Reshaping the project manager's project story: an adoption study of 'best practice' project management

Abstract

Organisations frequently procure project management training as part of their initiatives to improve project management practices. The research problem is that current learning and teaching imperatives continue to produce project management practitioners who are unable to deal with the realities of complex and dynamic environments. This research is a longitudinal study over two and a half years which reports on the adoption of the PRINCE2 project management methodology by sixteen employees of the same organisation who manage projects following the successful completion of a PRINCE2 training course. The use of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach permits the study of adoption of the innovation (PRINCE2 methodology) and investigates the networks that support the PRINCE2 project methodology to be adopted as two different translations. These have been called the Knowing Translation (KT) and the Performing Translation (PT). The characteristics of the PT and the KT are described together with four moments of translation that were identified. The nature of the PT is that the individual will continue to develop their interest in PRINCE2 and will look for a stable network that will support that translation, even if they resign from the organisation. The significance of the KT is that the individual will cease using PRINCE2 for their projects if there is no imperative given by the organisation to use it and no example set by others in using it. Differences between PT and KT were found to emerge about five months after the training course. Each participant brings to a training course their own ‘world view’ and conception of being on a project. This is their ‘personal story’. Translations are not people but different paths that help describe outcomes of personal stories. A participants’ ‘personal story’ affects how they see themselves in the role and ultimately how effectively they will perform in the workplace. The practical significance of this study is that it is practice-oriented and assists organisations to support project management improvement initiatives