Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Theoretical background
management is continuously described as weak, and rigorous theory
development has been called for (e.g. Shenhar & Dvir, 1996; 2007a).
The fragmentation of the field is reflected in the multiple definitions
presented for a project (Turner & Müller, 2003). The prominent view
regards projects as vehicles or tools that aim at delivering specified outputs
within the given budget and schedule. For example, Project Management
Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK, see Project
Management Institute, 2004) defines a project as “a temporary endeavor
undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”. The basic idea
behind this task-oriented view is that a project is given a task which it must
fulfill within the given resource limitations. In the beginning of the project,
the goals are specified and the possible routes to achieving the goals are
analyzed. After selecting the optimal alternative, a plan is made, a project
team is established and resources are budgeted accordingly. The end result
is delivered by executing the plan. Ideally, the project is detached from the
environment and the project team can fully concentrate on the task. The
project manager’s task is to control the activities in order to efficiently
deliver the project product.
The task or vehicle-oriented perspective described above has traditionally
dominated the project management discipline (Andersen, 2008). This view
regards project management mainly as planning, coordinating, monitoring
and controlling (Cicmil, 2006), and these topics have also dominated in
project management research (Themistocleous & Wearne, 2000). Much of
the research has dealt with optimization, examining and developing tools
such as the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the Critical Path Method
(CPM), the Program Evaluation Review technique (PERT), and various cost
estimation models (Packendorff, 1995; Söderlund, 2004b). Project
management literature has been characterized by a functionalist, normative
focus on optimization and “best practices” (Cicmil, 2006; Grabher, 2002).
Despite the extensive attempts to codify the best practice of project
management, considerable evidence has been listed to show that projects
still very often fail (Ives, 2005; Packendorff, 1995; Sauser, Reilly, &
Shenhar, 2009). The traditional task-oriented perspective on projects has
been subject to substantial criticism, as it does not seem to sufficiently
explain the dynamics that are seen to take place in projects. The overly
rational and mechanistic assumptions behind the task-oriented perspective
have been questioned, and the view has been accused of focusing too much
on the content (planned scope of work) and control (time and cost) of the
project, and ignoring the messy, fragmented and political character of
organizational reality (Cicmil, 2006; Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006). The critics
describe how the task-oriented perspective is based around the assumption
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