Erling S. Andersen

Project maturity in organisations

Abstract The paper presents research on project maturity in organisations. The purpose is to develop an understanding of what project maturity is and to investigate the level of project maturity in organisations today. The hypothesis is that project maturity develops through a maturity ladder where the ladder steps are proposed to be project management, program management, and portfolio management. Maturity itself is measured along three dimensions. They are knowledge (capability to carry out different tasks), attitudes (willingness to carry them out), and actions (actually doing them). The different dimensions of maturity are further divided into sub-concepts, which should provide a good understanding of the project maturity of an organisation. A questionnaire is developed based on this understanding of project maturity, and an initial survey has been conducted. The survey gives some support to the ladder construct, and shows that attitudes and knowledge are stronger than the actions taken. Further work on the questionnaire and surveys are proposed.

Exploring project success

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between project success factors and actual project success. It reports on an investigation into those factors within the direct influence of project managers that can make a real difference to the outcome of project endeavours.Design/methodology/approach – Using principal components analysis (PCA) on 60 questions about actual project work performance collected from four culturally different regions (UK, France, Norway and China), nine distinctively different critical success factors were found. Similarly, using PCA on ten project success items, three distinctively different project success criteria were extracted.Findings – The most important factors in improving managerial ability to deliver results in time and at cost were strong project commitment, early stakeholder influence, stakeholder endorsement of project plans and rich project communications. To secure project impact, strong project commitment and rich project communications were t...

TOWARD A PROJECT MANAGEMENT THEORY FOR RENEWAL PROJECTS

Project management literature treats projects as fundamentally similar. However, empirical studies show that projects are systematically managed differently. Thus, theories on how to manage different types of projects should be developed. This paper focuses on internal renewal projects that are seen as temporary organizations with assignments from a mother organization. This leads to an extended concept of project success. The propositions put forward to identify project success constitute a theory for renewal projects.

The Interrelationship of Governance, Trust, and Ethics in Temporary Organizations

This study investigates the variety of ethical decisions of project managers and their impact from corporate governance and project governance structures. The roles of personal trust and system trust as a mechanism to steer ethical decision making in different governance settings is explored. Nine qualitative case studies in Europe, Asia, and Australia show that ethical decision making is contingent on trust, which in turn is contingent on the fulfillment of personal expectations within a given governance structure. The findings show the prerequisites for ethical decision making and the consequences of lack of trust. Further managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.

Evaluation of Chinese projects and comparison with Norwegian projects

Abstract Project work in developing and emerging economies is complicated and unpredictable. It would be of great help to equip project managers with an easily applicable tool to assess whether the project is on the right track or not. A Project Evaluation Scheme (PEVS) has earlier been used on Norwegian projects. Data from 89 Chinese projects has been collected using the scheme. This article analyses the Chinese data and compares them to the Norwegian findings. The Chinese projects are scoring higher in all areas investigated, except on informal contacts. Particularly high were goal setting, overall planning and control execution. The Chinese projects achieve their goals and are regarded as a success by all participants. They should improve in project closeout work. The article discusses the reasons for differences between Chinese and Norwegian projects, ranging from differences in perception regarding the questionnaire, to the possibility that Chinese projects in fact are better. The qualities of activity execution are found to be the most important factor in predicting project success. PEVS is proven to be applicable to Chinese projects, yet further customisation is needed.

Understanding Your Project Organization's Character

Participants from 175 different Norwegian projects described the organizational cultures of both their most recent projects and their organizations. Their descriptions are based on a typology distinguishing between power, role, task, and person cultures, as outlined and developed in Harrison (1972) and Handy (1986). This study demonstrates that projects are more task culture-oriented than their base organizations. Further, hierarchical elements of the project must be eliminated for a project to move closer to the prevalent task culture. A stronger task orientation improves the chances of staying within the project budget.

Project management improvement efforts—creating project management value by uniqueness or mainstream thinking?

This paper presents a research study that is part of the large international Project Management Institute (PMI)-sponsored research project the “Value of Project Management.” Three case studies have been conducted on Norwegian enterprises. This article focuses on how enterprises improve project management and presents the improvement efforts and the stated reasons behind them. There are striking similarities as to the prioritized ways the enterprises have chosen to make improvements: use of a rather standardized model for project work and internal schooling activities. The enterprises all explain their efforts as internally driven, even if some consultancy assistance was used. This article discusses three drivers behind the improvement efforts: an economic perspective, a new institutionalism perspective, and an innovation perspective. This article identifies indicators pointing to all drivers and helps us understand why and how enterprises are improving project management. The importance of research on the practice of the most capable enterprises within the project management field is acknowledged.

Organizational rationality and project management

Purpose – Does the organizational culture of the base organization affect the way its projects are carried out? The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between one aspect of organizational culture, namely the formal rationality of the base organization and how projects are approached. The concept of McDonaldization is used to describe formal rationality; it covers four aspects: efficiency, predictability, calculability and control. Two types of approaches (here called project perspectives) to project management are studied: the task perspective (focus on a clearly defined endeavour from the start of the project) and the organizational perspective (focus on supporting the base organization in its change efforts). The relationship between formal rationality of the base organization and choice of project perspective is revealed.Design/methodology/approach – Empirical study based on a survey of 164 managers.Findings – The paper shows that the degree of formal organizational rationality af...

Are we getting any better? Comparing project management in the years 2000 and 2008

This paper presents a study on the progress of project management. Descriptions of projects from 2000 and 2008 are studied. The study concludes that the field of project management is moving ahead. Project team members are more knowledgeable about project work, project objectives are more clearly expressed, project organization is more appropriate, most work processes are improved, and team members experience project work as rewarding and are more motivated for future projects. However, the project results are not fully satisfactory. It is shown that stakeholders’ satisfaction could be improved by better decision processes, better management and leadership, and closer cooperation with the stakeholders.

Illuminating the role of the project owner

This is the authors final, refereed version of the article published in International Joural of Managing Projects in Business. The published article is available from this site: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1958727