آشفتگی “علم مقرر”: گذشته و آینده مدیریت پروژه ها  The unsettling of “settled science:” The past and future of the management of projects

1. Introduction With his introduction of his Management of Projects (MoP) perspective in 1994, Professor Peter Morris proposed a major reconceptualization of theory and practice in the field of project management. This was not a simple reformulation of our understanding of the basic elements in the project management discipline but, once fully understood, required nothing less than a rethinking of the manner in which organizations frame and manage their projects. Morris first developed the framework and summative model in his seminal (Dalcher, 2012) 1987 case studies of major UK projects with George Hough (Morris and Hough, 1987: Fig. 12.1), developed it in his more historically orientated contribution (Morris, 1994: Fig. 46), and revealed its latest incarnation in his valedictory statement (Morris, 2013: Fig. 4.5). We reproduce this latest version of the summative model in Fig. 1. We suggest that this model encapsulates the core of Morris’ contribution to research and practice in project management. Its fundamental concern is to capture empirically all the activities required to achieve project success, and it led to a critique of the received wisdom in project management theory and practice that focused on its tools and techniques, rather than the organizational requirements of achieving success for the organizations involved in the project. As Morris put it in 1994: “… while the subject of “project management” is now comparatively mature … it is in many respects still stuck in a 1960s time warp. Project managers, and particularly those who teach and consult to them, generally only take a middlemanagement, tools and techniques view of the subject. Few address the larger, more strategic, issues that crucially affect the success of projects” (Morris, 1994; p. 217). Morris (2012) argues that Cleland and King’s (1968) very influential text provided the academic justification for the tools and techniques focus, while in current practice it is embodied in the PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK). These contributions we dub as the “settled science” of project management, which Morris sought to unsettle. The PMBoK model establishes an execution-oriented approach to managing projects that misses several key areas, most notably managing the critical front-end activities that can make or break a project’s viability from the outset. In effect, PMBoK focuses so closely on the actual delivery of the project that it comes perilously close to ignoring the larger context within which the project is idealized, validated, and shaped by multiple stakeholder forces.