INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Directions for future research in project management: The main

ndings of a UK government-funded research network
Mark Winter

a,*

, Charles Smith b, Peter Morris c, Svetlana Cicmil

Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, MBS East, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK
b
11 Lowland Way, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 9AG, UK
School of Construction and Project Management, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
d
Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK

Abstract
In 2003 the UKs Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) agreed to fund a research network Rethinking Project Management to dene a research agenda aimed at enriching and extending the subject of project management beyond its current
conceptual foundations. The main argument for the proposed Network highlighted the growing critiques of project management theory
and the need for new research in relation to the developing practice. Being the rst paper of this Special Issue, this paper presents the
Networks main ndings: a framework of ve directions aimed at developing the eld intellectually in the following areas: project complexity, social process, value creation, project conceptualisation, and practitioner development. These areas are based on a comprehensive analysis of all the research material produced over a 2-year period and represent the dominant pattern of ideas to emerge from the
Network as a whole. They are not meant to be the agenda for future research, but an agenda to inform and stimulate current and future
research activity in developing the eld of project management. Methodologically, the ve research directions represent a synthesis of
ideas for how the current conceptual base needs to develop in relation to the developing world of practice. As well as presenting the main
ndings, the paper also presents a practical research framework aimed at researchers working in the eld. The intended audience for the
paper is the project management research community, and also researchers in other management areas for whom the Networks ndings
might be of interest.
2006 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Project management; Research; Directions; Network; Theory; Practice; Complexity

1. Background to the network

One of the most important organisational developments
in recent years has been the signicant growth in project
work across dierent sectors and industries. Academic
research in the UK [1] conrms this trend, which looks
set to continue with increasing numbers of new developments and new initiatives being pursued through projects
and programmes. Recent industry reports, e.g. [2] also
highlight the growing adoption of project management
standards and practices across large numbers of organisations, including the creation of project management cen*

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: m.winter@manchester.ac.uk (M. Winter).

0263-7863/$30.00 2006 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.08.009

tres of excellence within UK government departments [3].

No longer just a sub-discipline of engineering, the management of projects including programme management and
portfolio management is now the dominant model in
many organisations for strategy implementation, business
transformation, continuous improvement and new product
development. Similarly, in areas such as infrastructure
renewal, urban regeneration and community development,
project management practices are becoming increasingly
important, as more and more work is organised through
projects and programmes [4]. Despite these developments
in practice, however, the current conceptual base of
project management continues to attract criticism for its
lack of relevance to practice [521] and, consequently,
to improved performance of projects across dierent

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

industrial sectors. It was against this background in 2003

that the UKs Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC) agreed to fund a new research network
called Rethinking Project Management: Developing a New
Research Agenda between 2004 and 2006. The Network
proposal highlighted many of the growing critiques of project management concepts, and the increasing calls for new
perspectives from other related disciplines in the social sciences, e.g. [17]. In summary, the main argument was not
that the extant project management body of thought with
its concepts, methodologies and tools is worthless and
should be abandoned, but rather that a new research network was needed to enrich and extend the eld beyond its
current intellectual foundations, and connect it more closely to the challenges of contemporary project management practice.
2. Network aims and primary output
Shaped then by the argument above, and the objectives
of EPSRC Networks, the stated aims of the Rethinking
Project Management Network were:
Table 1

639

1. To create a new inter-disciplinary network of academics,

researchers and practitioners interested in developing
the eld of project management and improving realworld practice.
2. To identify and dene an inter-disciplinary research
agenda aimed at enriching and extending the eld
beyond its current foundations.
Focusing on the second of these two aims, this paper
presents the primary output of the Network a framework of ve directions for future research based on a
comprehensive analysis of all the research material produced over a 2-year period, including sensemaking
papers, meeting minutes, meeting notes, practitioner presentations and papers from other events. (The next paper
in this Special Issue discusses the research methodology
and the whole collaborative inquiry approach upon which
these ndings are based. For a brief summary of the
research methodology and the Network meeting programme, see Table 1.) Collectively, the ideas in this paper
represent the most discernible pattern of ideas to emerge
from the Network as a whole, and the aim of this paper is

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M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

to contrast these ideas with many of the dominant ideas

contained within the published literature on project management. In doing this, our principal aim is to highlight
ve directions for possible future research, which focus
on the development of new concepts and approaches
identied by both researchers and practitioners as critical
to the management of projects. Overall, the Network has
found a strong need for new thinking to inform and guide
practitioners beyond the current conceptual base, and it is
this need which the ve directions seek to address. To
present the ve directions, we begin the paper with a summary of contemporary thinking in project management to
provide a backdrop against which to discuss the Networks main ndings. This enables a structured comparison between the two patterns of ideas contemporary
thinking and the thinking of the Network highlighting
the ve areas in which future research is needed. After
discussing what research is needed albeit in the form
of the ve directions the nal part of the paper turns
to the question of how: in short, what are some of the
issues for researchers and what new approaches can be
used to improve the rigour and relevance of project management research?
In summary, the ideas contained within this paper (and
the other papers in this Special Issue) are not meant to be
the agenda for future research, but an agenda to inform
and stimulate current and future research in project management. To this end, the intended audience is not just
the project management research community, but also
researchers in other management areas for whom the ndings of this Network might be of interest.
3. Contemporary thinking in project management
Summarising the current conceptual base of project
management may be a logical place to start, but is not easy.
There is no single theoretical base from which to explain
and guide the management of projects. There are instead
various theoretical approaches, many of which overlap.
These operate both for individual aspects of project management (e.g. control, risk, leadership, etc.) and for the discipline as a whole. For the discipline as a whole, three
dominant approaches stand out, and a number of newer
strands have emerged in recent years. The aim of this section is to summarise these dierent conceptual approaches
and their relevance to todays research issues.
Arguably the most dominant strand of project management thinking is the rational, universal, deterministic
model what has been termed the hard systems model,
emphasising the planning and control dimensions of project management, e.g. [19,2224]. This is chronologically
the rst of the strands arriving with critical path scheduling. Most popular project management textbooks and
methodologies are based on this approach. It has however
been criticized for failing to deal adequately with the emergent nature of front-end work, for tending to treat all projects as if they were the same, and for not accounting

suciently for human issues, which are often the most signicant, e.g. [2527]. A second strand of thinking is more
theoretically based and emerged in the late 1960s and
1970s from the literature on organisational design, which
focused on organisational structure as a means of achieving
integration and task accomplishment. Following Lawrence
and Lorschs seminal work on integration [28], Galbraith
[29] identied the spectrum of organisational alternatives,
from functional through matrix to project. Mintzberg
[30], following Toer [31], promoted projects as ad-hoc
organisational forms, which led to the so-called Scandinavian school [3235] looking at projects as temporary organisations, showing how projects are embedded within the
rm and wider networks [36]. A more recent third group,
stemming from the late 1980s, but still producing important contributions, has looked at major projects, e.g.
[9,37,38] with examples in specic sectors [3944]. These
studies emphasise a broader view of projects, recognising
the importance of the front-end, and of managing exogenous factors, as well as the more traditional executionfocused endogenous ones. From this latter strand has
emerged the broader management of projects framework
[5,45], one which, it is argued elsewhere in this Special
Issue, is more aligned with the main ndings of the Network. Emphasising context and front-end work, strategy,
learning, and managing the exogenous factors, this framework has the advantage of being more holistic while being
theoretically catholic.
In addition, there are also a number of more recent perspectives now in the public domain. The rst has explored
the interplay between projects and the strategic direction of
the business enterprise [44,46]. This work emphasises the
context in which projects are undertaken and how prior
experience and contingent capabilities are crucial to
project performance [36,47]. Second, Winch, building on
Williamson [48], has promoted a view of projects as information-processing systems (to address the uncertainty
which is an over-riding characteristic of projects) [49,50]).
And third, most recently Hodgson and Cicmil [51] have
been exploring projects and project management from a
critical management perspective. Among this collection of
work, one of the themes focuses on projects and project
management as instruments of control (though this could
be seen by some not so much as theorising about the management of projects as the consequences of how they are
managed).
Certainly the issues facing both researchers and practitioners now seem to be well beyond the hard systems perspective so often associated with project management
([52]; see also Morris et al. [53] in this Special Issue). For
example, Morris [10] in 2000 analysed all the 763 papers
and book reviews published in the Project Management
Journal, the Project Management Network, and the International Journal of Project Management between 1990 and
1999, and concluded there is a need, fundamentally, to
refocus the discipline and its research paradigm. We need
to understand better, in particular, the linkages between pro-

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

ject management and business performance, and project

managements generic responsibilities and actions in the
area(s) of technology and design, IT, supply chain management . . .knowledge, learning and competency development is
key. Similarly, in a 2004 review of practice issues, Morris
identied topics of increasing interest to include: portfolio
management; program management; integrated performance metrics; the front-end (encompassing issues such
as governance, project leadership, project sponsorship,
strategy, value management and benets management);
and building enterprise-wide project management competence and capability [54]. Examples in this latter area
include benchmarking, maturity, certication, and learning
and knowledge management. An increased interest in
typology issues to help categorize particular practices
[5861] was also recognised.
Evidently then, the subject seems to be intellectually
alive; the number of research and practitioner conferences each year attests to the fact! Clearly there are real
issues: largely either about how we develop the practices
that best help manage projects, or else as much, if not
more, in areas such as commercial, technological, human
behaviour and other broader aspects of the subject as
indeed the Network too has found. To many project
managers, some of these broader topics may seem esoteric beyond their daily concerns but collectively they
represent real issues for the totality of people who
together work for the eective development and delivery
of projects, including project directors, programme and
portfolio managers, development managers, system engineers, and associated project team members, as well as
project managers themselves. And it is this totality that
the research on project success and failure [9,5557] suggests we need to attend to if we want to develop and
deliver more successful projects.
4. Directions for future research: main ndings of the
Network
We turn now to the framework of ve directions in
which the current conceptual foundations of project management need to develop in relation to the developing practice. As stated earlier, these directions are not meant to be
the agenda for future research, but an agenda to inform
people already working in the eld, and those interested
in developing new research in project management. In
essence, the principal nding of the Network is the need
for new thinking in the areas of project complexity, social
process, value creation, project conceptualisation and practitioner development. Many of these areas are not new to
academics and experienced practitioners, but this is not
what the Network has sought to achieve: what the ve
directions represent are the principal areas in which new
concepts and approaches are needed to guide practitioners
in the management of projects. To illustrate the dierent
kinds of concepts and approaches that are needed, the ve
directions are also presented under three particular head-

641

ings: theory about practice (direction 1), theory for practice

(directions 24) and theory in practice (direction 5). Starting with theory about practice, this is a reference to theory
that helps us to understand practice, albeit from a particular
perspective, but which does not necessarily have immediate
practical application; in the case of theory for practice, this
is a reference to concepts and approaches that do have
practical application, and here we identify three directions
in which new thinking is needed. With regard to both categories, the Network has found there to be signicant differences in theory and knowledge constructed on the basis
of studying projects and project management processes as
pre-existing, given, before we become aware of them, and
theory and knowledge which takes practice as becoming,
or emerging under specic conditions of power, structures,
history and intentions of actors in a specic local context,
and reecting lived (not modelled) experience of practicing
project managers. In essence, the Network has found there
needs to be a much greater focus in future research on concepts and theories closely resonating with these realities, to
provide practitioners with practical concepts and
approaches more in alignment with contemporary thinking. The nal heading, theory in practice, is essentially a reference to how practitioners learn their craft, and how they
actually practice their craft using relevant theory from the
published literature on project management. In summary,
this third dimension is used to capture the emerging debate
about skills, competencies, and practitioner development,
and the growing need for new research in this area too.
In presenting the ve directions shown in Table 2 a
from position is identied for each direction the dominant position (as we perceive it) and a towards position
representing the new direction of thought, vis-a`-vis, a new
direction for future research. Each direction is also the subject of discussion in the following sections, leading to a
nal section which elaborates on some of the methodological implications relating to the Networks main ndings.
4.1. Theory ABOUT practice: Issues in conceptualising
projects and project management
By far the clearest pattern to emerge from all the practitioner inputs to the Network is the sheer complexity of
projects and programmes across all sectors and at all levels, encompassing all manner of aspects including the
multiplicity of stakeholders, and the dierent agenda, theories, practices and discourses operating at dierent levels
within dierent interested groups, in the ever-changing
ux of events. Set the classical lifecycle model as the
conceptual representation of project management the
textbook story in much of the literature against this
complexity and one soon appreciates the need to enrich
the current conceptual base in relation to the developing
practice. However, this is not to say that we should abandon the project lifecycle concept, but that it cannot be
perceived as an all-encompassing representation of actual
practice.

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Table 2

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

4.1.1. D1: The lifecycle model of projects and

PM ! theories of the complexity of projects and PM
In essence, the message of direction 1 in Table 2 is that
we need to develop new models and theories which recognise and illuminate the complexity of projects new ontologies and epistemologies which extend and enrich our
understanding of the actual reality of projects and project
management practice. An example of new thinking in this
area is the edited collection of Hodgson and Cicmil [51]
which oers new insights into the realities of projects based
on critical management perspectives and perspectives from
social theory. Within this collection, one notable example is
the work of Linehan and Kavanagh [62] who describe two
contrasting project ontologies being and becoming
for extending and enriching our understanding of the reality of projects. Consider for example the following extract
from their work:
[in a being ontology] primacy is given to objects, things,
states, events, and nouns. . . . this style of thinking leads us
to consider project organisations as things, as entities,
akin to elephants and other organisms, with functions,
parts, structure, and relationships with similar entities in
the environment . . . it is a worldview that infuses the
[mainstream] discourse of project management, . . . our
point is not that a being ontology is wrong or unhelpful;
rather that it is partial and that it may blind us to other,
perhaps more useful and more human, ways of thinking
about and seeing the world. In contrast to a being ontology, a becoming ontology emphasises process, verbs,
activity, and the construction of entities. . . . a becoming
ontology demands that we continually question categories
and divisions that are routinely seen as xed. . . . to hold a
becoming ontology is to demand that we question boundaries on the basis that these are always human constructions and mere empirical manifestations of conceptual
categories.
As Linehan and Kavanagh state, the (mainstream) being
ontology is not wrong or unhelpful, but rather a partial
view of reality, and the same is true of the becoming
ontology; it too is not wrong or unhelpful, but is another
view of reality, which Linehan and Kavanagh argue
seems to better describe the empirical reality of projects
[62].
Herein lies two very important points for developing the
eld intellectually: rstly, the need to challenge the assumption that the rational deterministic model is an all-encompassing model of projects and project management as
many of the textbooks seem to portray and secondly,
the (often unexamined) assumption that the deterministic
model is the actual reality, in other words, the map is the
terrain. As the extract from Linehan and Kavanagh makes
clear, there are multiple models and theories of the practice
terrain, and being only partial views of that terrain, these
models and theories should be viewed less as models of
that terrain, and more as models relevant to the terrain.
Making this distinction not only helps to distinguish the

643

theory-world more clearly from the practice world, it also

demands that such models and theories be rigorously
tested for their relevance and usefulness to that terrain.
As Fay [63] states:
there is no one best map of a particular terrain. For any
terrain there will be an indenite number of useful maps, a
function of the indenite levels and kinds of description of
the terrain itself, as well as the indenite number of modes
of representation and uses to which they can be put.
To evolve useful maps requires organised interaction between theory and practice, between academics and practitioners, and the issues associated with this are discussed
in a later section. Suce to say, during meeting 6 of the
Network, one of the practitioners supported Demings
words in saying all models are wrong, but some are useful
[64], which leads us conveniently to the second domain of
theory development in Table 2.
4.2. Theory FOR practice: directions for new concepts and
approaches to support practitioners
As Table 2 shows, as well as there being a need to
develop new theories about actual project management
practice which recognise and illuminate the complexity
of projects and project management another strong pattern to emerge from the Network is the need to develop
new theories for practice new images, concepts, frameworks and approaches to help practitioners actually deal
with this complexity in the midst of practice. In other
words, a key implication of direction 1 is the need for practitioners to work with multiple images in the management
of projects, rather than just one single all-encompassing
model or theory, which is often the textbook guide to
action. As Morgan [65] states in respect of organisation
theory:
if multiple images of an organisation are used, much
greater understanding is gained, for organisations are
many things at once, so multiple images envisage more
of what is going on. They can reveal new ways of managing and designing organisations that were not apparent
before [66].
The same thinking also applies to projects and programmes, as Winter and Szczepanek [67] point out:
if multiple images of a project (or programme) are used,
much greater understanding is gained, for projects are
many things at once, so multiple images envisage more
of what is going on. They can reveal new ways of managing and designing projects that were not apparent before.
In practice of course, many experienced practitioners already do this through experience and intuition a fact
conrmed by many of the practitioner inputs to the Network meetings. So what new theories and images need to
be developed for practice, to assist those learning the
craft?

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M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

Based on the work of the Network, this part identies

three important areas in need of further research: projects
as social processes new concepts and images (D2); projects as value creation processes new concepts and frameworks (D3); and, project conceptualisation new concepts
and approaches (D4). Directions 2 and 3 are essentially
based on the worldview that there is no one best way to
think about projects and programmes. As Table 2 shows,
as well as the instrumental lifecycle image of projects, practitioners also need to think about projects and programmes
from a number of other perspectives [67], notably, projects
as social processes, and projects as value creation processes, which in turn leads to the following research question: what concepts, images and frameworks could
usefully assist practitioners in thinking from these perspectives? Similarly, with regard to direction 4, the research
question is: what new concepts and approaches could usefully assist practitioners in conceptualising projects and
programmes from dierent perspectives? As stated earlier,
these directions and questions represent important areas
in which project management ideas need to develop, to
assist practitioners in dealing with the complexity of projects. As Cooke-Davies [27] argues:
there is a need to improve the eectiveness of research into
the management of projects so as to provide support both
for project management practitioners, and also for
organisations in public, private and voluntary sectors
that seek to accomplish benecial change through
projects.
The next three paragraphs cover directions 24 with some
examples of current and emerging research.
4.2.1. D2 projects as instrumental processes ! projects as
social processes
One of the strongest themes to emerge from all the practitioner presentations to the Network is the fact that real
projects and programmes are much more complex, unpredictable and multidimensional than the rational, deterministic model which dominates the literature. In short, the
notion that there are projects and programmes out there
being acted upon by practitioners performing apolitical
operations is inappropriate. And yet practitioners are often
left stranded to deal with this complexity without much
help from the literature. Hence, as Table 2 shows, future
research in this area needs to concentrate on developing
new ways of thinking which relate to the actual complexity
of projects, at all levels, focusing on aspects such as: the
ever-changing ux of events, the complexity of social interaction and human action, and the framing and reframing
of projects and programmes within an evolving array of
social agenda, practices, stakeholder relations, politics
and power [68,69].
For example, many of the practitioners who presented
to the Network sought to explain events in terms of organisations and their interactions, seeing the adoption of project and programme management, and the emergence of

specic projects, as artefacts of the power relationships

between dierent groups with competing interests. In
focusing on these events, a number of examples of current
and emerging research were presented to the Network,
including the work of Cicmil and Cooke-Davies
[26,27,70] who advocate the image of complex responsive
processes of relating in organisations [71] as a way of
understanding the complexity of social interaction, and
suggest that this perspective could form an useful theoretical basis for new research into project management.
4.2.2. D3 product creation as the prime focus ! value
creation as the prime focus
Another strong theme to emerge from the practitioner
presentations to the Network is the increasing emphasis
within organisations on value creation, rather than product
creation, as the overall focus in the management of projects. For many organisations, the main concern now is
no longer the capital asset, system or facility etc, but
increasingly the challenge of linking business strategy to
projects, maximising revenue generation, and managing
the delivery of benets in relation to dierent stakeholder
groups. However, as the from part of direction 3 in Table
2 shows, the principal concern in mainstream project management thinking is essentially that of product creation: the
development or improvement of a physical product, system
or facility etc, to specication, cost and time. Even the
body of ideas known as value management is historically
and intellectually more aligned with the product creation
perspective than the value creation perspective being
described here.
Like the other directions in Table 2, direction 3 constitutes another signicant gap between mainstream thinking
and the developing practice, and hence, represents another
important area in which the eld needs to develop new concepts and frameworks to help practitioners. Unlike direction
2 however, the thinking in this area is more advanced driven more by industry than academia however, more work
is needed to build on current and emerging developments,
e.g. [46,7277]. For example, new research is needed to illuminate the strategic selection (and non-selection) of projects
and programmes in organisations, recognising dierent
forms of value, and the need for new models of value creation beyond the conventional value chain type representations of production and manufacturing.
Another aspect which emerged as signicant in several
of the Network meetings was the issue of value to whom?,
in other words, the notion of value as having multiple
meanings linked to dierent organisational and individual
purposes. A case in point is urban regeneration programmes and community development projects: how can
we assist practitioners to conceptualise the value to be created from these programmes and projects? This more complex understanding of value also highlights the fact that
the creation of value is often extended over long time periods, and cannot be dened and constrained by the mainstream concepts of project initiation and closure. In other

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

words, value creation continues long after the project managers have moved on.
4.2.3. D4 narrow conceptualisation of projects ! broader
conceptualisation of projects
Like the other two directions in this category, this direction also emerges from the practitioner inputs to the Network, but unlike directions 2 and 3 which are essentially
concerned with content the social process and value creation this direction is concerned with the actual process of
conceptualising projects and programmes from dierent
perspectives. In writing about this in relation to business
strategy, Normann [78] states:
business and other institutions today have to be very
skilled at conceptualising. Todays products and services
are more about knowledge and linkages than about steel
and mass. Companies are abstractions and value-creating
networks more than factories and oces. Todays free
ow of information needs to be transformed into unique
concepts and frameworks which then focalize action.
Interestingly, exactly the same ideas apply to projects and
programmes, implying that project managers and other
practitioners have to be very skilled at conceptualising
(and focalising action!) Indeed, one of the qualities displayed by the practitioners who presented to the Network
was precisely this skill, the skill of conceptualising projects
and programmes from dierent perspectives, and focusing
action in the midst of complex practice. Hence, the message
of direction 4 as the towards part in Table 2 shows is
the need for new concepts and approaches to help facilitate
this activity, particularly at the front-end of projects, where
as Morris [19] states:
we often have quite messy, poorly structured situations
where objectives are not clear, where dierent constituencies have conicting aims and where the way forward
requires vision and leadership as well as hard analysis
and design.
Where then might researchers look to assist practitioners at
the messy front-end? One area which holds particular
promise is the area of problem structuring methods [79],
a collective term for various approaches which pay signicant attention to intellectual processes individual and
group and the work involved in conceptualising messy
situations and the action needed in these situations. Consider for example the following statement from another research project [80]:
one of the widest elds where new and original research
could provide most practical benet is within the frontend processes of a project. . . . Better understanding is
needed of the soft methodologies and their relevance
and credibility.
Although several soft methodologies have featured in different IJPM papers over the years, e.g. [8184], much of the
discussion to date has been largely theoretical and exam-

645

ples of reported practical application have been few and limited in scope [85]. Hence, the perceived need for further
work in this area. As Table 2 also shows, mainstream
thinking conceptualises projects and programmes around
single disciplines (e.g. construction projects, engineering
projects, building projects, IT projects, etc.), based on narrow conceptualisations of what the project or programme
is. In practice however, new concepts and approaches are
needed to facilitate the broader conceptualisation of projects and programmes as being multidisciplinary, with multiple purposes that are permeable, contestable and open to
renegotiation throughout. More holistic thinking is needed
whereby projects are seen to incorporate both hard and
soft aspects, rather than being conceptualised as either
hard projects or soft projects. Thinking in this way also
requires practitioners to use a range of dierent images and
perspectives in conceptualising projects and programmes,
including the images discussed so far, and other conceptual
images such as projects as temporary organisations, e.g.
[21]. As was stated earlier, when multiple images are used,
they reveal new insights and new ways of managing projects, programmes and portfolios, that might not otherwise
be apparent to practitioners [67]. The actual use of these
images in practice leads us to the nal part of Table 2.
4.3. Theory IN practice
As Table 2 shows, as well as the need for new theories
about and for practice, future research in the eld also
needs to concentrate on the area of theory in practice, that
is, the actual use of theory in the midst of action. This leads
us to the nal direction shown in Table 2.
4.3.1. D5: Practitioners as trained
technicians ! practitioners as reective practitioners
In essence, this direction also emerges from the qualities
displayed by the practitioners who presented to the Network, notably and rstly, their reective approach towards
the complexity of projects, and secondly, their pragmatic
approach towards the use of theory in practice. In short,
as many of them either highlighted or alluded to in the
meetings, mainstream methods and techniques can be a
useful source of guidance for certain aspects, but they provide no guidance on how to navigate the complexity of
projects in the ever-changing ux of events. As Schon states
[86]:
in the varied topography of professional practice, there is
a high, hard ground where practitioners can make eective
use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a
swampy lowland where situations are confusing messes
incapable of technical solution. . . . when [practitioners
are] asked to describe their methods of inquiry [in the
swampy lowlands] they speak of experience, trial and
error, intuition, and muddling through.
Schons metaphor of the swampy lowlands describes not
only the kind of terrain experienced by project managers

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M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

and other practitioners as conveyed to the Network but

also how experienced practitioners approach this terrain,
through experience, intuition and the pragmatic application of theory. As reective practitioners (in Schons language), the practitioners that presented to the Network
not only displayed many of the qualities of the reective
practitioner [86], they also highlighted the importance of
these qualities as distinctive capabilities for the successful
management of projects. Examples highlighted were: conceptualising projects from dierent perspectives, reading
situations, problem setting, dealing with ambiguity, relating to wider issues, and political footwork. Moreover,
one of the main concerns in this area, frequently highlighted by practitioners and academics within the Network,
is the limited attention given to the development of these
capabilities within the eld of project management. Similar
observations were made about the role of leadership in project environments, and the importance of leadership capabilities, which many of the practitioners also highlighted as
being crucial to the successful management of projects. In
summary, many of the practitioners accounts presented
and discussed within the Network indicate that practicebased knowledge is bounded by its contextual nature,
where actions and dispositional behaviours of practitioners
are inuenced by their own identity and processes of sensemaking (of the context and its circumstances) where actors
apply their implicit rules in combination with the external
ones explicated in manuals and procedures.
Against this background then, the message of direction
5 as the towards part in Table 2 shows is the need
for a greater focus on developing reective practitioner
capabilities, enabling people to operate more eectively in
the swampy lowlands of projects and programmes, e.g.
[68,87,88]. Current industry oerings however, in training
and development, tend to centre on particular products
such as PRINCE2 [89] and MSP [72] many of which
embody some or all of the mainstream ideas in project
management. Experience shows however that it is people
who deliver successful projects, not methods and tools,
and it is peoples ability to engage intelligently with the
complexity of projects, that is central to the successful
management of projects. For examples of current and
emerging work in this area see [26,9092].
5. Future research in project management: issues for
researchers and concluding remarks
The overarching aim of the Network has been to contribute to the development of the eld beyond its current
intellectual foundations, reecting the need to re-examine
in a constructive way the relationship between project management research and the eld as practiced. One of the
aims has been to examine how current theories, concepts
and methodologies underpinning project management
research could be enriched and extended to enhance the relevance of the knowledge created in the research process for
practical action in project environments. Table 2 summa-

rises the resulting views on the kind of thinking and directions needed, which in turn suggest two important
implications for research: (i) directions 15 reect the concerns of practitioners in the following areas: project complexity, social process, value creation, project
conceptualisation and practitioner development; and (ii)
directions 15 suggest the need for an interdisciplinary
approach to conceptualisation and theorising of project
management practice, and careful consideration of the
methodological issues by researchers in order to enable
the creation of knowledge perceived as useful by practicing
managers.
5.1. Knowledge creation and the role of research approaches:
a framework for researchers
A signicant body of literature on management research
addresses the relationship between the research process and
the nature of knowledge created through this process, e.g.
[93103]. Fig. 1 provides an illustration of this process
and illuminates the intricacies of the research process
through which the ve directions in Table 2 could be investigated. Firstly, the decision to study a management related
topic in a particular way, involves a philosophical choice
by the researcher about what is important. This choice is
made simultaneously with, not in isolation from, the
researchers understanding of the phenomena or issues of
interest, and the area of study within which it is situated
(Elements 1 and 3). Table 2 signposts some aspects of such
understanding and choice. The research methodology (Element 2) will, therefore, reect and require serious consideration of the level of inquiry (macro or micro), the type of
concepts and theory being used to formulate research questions and interpret answers, and the assumptions about the
nature of empirical data and how they are collected (e.g.
objective statements of truth or collaborative interpretations of experience). Fig. 1 seeks to show the close interconnectedness between Elements 1, 2, and 3.1
For example, the shift in thinking (from/towards) as
represented in Table 2, refocuses research attention to the
issues which require familiarity and understanding of relevant theoretical traditions and the need to draw on a range
of less mainstream concepts including theory of control,
complexity theory, systems thinking, social organisational
theory, being vs becoming ontology, phronetic social science, to name only a few that are relevant to, for example
the new research directions 1 and 4. Simultaneously, there
is the need to reect on the implications of positivist, interpretative, critical and constructionist positions in representing the phenomenon under inquiry, i.e. the project
and/or project management, for the nature of created
knowledge and propositions directed to practitioners. Similarly, the adopted focus and level of analysis will result in a
specic framing of the research question(s) in relation to
1
Note: the numbering of the Elements in Fig. 1 is not intended to
indicate their order of priority or sequence.

M. Winter et al. / International Journal of Project Management 24 (2006) 638649

Element 1

Element 2

Element 3

THEORETICAL
TRADITIONS
used to understand and
explain the world of project
management practice

- level of inquiry
- view on empirical data

ISSUE / AREA
OF STUDY
- body of knowledge
deemed legitimate

Presumptions of the researcher

about the phenomenon under
investigation and about the
nature of practically relevant
knowledge

Methods of data
collection and analysis:
- procedures
- tools and techniques
- interpretation

Evaluation of research
process and outcomes:
- quality
- usefulness
- relevance

and assumptions about

and concepts of, reality,
science, knowledge,
ethics, values

- view on the role of

theory in the research
process

- previous research
- extant literature
- current debates

METHODOLOGY

647

Reflection
Fig. 1. A practical framework for thinking about project management research [103].

the issues of relationship between individual and group, the

nature of human interaction, and questions of how learning, emotion, ethics, micro-politics, and power in project
environments are understood (relevant to the new research
directions 2, 3 and 5). Ontological and theoretical
approaches will shape the representation of the phenomenon under study and guide the choice of research methods
best suited for creating knowledge relevant to practice (e.g.
directions 24). In the process of reection, researchers
(and practitioners) assumptions about the criteria for evaluating relevant and useful knowledge in project management will also surface, making a distinction between, for
example, criteria focused on control and organisational
performativity, and those focused on intersubjective communicative interaction, collaborative work, or individual
wellbeing and emancipation from exploitation (e.g. directions 2 and 3). At the same time, the ve directions also
imply the need for a range of creative research strategies,
designs and methods including action research (e.g. directions 15), action learning (direction 5), longitudinal case
studies (directions 1 and 4), and co-operative inquiry in
the specic organisational or project context (directions
15), in addition to more conventional surveys and statistical analyses.
It is important, therefore, to understand the implications
for research implied by Table 2; notably the need to understand research as a holistic intellectual activity spanning
all three elements in Fig. 1 and, very importantly, the
intrinsic link between research methodology and the nature
of the knowledge created in the process. The remaining
papers within this Special Issue will also illustrate the relevance of this proposition.
6. Conclusion
It was stated earlier that the eld of project management
does seem to be intellectually alive, as judged by the number of research and practitioner conferences for example.

The Rethinking Project Management Network also attests

to this fact, with its large and active membership of academics and practitioners, many of whom have contributed
to the papers in this Special Issue. As the opening paper of
this Special Issue, this paper has presented the main ndings, a framework of ve directions in which the eld needs
to develop intellectually beyond its current conceptual
base. These directions are not meant to be the agenda for
future research, but an agenda to inform people already
working in the eld, and those interested in developing
new research in project management. Collectively, the ve
directions in Table 2 represent a synthesis of ideas for how
the discipline needs to develop in relation to the developing
world of practice. Finally to end, the whole methodological
approach to the Network is also relevant to how the eld
needs to develop, and this is the subject of the next paper.
Acknowledgement
The Network organisers would like to acknowledge the
contributions of all the invited speakers and the Network
participants, and the UKs Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for funding this work.
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