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