Towards a New Theory of Project Management
March 28th, 2003 by HalToday I complete my comments of the paper The Theory of Project Management: Explanation of Novel Methods
by Lauri Koskela and Greg Howell. The authors are careful to use the phrase underlying theory to denote that project management theory is not explicit. The authors make their inferences of theory from the practices and behaviors of prescribed project management.
Making inferences is tricky business. We can never be sure that what we say is right or wrong. So, we make our case. Later, all we can do is assess the relative usefulness of the inferences when we set out to act in accordance with them.
K&H use the word obsolete as their summary characterization of the effectiveness of current theory in use.
Obsolete: Outmoded in design, style, or construction. Superseded.
To call underlying theory obsolete is only to say that there is indication that it falls short in producing what is desired and something better is available. K&H are out to uncover better theory.
The authors place high value on theory. Not higher than being effective in action…explicit theory provides the opportunity for examination, measurement, learning, innovation, and resulting effectiveness of action. Like many others, the authors have been dissatisfied with the results of projects conducted along the lines of traditional or conventional practice.
>Their investigation of theory took them to the PMI PMBoK® as the obvious repository of theory. Reading their first paper I see their disappointment in the absence of explicit theory in the PMBoK® for guiding practice.
I know the authors. They would like nothing more than to engage in serious inquiry with project management theorists. So I Googled 'project management theorist' to see what I'd find. Max Wideman came out at the top of the list. Coincidentally, K&H have recently engaged in conversations with Max. Perhaps we'll see Max write about those dialogs. Max too calls for a need for explicit theory in a series of papers on First Principles. Redo the Google search to investigate others.
The authors chose an unfortunate point to break their text to insert Table 2: The underlying theories and assumptions of project management. Without carefully reading one might be left with the impression the contents of the table are the intended evidence to support their claims. In fact, the authors only name their sources of evidence without offering it in this paper. Those sources are:
- the plausibility and consistency of the theory in itself;
- empirical validity;
- competing theories; and
- alternative methods based on competing theories
The authors never claim their inferences of theory and assumptions represent evidence.
Why write about all this? Some say it's just pickin' a fight. I say why not write about it? Projects routinely take too long, cost too much, and fail in often significant ways to satisfy the customer. Scrum is one response to that dissatisfaction. Lean project delivery using Last Planner® is another response. Both approaches are producing good results. So…what's the fuss? Let new theory emerge.
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March 29th, 2003 at 2:03 pm
Very well put Hal.
Projects are becoming more complicated due to globalization issues, distributed across borders-and-cultures project situations, constant change and a more knowledge-based content (IT stuff, innovation projects, etc. that turn companies inside-out). And so many studies about project performances and successes in meeting budgets, schedules and desired outcomes show disastrous results ( see the Standish group Chaos report at http://www.pm2go.com/sample_research/chaos_1994_1.php for a sample on SW projects).
So what’s wrong with asking questions about what might be wrong with the current ways of managing MOST projects and then proposing areas of inquiries (which is the sole intent of Koskela and Howell in their papers). Particularly in view of the disastrous results, not only for IT-SW projects but also on all other types of projects subject to the pressure of the real world (unless some are still capable to execute projects in the past, before globalization - or just put the blame of failure on outside forces, which they actually failed to take into consideration in their project Master Plans !!!).
I am glad you mentioned Max Wideman. He is a top notch, very curious mind, who really looks forward to continuous improvement. As a former president of PMI, he was on the team that produced the first version of PMBoK in 1987, and he has continued to add, in his own manner, to this body of knowledge. His web site, that you hyperlinked in your text, is one of the best sites on project management that can be found and a source of sound, well-organized advice to the managers of real-life projects. Instead of siting happily on the PMBoK contents and implicit Newtonian paradigm, he keeps questioning and improving on it. As you pointed out, he also agrees with the need for an EXPLICIT theory.
And he is not the only one, besides Koskela and Howell. Professor Christophe Bredillet of the Project Management & Economics Group UTS - Lille Graduate School of Management (France) is also one other eminent project management specialist who is making a case about it. You can find a very interesting paper by him titled : Killing the false gods of Project Management - Ordo ab Chaos (Order out of Chaos) at http://www.pmforum.org/library/papers/cbwhitepaper.htm . He argues (like the less eminent myself) that ‘project management is becoming the way to manage the development of organizations’ but that ‘the project management knowledge field is not that clear because it is evolving in depth and breadth, so that standards, using a broad definition of this term, as social constructs, need ongoing adjustment’. He offers his reflections on the subject with nice conceptual graphics opposing two views of the world-paradigms (positivism vs constructivism) in order to,as he says, ‘open up discussion’.
Project management is serious business in a world that desperately needs better management frameworks to face globalization, rapid change and innovation. It is thus very important that we discuss about it and have real conversations to find ways to help not only project managers but whole organizations. And let’s face it, the ‘official’ non-explicit way of doing projects IS NOT SUFFICIENT and there are a lot of very serious studies as proof of it. As a project management professional with the very serious responsibility to help my clients and my profession, I, for one, cannot promote half-defined shooting-from-the-hip solutions, not taking into account the forces at play in our globalized, complex, uncertain and facinating world. So, I am open to discussion and conversations with my clients for more agile management solutions, and with anybody who can provide real help for them.
Thus, when you say, like more and more concerned managers, ‘Let new theory emerge’, I say : ‘I’ll gladly drink to that’
Salut!