Exercising Agency Decision Making and Project Initiation

Citation

Derek Walker (2015), "Exercising Agency Decision Making and Project Initiation", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 844-848. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-08-2015-0069

This interesting and important book has arisen out of Mark Mullaly’s (2013) PhD thesis that has been re-written and formatted to meet the needs of readers who prefer to read a book rather than a PhD thesis. The thesis was a rigorous piece of work that made a novel contribution to the PM literature and this book maintains its PhD work value while making it accessible to practitioners consistent with an academic product that maintains its integrity. There were many aspects of this book that I found useful for my own research into collaboration and knowledge transfer and I am sure that many readers with an interest in governance, decision making, organisational behaviour and the role of project champion, sponsor and project shaper would also find this book interesting.

The publisher, Gower, has a series of book titles on advanced PM-related topics that Professor Darren Dalcher is the editor of. I have written a number of reviews of books from the series of titles. This one, however, is not in that particular series but it is highly related to those books. This book is 176 pages long, whereas the other series titles are often around 100 pages but certainly this book shared features with that series of thought-leading books. This book comprises ten chapters. Before discussing each chapter’s contents I will explain what Mullaly means by “exercising agency” as it is a term that may cause some readers a measure of confusion. Agency is often understood to be exclusively wrapped up in Agency Theory though it has wider application as a concept at that.

According to Eisenhardt (1989, p. 58) “Agency theory is concerned with resolving two problems that can occur in agency relationships. The first is the agency problem that arises when (a) the desires or goals of the principal and agent conflict and (b) it is difficult or expensive for the principal to verify what the agent is actually doing. The problem here is that the principal cannot verify that the agent has behaved appropriately. The second is the problem of risk sharing that arises when the principal and agent have different attitudes towards risk. The problem here is that the principal and the agent may prefer different actions because of the different risk preferences”. This definition does provide a good starting point for understanding the “agency” concept but the term has also application to the study of decision making on behalf of others.

Agency is about the way that people make decisions within a framework of rules, expectations of those they act on behalf of and how their own perception of what is appropriate behaviour in making those decisions and acting upon them. It lies at the heart of PM from initiating projects through to their delivery. Mullaly’s interest is primarily at the initiation end of the PM spectrum and this book is oriented in that direction though in using terms such as project shaping and exercising agency he also moves into aspects of project delivery. He draws on a number of theories related to governance and behaviours including Smith and Winter (Smith, 2007; Smith and Winter, 2010) on aspects such as the project shaper role and Dietz and Burns (1992) in terms of criteria that need to be met for social actors to exercise agency. Mullaly (2015, p. 9) cites Dietz and Burns (1992) is stating that exercising agency needs that the actor can make a difference; actions must be intentional; there must be room for the actor to manoeuvre in interpreting what can and should be done; and the actor must be reflexive, be able to reflect and take action upon consideration of likely consequences. This brings in a lot of discussion of governance arrangements, organisational workplace and individual’s behaviour, decision-making theory, leadership traits and predispositions, stakeholder engagement and a range of communication and cognitive aspects. This makes for an interesting topic! Mullaly (2013) recently did his PhD on this and for those readers who would prefer to read the thesis or read some of his interesting blogs and presentations they can contact him through the link http://emergentstrategies.ca/

This book starts off with a sound introductory chapter to generally explain key terms and let the reader know what to expect from the rest of the book.

Chapter 2 discusses the challenges encountered in initiating projects. This sets a good context for his focus for the book. The role of “project shaper” is discussed at length with reference to the work of Smith and Winter (Smith, 2007; Smith and Winter, 2010) that leads to a useful model on page 25 which highlights the categories of analysis for the project initiation decision.

In Chapter 3 he explores what actually happens in the process by which decisions about project initiation is influenced. He introduces these influences as process, politics and individual agency. He sets out his empirical basis for his argument; he had undertaken a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with key project initiation decision makers, 30 in all, eight from the USA, 19 from Canada and three from Australia. Six interviewees were at the executive level, 14 were classified as occupying mid-management positions and ten were in project management positions in organisations in 11 industry sectors. He had a reasonable sample to make sense of his topic in a rigorous way.

Chapter 4 discusses what process drives choices with a neat figure on page 56 to anchor the discussion that follows his analysis that supported his PhD dissertation. He discusses process formality, process consistency, decision-making process clarity and personal influence to illustrate how the process effectiveness impacts agency and the decision effectiveness. He uses cited quotes from his interviews to illustrate points so we get a more credible account that him relying on claiming to be a PM “guru” pressing his opinions on us. This is what I found good about the book. It is based on sound research.

Chapter 5 then moves on to discuss when politics drives choices. The term “politics” can be used disparagingly or in a vague and unhelpful way but Mullaly explains the way he uses the term and cites it accordingly so that what is meant by political influence is clear from the chapter. Another neat figure on page 68 provides a nice anchor for a structured explanation. Personal influence, political environment and shaper role formality provide inputs into a model together with agency as a separate entity to influence what he terms “rule effectiveness” that in turn impacts upon the decision effectiveness. This nice model explains the concept clearly when read together with the explanatory headings. Again he has quoted his research participants to illustrate meaning and the chapter is concise and a valuable contribution to help us understand what politics in an organisation can mean: both in a negative and positive sense.

Chapter 6 moves logically forward with a discussion on situations when individuals drive choices. Another clear and informative model appears on page 80 which illustrates how the influences of an individual’s position in the organisation, decision making influence and their personality traits as three separate factors influence agency that in turns influences decision effectiveness. Each of the model elements are explained with useful quotes from his research participants. The issue of perceived flexibility that project shapers felt that they had given the organisational rules, processes, routines and governance arrangements and the political environment they face is discussed and how this affects exercising agency. I “dog-eared” page 88 which has a model of Jung’s theory of psychological types, the thinking/feeling and introverted and extroverted polar opposite dimensions that help define personality type. I am more familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument (Leonard and Straus, 1997; Gehring, 2007; Madter et al., 2012) but Mullaly’s use of the Blue, Red, Yellow and Green personality types certainly helped me understand his line of reasoning in this chapter. More salient quotes from his research participants reinforce meaning and the argument’s direction that he pursues.

Chapter 7 delves into when choices go off the rails. This chapter explores some of the dark side of organisational culture and decision making and he highlight a few scenarios and a number of useful quotes that explain how bad decisions and inappropriate project initiation decisions can be made. He discusses the factors that limit agency when agency is not enough for the project shaper to overcome structural or political impediments to good project initiation decision making. Again, useful quotes help illustrate his argument.

Chapter 8 steps out of the shadows and into the light of positive energy. It is about shaping better project results. His analysis builds upon his three identified influences on agency position within an organisation, influence on the decision and personality of the project shaper. He stresses how, through better understanding what the project shaper is facing within an organisation, the shaper can better design a path to exercise agency effectively. I enjoyed reading this chapter because it resonated with me on how I could best articulate the trust-control balance that I saw was needed as part of a governance arrangement to support collaboration on large scale infrastructure projects. I will not elaborate, but I am sure that other readers will experience a few lights going on in their heads when reading this chapter and the following chapters. I am sure that this would help them better understand what may have seemed like ad hoc and erratic decision making on projects they have seen go awry. Table 8.1 on my (now) dog-eared copy of this book provides a comparison of Mullaly’s PhD study categories with elements in the Smith and Winter (Smith, 2007; Smith and Winter, 2010) project shaping model that I find a useful source to quickly refer to in remembering the synergies between these two related research topics. It helped me to understand what may be going in an organisation and why decisions emerge the way they do and more importantly how the whole exercise can be more effectively influenced. Personally, this has always been an element of emotional intelligence that I am lacking in when initiating new ideas and projects. During past decades I have often found my initiatives lose traction and I often wondered how I found myself isolated in moving an initiative forward and how it all went so differently from my expectations. I hasten to add that I am not looking for sympathy! I have been a common-or-garden well-intentioned initiator of various “projects” over many decades. In common with many readers in that situation, I failed to understand how I read the evolving situation so wrong (when my expected initiatives were harpooned or died before ever really getting a chance to shine). I should have read this chapter many decades ago, especially the situations to avoid section on pages 147-149.

Chapter 9 has a focus on the executive responsibilities for project initiation decision making. It is useful in its discussion of the role of shaper and how it differs from sponsor, champion and subject matter expert proponent of a project. It gives sound advice about how organisations could effectively ensure that the person who takes on the shaper role given the process and/or political context has the matching skills and abilities and motivation to be effective. Mullaly’s explanation of the importance of understanding the influences at play, process, political and personal make good sense and sound advice. In this regard the chapter is a good complimentary text for those interested in stakeholder communication and engagement. It also has a section advising on what to look out for and avoid in making better project initiation decisions.

The last chapter, Chapter 10, is focused on a discussion of improving the project initiation process and takes a macro view from the organisational perspective. Mullaly has a change management and strategy background so this naturally influences his discussion. I felt that it hinted at, but was not explicit about, programme and portfolio management implications of the project initiation process. This is a short and pithy chapter and I suspect that he did not want to stray off course given that this is a very nicely focused book.

In summary, I found this an excellent book for my university library to obtain several copies for reference and to support the master degree programme as well as for several of my PhD students. It would be an invaluable book for many practitioners to read, especially those mystified with the process they experience on how projects get selected. The industry sectors that were researched do not include the construction industry, or engineering contractors that undertake large scale infrastructure projects. In that industry sector there is a lot of formality with stage gate processes. Publications that have emerged from the CONCEPT research program in Norway (Samset, 2009; Samset et al., 2014) indicate high levels of process in project initiation and in the IT sector the stage gate system is recommended by the UK Government (Office of Government Commerce, 2007a, c, d, b) and other governments for example at Australian State and Commonwealth levels (Commonwealth of Australia, 2006). All these wonderful government reports and guides describe the process very well but are largely silent on how the politics side works. This is where Mullaly’s book is a gem even for those organisations with very well developed processes.