Research agenda
From Project-as-practice
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Contents |
A quest for relevance
Project-as-Practice, or the P-as-P approach, is built on the ontological assumption that people and activities matter and should be the starting point for any comprehensive research efforts. For this reason, a P-as-P research approch will deviate from standard Project Management Body of Knowledge research as we know it from text books, professional organizations or consultancy based models of successful project management techniques.
However, it is important to understand that a practice perspective does not necessarily mean that PMBoK type of research is irrelevant. It is only irrelevant if you claim that the research will depict what is actually happening in a project or a project based organization. However, comparing project management models with real life may be a good idea of you are interested in doing research on if a particular organization is following a particular model for project management or not, or if you like to know how far away from a theoretical project management model a particular company is. But, starting with project management ideal type models is not a way to deepen our understanding on what is actually happening inside (or around) projects.
Actually, this is where the P-as-P approach will do it differently (compared to standard PM research) since the starting point is
(1) Project management as a field of practice. This is to see project management embedded in a certain knowledge domain and to, for example, analyze how that field of practice is organized, how activities are carried out, or how corporate and project structures are built based on the field of practice. The field as such will inevitable carry some models, such as project stage models or project management models. Models are thus one of the mechanisms used to structure the daily work.
(2) Project management as an array of activities. This is to see project management as a number of activities, parallel or past-now-future, linked together as part of the overall field in which they are embedded.
(3) Project management as carried by human (and non-human) actors. Real people has to be part of the empirical work and data to be collected should be close to "real people's real actions".
As a consequence
- Projects are not something you "have" - they are something you "do"
- Projects are not a commodity- they are sets of activities
- Projects are not only implemented - projects are "acted" and "interacted"
- Projects are not only about planning - they are about people using plans
... to be continued
What goes on in projects
What project managers do when they do projects
Linking practice, practitioners and practices
Applying the strategy as practice perspective on projects...
"The Scandinavian School"
Scandinavian research has, for some time, been developing a practice based research tradition (not only for project studies). There are some distinct reasons for this.
One is the open Scandinavian culture for research methods other than quantitative techniques. Even though a practice perspective can be carried out through the use of survey methods, it would be more difficult to develop basic ontological practice assumptions through a survey based research only. Case study research and qualitative analytical approaches have been quite commonly used in management research in Scandinavia. This has paved the way for a more comprehensive understanding of projects as social and organizational phenomenon embedded in everday practices.
Another resaon, connected to the first, is the close trustful relations between industry and universities so often found in Scandinavia. Case based research needs to be carried out in a trustful atmosphere and with close relations to the companies under study.
And third, the organization of Scandinavian universities and business schools has allowed for an easy transfer between sub-disciplines and disciplines. It has, thus, be easy to interact between management researchers and engineering scholars, or between marketing and strategy researchers. Such interaction is important for the growth of new thoughts, new ideas and innovative research.
... to be continued
