Critical perspectives on project
management
Johann Packendorff
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Framing the World around us
through Projects
Projects, project performance, the management of projects,
and ‘projectification’ of everything (including the
Government)
Consequences: PM standards and methodologies, PRINCE
2, PMMM, global export of best practice
Project managers, project workers,
educators/trainers/consultants, PMI, APM, IPMA
Programmes, portfolios, society, globalisation, sustainable
development; work/life balance
COMPLEXITY
PM in question?
•Practice:
Paradox, controversy and failure to deliver on its promises
(unpredictable/unreliable outcomes such as Scottish
Parliament, Denver Airport, NHS IT, Bath Spa, The
Olympics; Shell’s Sakhalin Project; The Three Gorges Dam; )
Issues of risk, environmental responsibility, ambiguity of goals,
diverse stakeholders’ agendas
•Theory-practice gap:
The issue of relevance and usability of PM research /
knowledge; ‘science wars’
Growing criticism of the PM bodies of knowledge and PPM
methodologies
(Packendorff, 1995; Clarke, 1999; Hodgson, 2002; Williams,
2004; Cicmil, 2006)
What does ‘Theory’ imply in management research?
A specific representation of (way of looking at or
talking about) an organisational phenomenon
A corresponding research methodology as the
process of knowledge creation about the
phenomenon
The nature of the created knowledge and its
relationship with practice / practitioners
(Habermas)
Practical research framework
Element 1
THEORETICAL TRADITIONS
used to understand and
explain the world of project
management practice…
Presumptions of the
researcher about the
phenomenon under
investigation and about the
nature of ‘practically
relevant’ knowledge
…and assumptions
about and concepts of
reality, science,
knowledge, ethics,
values
Element 2
METHODOLOGY
- level of inquiry
- view on empirical
data
Methods of data
collection and
analysis:
- procedures
- tools and techniques
- interpretation
-view on the role of
theory in the research
process
Element 3
ISSUE / AREA
OF STUDY
- body of knowledge
deemed legitimate
Conceptualisation and
definition of the
research
problem/question
Approach to quality,
usefulness and
relevance of research
- previous research
- extant literature
- current debates
Reflection
© Sv Cicmil 2006
An interpretation of the theory of knowledge constitutive interests
(adapted from Oliga, 1996, Mingers 1992)
Knowledge
Constitutive
Interest
Basis of Human
Interest
Type of
Interaction
Underlying
scientific paradigm
/purpose
Methodology
Approach
Technical
(control)
Labour, work
(instrumental
control)
Man – nature
Functionalist
/prediction and
control
Empiricism
Practical
(understanding)
Communication
(interaction)
Man – man
Interpretative /
understanding and
consensus
Hermeneutics
Emancipatory
(freedom)
Authority
(power)
Man – self
Radical or critical /
enlightenment
Critique
Challenges to PM Research
•Is there a universal explanation of what projects are and how projects
evolve?
•What is the meaning behind the concepts in use, that is, the terms such as
‘project’, ‘project management’, and ‘project success’?
•What are the implications of the ‘mainstream’ definitions of ‘project’ and
‘project management’ for the nature of knowledge and the intellectual
foundations of studies of project-based organising, work, and
management?
•What are the consequences of project organising as currently prescribed,
both for project managers and project workers?
•What alternative perspectives upon projects exist beyond the
mainstream?
•Whose interests are being served by the reproduction of the status quo in
the field?
Contrasting Project Life Cycle Models :
Which is the right one?
PLC as we know it
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Idea, concept, definition, business case
Planning
Execution / Implementation
Close and hand-over
Taggert and Silbey, (1986).
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Wild enthusiasm
Disillusionment
Total confusion
Search for the guilty
Punishment of the innocent
Promotion of non-participants
What can a critical perspective bring to studies of
projects?
• Identifying and challenging assumptions behind
ordinary ways of perceiving, conceiving and acting in
project settings;
• Recognising the influence of history, culture, and
social positioning on beliefs and actions;
• Imagining and exploring extraordinary alternatives,
ones that may disrupt routines and established orders;
and
• Being appropriately sceptical about any knowledge or
solution that claims to be the only truth or alternative
Some Critical Directions
1. Project Organisation
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Devolvement of Task Responsibility
Work Intensification via Responsibilisation
Consequences for Life/Work Balance
2. Project Managers/Workers
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Professionalisation and Control
Effects upon Autonomy and Discretion
Discontinuous/Flexible Employment
3. Project Management
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PM Methodologies as Disciplinary Control
Two examples of critical studies
• Power and control
• Gender
Power and control
• Organisational structure = a set of rules for
exercising power and control
• Projects are a possible structural form for
organize collaboration
• Individuals are both aware and unaware of
how the project form affects them
• Full awareness = emancipation
Examples of power analyses
• The project form as re-creating individual
skill
• The project form as re-bureaucratisation
• The project form as a professional necessity
• Foucault’s prison:
- Disciplining space
- Disciplining time
- Disciplining minds
Gender analysis
• Work life is full of mental images of what is masculine and
what is feminine
• These mental images affects the expectations on what men
and women should do and how they should behave
• Every individual is a combination of masculinities and
femininities
• Many claim that – independently of their perspective on
gender – that work life is becoming femininized
(democracy, competence, unique contribution,
differentiation)
Examples of gender analyses
• Project management as a masculine
construction
• The project form as re-masculinisation of
work life
• The project form as colonising private life
and families
Readings
• Hodgson: Projects and the construction of
the professional employee
• Lindgren & Packendorff: Projects as remasculinisation of work life
Discussion questions
• Summarise the two articles (as usual)
• What can the negative consequences of
project work be for (1) individuals, (2)
teams, (3) organizations, (4) society?
• How can these negative consequences (at
the four levels of analysis) be avoided,
while still preserving the good things with
the project form?