex context of a transitional economy. Relevant insights are generated through an integrated and dynamic analysis of interviews and secondary data from a sample of local organizations, based on a conceptual model of strategic transformation. The analysis concludes with propositions about how both adoption of and resistance to project management implementation in the region could be understood from a strategic point of view, taking into account complex and dissonant circumstances of transition, history, cultural tradition, embedded social values, and identities of individual organizational members.     

Service learning and integrated,collaborative project management

This article describes the development of an undergraduate course on project management that incorporates experiential learning and service learning as the primary course learning methodology to instill in students the Project Management Institute's nine Knowledge Areas. The discussed instructional method is a dynamic and participative pedagogy. The project management course content is traditionally structured around system needs and analysis identification, functional requirements analysis, project timelines, network analysis, and project progress metrics. Introduction of service‐learning projects and experiential learning pedagogies provides a pragmatic approach for applying project management concepts. This article compares and contrasts the first three offerings of this course and provides lessons learned that may be helpful to others wishing to embrace project management realism in their course work. The purpose of this article is to encourage a hands‐on method for learning the nine Knowledge Areas in the undergraduate classroom.     

How project management office leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement

The purpose of this study is to shed light on how project management office (PMO) leaders facilitate cross‐project learning and continuous improvement. Twenty leaders of PMOs were interviewed; findings were validated by two focus groups. The research reveals that PMO leaders facilitate cross‐project improvement by embedding accumulated knowledge from past project experiences into project management routines that are utilized across multiple projects. The research also points to the phenomenon of “red light learning,” where lessons learned sessions can be enculturated as punitive, undermining individual and organizational learning. Recommendations focus on enhancing the social capital of the PMO leader and improving the quality and quantity of reflective practice over the course of the project life cycle.