PM@DTU 1 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Christian Thuesen1 Charlotte Aaris Boas1 Michael V. Thorslund1 François Marmier2

Sara Grex1 Søren Lybecker1

1Technical University of Denmark 2Tolouse University, Mines Albi-Carmaux Sachabada.com: Mamika

PM@DTU 2 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

The typical image of project managers Marvel

PM@DTU 3 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Warner Bros

A more realistic image of project management practices

PM@DTU 4 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Ambition

• To study the connection between Best and Emergent practices of project management…

• …by developing an approach for studying and analysing practices of project management based on deconstruction and network visualization

PM@DTU 5 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Best practices

Concepts in project work

abstraction

analysis and association

Inspired by Hatch & Cunliffe (2006)

How might we understand PM

Emerging practices

PM@DTU 6 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Visual analysis using Network mapping • As practices (especially emergent) are highly complex phenomena it can be

difficult to create an overview of the material. Therefore a visual analysis is chosen to lay out the elements of the account of practices to obtain an overview of the main elements.

• The network consists of nodes (elements/concepts) and edges (connections.)

• The largest node is not necessarily the most important element, but the number of edges indicates the centrality of the concept/element at in the practices.

• The visual presentation is made in a network analysis by Gephi (www.gephi.org).

– is an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs.

– can handle large networks (i.e. over 20.000 nodes) it demands almost no computer power. (For more info visit “gephi.org”)

– Is an open source project developed and distributed under GNU General Public License

PM@DTU 7 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Best practices

PMI America

IPMA European

Prince 2 English ISO 21500

International

Best practice: ISO 21500

Project concepts Organizational concepts

PM@DTU 9 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Emerging practices •Empirical material from a workshop on deconstructing project

management practices

•18 participating project managers (research institutions, creative and cultural intuitions, consultancies, construction companies, architects, transport organization, municipalities and governmental organizations…)

•Different levels of experience

•Process

– Individual brainstorm on the most important tools and strategies

– Collective organizing process identification of central concepts

PM@DTU 10 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Emerging practice

soft concepts Hard

concepts

PM@DTU 11 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Juxtaposing best and emerging practices

PM@DTU 12 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Explaining discrepancies between Best and Emerging practices.

Institutionalized influences

Context

Learning processes

Best practices

Inspired by Christensen & Kreiner

PM@DTU 13 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

The role and relevance of best practices

•Best practices is inherently and modern idea – omitting the role of context. For good reasons since the context here was stable, well-known and thereby un-influential and irrelevant

•Today project managers are faced with a substantial amount of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity => Context is king.

•Can we reduce the soft tools/concepts as a contextual bias to the best practices?

•Is there a special Scandinavian variant of project management?

PM@DTU 14 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark

Perspectives on network visualization • It is possible to visualize and analyze emergent and best practices of project

management.

• Enabling

– close examinations of central project management concepts and their mutual relations

– identification of similarities and differences.

– identification of new areas of research, mapping current and past research.

• Other applications of Gephi:

– Social network analysis

– Dynamic maps of organizational development

– Mapping controversies

PM@DTU 15 DTU Management Engineering, The Technical University of Danmark Sachabada.com: Mamika