Fragility in project-based organizing, and the ways towards robustness

Citation

Martinsuo, M. (2013), "Fragility in project-based organizing, and the ways towards robustness", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmpb.2013.35306aaa.003

Fragility in project-based organizing, and the ways towards robustness

Article Type: Guest editorial 2 From: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Volume 6, Issue 1

The project organizing track at the EURAM 2011 Conference inspired Prof. Hans Georg Gemünden, Martina Huemann and myself to think about the paradoxality in project-based organizing: the threat of flexible becoming rigid and, thereby, fragile. On the one hand a very dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovation-oriented culture recognizes projects as ventures, as explorations, as vanguard activities that help high-velocity organizations in becoming dynamic and flexible. On the other hand there are strong trends to standardize project-related processes, develop regulated governance structures and certified practices and, as such, control the dynamics. The rigidity of control generates a danger of the entire project-based organization to become fragile.

Project-based management may create a variety of fragilities in firms. For example, by establishing flexible structures through increased outsourcing, offshoring and contracting with suppliers in their projects, companies may accidentally lose some of their core resources and competences to external firms. Or, by streamlining their project portfolios to deliver rapid benefits through their projects, the companies may neglect the slower-developing, longer-term benefits and more radical opportunities. Furthermore, using temporary workforce in projects may solve momentary fluctuations in the need for capacity and skills, but the poor management of such resources may endanger the expected benefits. How should the paradox between flexibility and rigid structures be solved?

For this special section, the call for proposals invited case-based analyses of the real-life paradoxes stemming from the pursuit of dynamics that may result in fragilities in the capability-base of companies, and the ways to solve them. After a review of several papers, two were selected for further development, with evident focus on multi-project organizations, their fragilities and ways towards robustness. The focus on project portfolio management is in line with the increasing research interest on multi-project organizing, and the need to improve organizations’ strategic alignment, prioritization and synergies of projects.

The paper by Catherine Killen and Robert Hunt entitled “Robust project portfolio management: capability evolution and maturity” introduces project portfolio management as a dynamic capability and asks how such a capability evolves and how it can be developed in a robust manner. They challenge the traditional, rational view to project portfolio management by introducing various sources of fragility: unintended evolution, success trap, deficient project terminations and inconsistent managerial processes. Their multiple-case empirical study then delves into the evolution of project portfolio management and the use of capability maturity models in supporting the evolution. Evidence is shown of the sources of fragility, as well as actions the companies have taken to develop project portfolio management capability. Suggestions are made on how portfolio-level capability maturity models should incorporate outcomes, learning and changes, to account for capability evolution and flexibility and resolve some of the identified fragilities.

The paper by Anna Jerbrant and Tina Gustavsson entitled “Managing project portfolios: balancing flexibility and structure by improvising” focuses on project portfolio management as portfolio managers’ actions situated in an uncertain context. Although the formal structures of project portfolio management may guide control routines, it is the day-to-day actions of managers that eventually define portfolio development. The authors seek insights into how improvisation takes place, particularly among portfolio managers. A two-case study is reported, with evidence on how the formal structures create contexts for managers’ improvised action. Particularly in the portfolio context it is shown that managers expand their improvisational space by opening up arenas for cross-project negotiations and stakeholder involvement, which is in contrast to project managers’ tendency to delimit their improvisational space purposively. The paper portrays the practice of project portfolio management as skilled balancing of structure and flexibility in the uncertain portfolio context.

Recent empirical research on project portfolio management has begun to test and verify some of the earlier normative suggestions on the associations between formalized portfolio management and portfolio performance. However, also the uncertain and dynamic nature of project portfolio management has been acknowledged, particularly through conceptual and qualitative studies. As a key contribution, the two papers in this special section together draw attention to project portfolio managers’ actions and how they may lead to an unplanned evolution in the portfolio. They also suggest that formal structures and processes as such generate improvisational spaces where managers communicate and negotiate portfolio priorities and, thereby, enact their agency and ownership of the portfolio. If we started out with the paradox between flexibility and rigidity of structures in project-based organizing, the results highlight a new fragility: the emergence and institutionalization of new structures as a consequence of managers’ planned and unplanned actions. To continue this fruitful avenue of research, I suggest further studies on the micro-level changes, diffusion of new practices, and institutionalization of project portfolio management as well as the agency adopted by project portfolio managers.

I would like to thank Hans Georg Gemünden and Martina Huemann for the inspiring discussions associated with flexibility and fragility in project-based organizing, and all the reviewers for the hard work in screening and developing the selected papers into their final form. I hope that this special section will inspire researchers to explore the issue of fragility in project-based organizing further.

Miia MartinsuoGuest Editor