Cultivating Learning within Projects

Citation

(2008), "Cultivating Learning within Projects", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 16 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2008.04416gae.001

Cultivating Learning within Projects

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 16, Issue 7

Andrew Sense,Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Keywords: Project management, Learning organizations, Work-based learning, Learning theory

Andrew Sense was a project manager in Australian manufacturing industry and is currently an academic interested in researching project learning and management. Cultivating Learning within Projects contains rigorous and recent case-study research into a large steel-manufacturing company in Asia. The book provides plenty to interest business people who find value and substance in relating reflection to real experience.

The author states: “By dual coverage of the conceptual and pragmatic aspects of learning within a project environment, it is my hope that you will better understand learning within project settings.”

Chapter 1 sets the scene on project-based learning and establishes the structure of the book. Chapters 2 and 3 identify and explore the key conceptual frameworks that shaped the research – namely conceptualizing learning within a project and sociological learning within a project.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 highlight key findings from the research, and outline the author’s model of constraining and enabling elements – cognitive style, learning relationships and pyramid of authority, knowledge management and situational context.

Chapter 7 summarizes and stitches together key findings on situated learning, and highlights practice and further research under the title “The Project Learning Opportunity – Where to Now?”. Included in this chapter is a useful set of 20 questions to stimulate reflection and potential action on project-learning attitudes and activities.

Emphasis is placed throughout the book on the fact that learning in projects should be an intentional outcome, built into project action in a systematic fashion. In this respect, project management must consider using the project as a learning vehicle that motivates the project team to learn. In turn, this requires each individual consciously to become a learner as well as a task achiever within the project. The text also makes links to the concepts of the learning organization, organizational learning and workplace learning.

While the book makes reference to the theory of how individuals and organizations learn, the reader benefits from understanding the project as it progresses, through the medium of research. In consequence, parts of the text use reflection of how the project team lived the project experience and the real challenges and learning for them.

The text is punctuated by only a few diagrams, and so is rather dense on the eye. The chapter summaries are consequently very helpful. The references are up-to-date and thorough.

For those seriously interested in expanding their knowledge of another element of work-based learning, the book represents a valuable resource. While not cheap, it is extremely thorough.

Reviewed by Alan Catell, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK.

A version of this review was originally published in Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 40 No. 2, 2008.