From the Editor

Citation

Walker, D.H.T. (2012), "From the Editor", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 5 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb.2012.35305aaa.001

From the Editor

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Volume 5, Issue 1

About this issue

This is the first issue for 2012, Volume 5 and it would be fair to say that we have reached a landmark. This volume will provide four issues of interesting PM papers that we trust academics and practitioners will find of value. I certainly have had feedback from numerous academics that they are finding these valuable resources for their postgraduate teaching and research. We will feature two special issues of the four planned issues in Volume 5, one is guest edited by Markus Hällgren and Marcus Lindahl on “re-situating the project” and the other is guest edited by Joana Geraldi and Jonas Söderlund on “classics of project management”. This issue contains seven papers, one thesis report note and one book review. It provides an eclectic mix of topics that extends our PM-related knowledge boundaries and should fulfil IJMPB’s aim to be thought provoking and to challenge traditional PM ideas.

The first paper to appear in this issue is entitled “Evolution of project teams for Generation Y workforce” by Vittal S. Anantatmula and Bobby Shrivastav from Western Carolina University in the USA. This paper helps project managers understand and deal with issues that arise out of Generation Y working with other generations. We have not seen many papers published about intergenerational leadership and team aspects of managing projects and so this makes a valuable contribution to bridging a real gap in our knowledge. It provides insights through survey results that unearth how Gen Y team members are perceived by their peers and how we can help Gen Y team members develop and lead project teams.

The second paper is authored by Thommie Burström from the Umeå University in Umeå Sweden and the paper is entitled “Understanding PMs’ activities in a coopetitive interorganizational multi-project setting”. He examines how PMs perform their work in practice in new product development projects and what key activities constitute these practices. He reports on an in-depth case study of a multi-project setting where project managers were assigned to three projects to develop new products while simultaneously competing and collaborating. This paper provides more detail findings from his recent PhD work that was summarised in his thesis research note published in Volume 4, 2011, Issue 4. One useful contribution that this paper makes is that it explores how project managers will be more prepared through acknowledging the presence of politics when dealing with the complexity and ambiguity that follows when trying to simultaneously collaborate and compete.

The third paper by Jürgen Staadt from the University Lille Nord de France, France is entitled “Redesigning a project-oriented organization in a complex system: a soft systems methodology approach”. The paper demonstrates the usability of systems thinking in the process of redesigning a leading public housing provider within a problematic situation. The paper attempts to describe the influence of evolving negative internal socio-political arrangements on the further development of the whole organisation and suggests a purposeful activity model based on constant improvement and collaborative learning for the ongoing intervention. It describes the first soft systems methodology intervention in a predominantly francophone country within the European Union and proposes a new avenue to the management of organizational as well as societal problems. This paper adds to a growing literature on the use of SMM in a PM context.

The fourth paper was written by Erling S. Andersen from the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway. Its title is “Illuminating the role of the project owner” and it presents findings from a research project in Norway on the role of the project owner with an aim to allow us to gain a better understanding of how project owners are handling their tasks, to identify areas for improvement and focus on challenges facing those being in this position. The research also studied which factors involving project owners could significantly improve project success. Results showed that project success could be enhanced when the project owner takes an active part in the socialisation activities of the project, directed by implemented project management work guidelines. Success may also be strengthened by a project management governance structure consisting of close cooperation between project owner and project manager throughout all phases of project work.

The fifth paper entitled “Getting real about innovations: formulating innovation descriptions that can reduce ontological uncertainty” by Stephen Fox from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Espoo provides an overview of how descriptions of innovations can be formulated in order to reduce the potential for ontological uncertainty. Ontological uncertainty exists when individuals have perceptions about the future consequences of an innovation, which are based more on their diverse world views than on the innovation itself. Often innovations are a direct and important outcome of many projects or it is necessary to use innovation effectively in delivering projects. Fox introduces us to a technique called “critical realist diagrams” that are used to provide the basis for descriptions that can encompass an innovation’s purpose, the functions and conditions which are necessary for its reliable operation, and also potential negative unintended consequences that might arise from the innovation.

The sixth paper by Kam Jugdev of Athabasca University, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada and Gita Mathur from San José State University – College of Business San José, California is entitled “Classifying project management resources by complexity and leverage”. The paper delivers a conceptual framework to classify project management resources as sources of competitive advantage based on research on 17 project management resources based on their degree of complexity and level of leverage in the project management process. The conceptual model shows the relationship between four categories of resources and their contribution to competitive advantage by being valuable, rare, inimitable, and organisationally supported. They believe that the classification of project management resources based on complexity and leverage provides a useful framework for managers considering the impact of investment in these resources for competitive advantage.

The final paper is written by Steven Cavaleri from Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut, USA, Joseph Firestone from Executive Information Systems, Inc. Alexandria, Virginia and Fred Reed from Thrive Signs Consulting, Honey Brook, Pennsylvania. The conceptual paper entitled “Managing project problem-solving patterns” presents a process for managing project problem solving patterns. It focuses on shifting the emphasis of project teams toward a more collaborative and knowledge-based style of dealing with challenges to project performance. The methods proposed in this paper encourage project managers to integrate processes for becoming more agile by tapping into lessons learned and knowledge gained to create higher quality solutions to problems. It is a paper that builds on reflective practice from the conclusions and observations drawn by the authors over many years of experience and the conceptual framework is a practical one derived from the practices used in leading companies. The paper provides practical guidelines to aid project managers in recognising and managing problem-solving patterns to create better solutions to problems. The authors provide a new lens for project managers to view projects.

A Doctoral Thesis Research Report Note is also presented in this issue from Beverly Pasian who undertook a Doctor of Project Management from UTS in Sydney. It is co-authored by her thesis supervisors Spike Boydell and Shankar Sankaran. The paper entitled “Project management maturity: a critical analysis of existing and emergent factors” reports on her recent thesis and it provides a summary of the thesis and explains her doctoral journey as well as adding some contextual content about UTS and its DPM degree. Thesis research notes provide a live link to a stable web site where the whole thesis can be downloaded from. We look forward to several more journal papers to be published from Dr Beverly Pasian’s work.

This issue also contains one review of the book Making Sense of Agile Project Management Balancing Control and Agility written by C.G. Cobb. The review was written by Derek H.T. Walker and the book reviewed should be of interest to any academics that are in the process of developing or refreshing courses on project planning and strategy.

We also provide a call for papers for a special issue to be presented in 2013 Special Issue on “When agile becomes fragile in project-based organizing: the ways towards robustness” details are included in this issue. An update on forthcoming events, conferences and useful PM links is, as usual, provided.

Derek H.T. WalkerSchool of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, e-mail: derek.walker@rmit.edu.au