Exploring the role of a Programme Delivery Partner

This exploratory study brings together academia and practice for the co-creation of new knowledge in understanding the role of a Programme Delivery Partner in the context of major infrastructure programmes. We have formulated a problem statement, identified five emergent themes and developed an initial theoretical framework through which further study can be progressed. What we see is a business context where the capability of managing the continuous dynamic processes of stability and change will become the primary focus for our community. In response, we suggest the need to develop practitioners and scholars who have the capability to be reflexive in their day to day dialogue with others, to be able to articulate the dynamics of the present situation, to weave together and navigate future pathways that create and re-create new structures that account for the changing patterns of action through the life of a programme. As we write this paper, we see a world that is becoming ever more uncertain in how the future might play itself out. The line between order and dis-order is a thin one, at best. We hope that in some small way that this work can help our community meet this challenge

Designing Project Dynamics: Ways of knowing in construction project organising

Over the last 40 years, the construction industry has seen many positive developments, such as the reduction of safety incidents, maturity of project management systems, adoption of digital technology and a notable shift towards more collaborative forms of organising and relational contracting. We only have to look at the built environment around us to know that we are a capable industry. However, when Hedley Smyth and myself edited our book Construction Project Organising1, alongside many other well documented performance challenges, we were deeply struck by the notion of the industry as having a toxic culture and the fact that we have the highest in-work male suicide rate of any other UK industry. This is unacceptable by any measure. Alongside my own research into studying the lived experience of project life through the day to day dialogue that we engage in as practitioners2, this inspired me to think critically and understand more about our methods of knowledge creation. I arrived at the proposition that we need to take an evolutionary step from a dominant focus on knowledge transfer or exchange, towards pioneering novel methods of knowledge co-creation for each individual project-based context. To achieve this, in July 2023 I launched a new research centre titled the Centre for Construction Project Organising3 and embarked on a journey to scope out and establish a new Innovation Network (IN) titled Designing Project Dynamics. The aim of the IN is to identify, develop and implement novel methods of knowledge cocreation, bridging the gap between academia and practice for the betterment of the construction industry and the organisations and participants who engage in it. This report sets out the background and rationale for the IN. It presents the aims and objectives of the Scoping Workshop held in February 2025, which resulted in the identification of five knowledge themes, namely: Time and the Timing of Knowledge; Data Collection, Standardisation and Utilisation; Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration; Organisational Culture and Behaviour, and Interdisciplinary Approaches. The report concludes by setting out the aims, objectives and plan for establishing the Innovation Network

The timing of patterning or the patterning of timing? Organisational routines in temporary organisations

Large, or mega, construction project organisations are temporary in nature and traditionally structured around a life cycle model consisting of predefined, time bound sequential stages of work that are designed to process information and reduce uncertainty. Yet as organising through projects becomes both more prevalent and challenging, it could be argued that such a model constrains our understanding and representation of what ‘actually’ happens beyond these deterministic structures and prescriptive routines, specifically in understanding ‘how’ construction project organisations transition through the predefined time boundaries of the sequential stages. This thesis contributes to this knowledge by identifying an alternative image of the life cycle model through empirically investigating the ‘transition’ between life cycle stages, with ‘incomplete’ information. It identifies a five stage ‘recursive process model of transitioning’ that highlights the underlying generative mechanisms involved in the (re)creation of organisational routines in managing the incompleteness associated with transitioning from one life cycle stage to the next. It presents an empirical autoethnographic case study over one year, observing a construction project organisation as it sought to transition from its design stage, through formal sanction, and into its construction stage. Informed ontologically by process metaphysics, and through challenging the underlying theoretical temporal assumptions of temporary organisations - ‘newness’, and organisational routines - ‘repetition’, it describes managing project transitions as ‘dialogical action’, influenced by the spatiotemporal aspects of the organising inquiry. It identifies the patterning of action within six transition routines, that when mapped over time present the five stage recursive process model of transition. Despite a successful three-year relationship in developing organisational capability between the client and the contractor in the design stage, as the pre-defined date for the commencement of the construction stage neared, there emerged a realisation of the impending uncertainty that this new stage would bring. Triggered by various formal and informal transition ‘rituals’, the organisations’ search for, and assumptions about the ‘sufficient completeness’, or ‘necessary incompleteness’ of information led to both the effortful and emergent (re)creation in the ‘patterning of dialogic action’ from the design stage, into the construction stage

Self-Organizing Networks in Complex Infrastructure Projects

While significant importance is given to establishing formal organizational and contractual hierarchies, existing project management techniques neglect the management of self-organizing networks in large-infrastructure projects. We offer a case-specific illustration of self-organization using network theory as an investigative lens. The findings have shown that these networks exhibit a high degree of sparseness, short path lengths, and clustering in dense “functional” communities around highly connected actors, thus demonstrating the small-world topology observed in diverse real-world self-organized networks. The study underlines the need for these non-contractual functions and roles to be identified and sponsored, allowing the self-organizing network the space and capacity to evolve

Taking a Selfie: Researcher-practitioner positionality and reflexivity in project scholarship

The move in project scholarship towards understanding the lived experience of projects has led to researchers engaging more deeply in project practice. Despite this, there is little evidence of how their position as researcher-practitioner influences the theorising process. This paper presents analytic autoethnography as a conceptual frame for explicating researcher-practitioner positionality as one actor. Drawing on prior data from an autoethnography, it studies an autoethnographer's reflexive engagement with participants through the interview process. It identifies four themes of reflexive engagement, leading to four dimensions of reflexivity that have a constitutive effect on positionality: The Role of the Self; Relationality - Connecting Interviews, Participants, and Diary Entries; The Role of Chance and Circumstance; Bridging Research and Practice. These four dimensions contribute to project scholarship by showing how accounting for researcher positionality in the field helps demonstrate rigour and relevance when foregrounding the lived experience of research and practice in theory development

Space in project organising : Insights from planning within and between construction projects

Projects are discussed as social processes that are bounded in both time and space. Elaborating on space is still scarce in studies on project organising. The aim in this paper is to explore space influence on project planning, to extend our understanding of the relationship between space and project organising. Through two illustrative examples, construction project planning practices were followed within and between projects as the actors sought to handle space. Contribution develops current understanding of how projects are embedded in space and its influence on project planning practices, by shedding light on the recursive relationship between space and project organising. Furthermore, to trace planning practice both within a project and between parallel projects visualise how a broader perspective of the embeddedness is necessary. The findings nuance the current understanding of project's embeddedness, by visualising how planning practices can be directed to both changing space or to maintain space by changing practices