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www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpromanInternational Journal of Project Management 33 (2015) 278–290

Rethinking project management: A structuredliterature review with a critical look at the brave

new world

Per Svejvig ⁎, Peter Andersen

Department of Business Administration, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 10, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

Received 28 September 2013; received in revised form 4 June 2014; accepted 10 June 2014Available online 28 June 2014

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a structured review of the rethinking project management (RPM) literature based on the classification andanalysis of 74 contributions and in addition takes a critical look at this brave new world. Through the analysis, a total of 6 overarching categoriesemerged: contextualization, social and political aspects, rethinking practice, complexity and uncertainty, actuality of projects and broaderconceptualization. These categories cover a broad range of different contributions with diverse and alternative perspectives on projectmanagement. The early RPM literature dates back to the 1980s, while the majority was published in 2006 onwards, and the research stream appearsto be still active. A critical look at this brave new world exhibits the overall challenge for RPM to become much more diffused and accepted.© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. APM and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Rethinking project management; Literature review; Project management research; Classical project management

1. Introduction

The management of projects is of considerable economicimportance and dramatic growth has occurred in project workacross different sectors, industries and countries (Turner et al.,2010; Winter et al., 2006c). Projects have become an importantway to structure work in most organizations (Bakker, 2010) andconstitute one of the most important organizational develop-ments (Winter et al., 2006c). Despite the substantial increase inthe importance and propagation of projects, the conceptual baseof models and methodologies for project management hasremained fairly static in the past (Koskela and Howell, 2002)and has long been dominated by a technocratic and rationalisticviewpoint (Morris et al., 2011b; Packendorff, 1995) – hereafterdenoted classical project management – which has received

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substantial criticism for its shortcomings in practice (Koskelaand Howell, 2002; Sahlin-Andersson and Söderholm, 2002).

Accordingly, several scholars have started to think morewidely about projects and project management as a reaction tothe classical view, but also as a response to the challenges ofcarrying out projects in practice and the poor track record ofprevious projects (Morris et al., 2011b). This wider thinkinghas developed many new insights over the years, such asmoving from the “project as a tool” approach to the idea of the“project as a temporary organization” (Packendorff, 1995) andunderstanding project management as a holistic discipline forachieving organizational efficiency, effectiveness and innova-tion (Jugdev et al., 2001). This more holistic and pluralisticunderstanding of project management holds a great deal ofpotential for enhancing and expanding the current knowledgeand practice within the field and has been labeled “rethinkingproject management” (RPM) (Winter et al., 2006c). RPMhas evolved over many years, despite the hegemony of thedominant view and often in contrast to this view. The early

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279P. Svejvig, P. Andersen / International Journal of Project Management 33 (2015) 278–290

literature dates back to the mid-1980s (Lichtenberg, 1983), andthe recent RPM literature indicates that the research stream isstill highly active (Saynisch, 2010a).

It is time to take stock of what we know about RPM and lookcritically at the brave new world – and there are several reasonsfor such a structured literature review. First, RPM is a diverseresearch area and a literature review can offer useful input to theconceptualization of the RPM concept by establishing a moreintegrated view and setting boundaries. Second, an understandingof the development of RPM over time makes it possible toelucidate RPM with all its sub-versions from a broader historicalperspective, enabling us to see how the components of the currentstock were added and basically how we arrived at the currentsituation. Finally, we analyze the past in order to prepare for thefuture (Webster and Watson, 2002) with the aim of keeping thisresearch area viable and stimulating theoretical as well asprofessional development. We formulate our research questionsfrom the above: (1)How can we conceptualize RPM and how hasit developed over time? (2) How can future research expand theRPM research area?

We conducted a literature review consisting of two parts inorder to address the research questions: the first part was anexplorative and less structured literature search for alternatives

Table 1Comparing classical project management with rethinking project management.

Author Classical Project Management

Packendorff (1995, p. 328) Project metaphor: the project as a toolProcess: linear, with the phases plan, control an

Jugdev et al. (2001, p. 36) Project management: as a set of tools and techniqachieve project efficiencies

Success: measured by efficiency performance m

Practice project management: focus on the projethe operational level and tactically

Winter et al. (2006c, p. 642,original emphasis)

Simple life-cycle-based models of projects, as thmodel of project and project management withunexamined) assumption that the life-cycle(assumed to be) the actual terrain

Shenhar and Dvir (2007, p. 11,original emphasis)

Approach: traditional project managementProject goal: completing the job on time, onwithin the requirementsManagement style: one size fits all

Andersen (2008, p. 5, 10, 49) Perspective: task perspectiveProject definition: a project is a temporarundertaken to create a unique product, servic(Project Management Institute, 2004, p. 5)Main focus: execute the defined task

Lenfle and Loch (2010, p. 45) Project type and target: routine execution, targedefined from above

Examples of domain of relevance:

• Known markets and customer reactions• Known performance drivers of developed sy• Known environmental parameters

to classical project management; this was followed by thesecond part, which was a rigid structured literature reviewconsisting of four phases, starting with the definition of thereview scope, the conceptualization of RPM, literature searcheswith key words and finally the literature analysis. In particular,the scoping and selection represented a challenging process inorder to establish a more integrated view and set appropriateboundaries for RPM, in which we included as examples the UKRPM initiative (Winter et al., 2006c), the Scandinavian schoolof project studies (Sahlin-Andersson and Söderholm, 2002) andpractice studies (Blomquist et al., 2010), but excluded forinstance the making projects critical research stream (Hodgsonand Cicmil, 2006).

This review consists of 74 contributions, which we classifiedand analyzed. We set out to provide an overview of the existingRPM body of knowledge by focusing on the basic principlesbehind the RPM literature and how it is differentiated from theclassical view. Through the analysis, a total of 6 overarchingcategories emerged: contextualization, social and political aspects,rethinking practice, complexity and uncertainty, actuality ofprojects and broader conceptualization. These categories cover abroad range of different contributions with diverse and alternativeperspectives on project management. A critical discussion about

Rethinking Project Management

Project metaphor: the project as a temporary organizationd evaluate Process: iterative, with the phases expectation setting, actions

and learningues used to Project management: as a holistic discipline used to achieve

project/program/organizational efficiency, effectiveness andinnovation

etrics Success: a multidimensional construct measured by efficiency,effectiveness and innovation

ct details at Sell project management: be an advocate and champion ofproject management by aligning its value with the firm'sstrategic business priorities

e dominantthe (oftenmodel is

New models and theories that recognize and illuminate thecomplexity of projects and project management, at all levels.The new models and theories are explicitly presented as onlypartial theories of the complex terrainApproach: adaptive project management

budget and Project goal: achieving multiple business results and meetingmultiple criteriaManagement style: adaptive approach, one size does not fit allPerspective: organizational perspective

y endeavore or result

Project definition: a project is a temporary organizationestablished by its base organization to carry out an assignmenton its behalfMain focus: value creation. Create a desirable development inanother organization

t given and Project type and target: novel strategic project with a generalvision and direction, but detailed goals not known and partiallyemergent

stems

Examples of domain of relevance:

• New markets and unknown customer reactions• Unknown technology• Complexity with unforeseeable interactions among drivers

and variables

280 P. Svejvig, P. Andersen / International Journal of Project Management 33 (2015) 278–290

the brave new world follows the analysis, in which we exhibit theoverall challenge for RPM to become much more diffused andaccepted.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The nextsection describes how we conceptualize classical project manage-ment versus rethinking project management. The methodology forthe literature review process is then reported, followed by ananalysis of the 74 papers classified into 6 categories. We continueby taking a critical look at “the brave new world” of RPM researchin order to suggest future research areas, and finally we present theconclusion.

2. Conceptualizing classical project management versusrethinking project management

We will abstain from defining classical project managementand rethinking project management as both concepts areunderstood and used very broadly. We will instead pursue theconceptualization of both concepts in terms of their importantfeatures and how they supplement each other.

We draw on several scholars who have specified alternativeviews and compared them with the classical view. Some ofthese are summarized in Table 1:

Table 1 illustrates the understanding of the classical viewas execution- and task-oriented while the rethinking view(s)reflects a broader and more holistic perspective in whichprojects might be conceptualized as temporary organizations(see also Bakker, 2010). The relationship between the classicaland the rethinking view should not be interpreted as dichotomicbut on the contrary as dualistic, combining “old truths and newinsights” (Jugdev et al., 2001). Söderlund (2011) argued, in linewith this, for a pluralistic understanding of project managementand presented seven schools of thought – for example, one ofthe schools mentioned is the optimization school, which tosome extent resembles the classical view. Although the schoolsof thought are interesting, the insight from the pluralisticunderstanding is more important in the rethinking context andcan be compared with pluralism in organizational theory (Scottand Davis, 2007).

One way to describe these multiple perspectives is to usemetaphors.Morgan proposed eight metaphors for an organization(e.g. machine, organism and brain) and stated that metaphorsimply “a way of thinking and a way of seeing… but also a way of

Classical Project ManagementExecutability, simplicity, temporarity,

linearity, controllability and instrumentality

Fig. 1. Important features of the classical and

not seeing” (Morgan, 1997, pp. 4–5). We have to use severalmetaphors in order to study organizations as each way of seeingwill provide unique insights with strengths and limitations(Morgan, 1997, p. 352). Turner and colleagues (Turner et al.,2010) took up the metaphorical approach and presented ninemetaphors for project management — for example, theycharacterized the optimization school as the project as a machine,which embeds the view that the project is a system requiringoptimization (in line with Söderlund, 2011).

The schools of thought (Bredillet, 2007; Söderlund, 2011)developed within academia, based on reviews and maps ofproject management research — this certainly stimulated therethinking agenda for research (which also appeared to be thepurpose). However, a UK-based research network followed adifferent approach to rethinking project management, involvingmany leading researchers in project management and seniorpractitioners from industry. The network's aims were: (1) todevelop the field of project management and improve thereal-world practice and (2) to define an interdisciplinaryresearch agenda to enrich and extend the field beyond itscurrent foundations (Winter et al., 2006b, p. 650).

The main findings from the network resulted in a frame-work of five directions to develop the area intellectually(see also Winter et al. (2006c) in Table 1). These areas areproject complexity, social process, value creation, conceptual-ization and practitioner development. Each of these has animpact on the themes that were identified as being key:projectification, programs, the actuality of projects, uncertainty,business projects, professionalization and practitioner develop-ment (Maylor, 2006, p. 636). The five directions and associatedthemes thus summarize their proposal for rethinking projectmanagement.

We distilled the above-mentioned findings into some importantfeatures representing the classical and rethinking project manage-ment concepts, as shown in Fig. 1 below:

The features in Fig. 1 are not meant to be exhaustive for thetwo concepts, but on the contrary to highlight the important keycharacteristics. We adapt the understanding put forward by theUK rethinking initiative (Maylor, 2006) that the classicalconcept is embedded in the rethinking concept, which meansthat the rethinking concept enhances the classical conceptrather than discarding it (Winter et al., 2006c). Furthermore, weunderstand both concepts as non-monolithic entities, implying

Rethinking Project Management Learnability, multiplicity, temporarity,

complexity, uncertainty and sociability

rethinking project management concepts.

1. Definition ofreview scope

2. Conceptuali-zation of topic

3. Literaturesearch

4. Literatureanalysis

Fig. 2. Framework for the structured literature review.

Table 2Results from the structured literature review process.

Databases Scopus EBSCO ProQuest ScienceDirect

Search results from part 2 425 385 305 164Coverage of initial 26publications from part 1

19 16 13 16


multiple interpretations with many sub-versions (inspired byMeyer and Hammerschmid, 2006).

This conceptualization forms the basis for the paper'smethodological approach to a structured literature reviewabout rethinking project management.

3. Methodology for the literature review process

3.1. Part 1: Explorative and unstructured literature review

An explorative and unstructured literature search aboutalternatives to the classical view initiated this study. Wediscovered the rethinking initiative in the UK (e.g. Winter et al.,2006c) fairly early on in this initial process. We sought outknowledge about the UK process, as well as other ways torethink project management, in an explorative fashion,which provided us with knowledge about the field and afoundation for further studies. Through the initial process,we found 26 different articles, textbooks, etc. to be relevant,offering new alternative perspectives and new insights intothe traditional approach (some of them are referenced inTable 1).

3.2. Part 2: Framework for the structured literature review

Part 2 followed a more structured and systematic approach.Conducting a systematic literature review needs an explicitresearch method that uses literature as an input, instead ofobservations, interviews or questionnaire data in empiricalstudies (Müller et al., 2014). Tranfield et al. defined a systematicreview as “a replicable, scientific and transparent process … thataims to minimize bias … by providing an audit trail ofthe reviewers decisions, procedures and conclusions” (Tranfieldet al., 2003, p. 209). By consulting literature reviews (Bakker,2010;Müller et al., 2014; Söderlund, 2011) and research methodsabout literature reviews (Brocke et al., 2009; Hart, 1998; Pawsonet al., 2005; Tranfield et al., 2003), it is possible to synthesize apattern for the literature review as follows: (1) plan the review,(2) clarify the scope and conceptualize the topic, (3) search,evaluate and select literature, (4) analyze the selected literatureand finally (5) report and disseminate. More specifically, weadapted the approach in Fig. 2 below (inspired by Vom Brockeet al., 2009):

Fig. 2 presents the four phases used in the structuredliterature review. Although it is possible to separate the phasesanalytically, the actual research process was iterative, but is stillpresented in a structured manner. The four phases are discussedin the following.

Phase 1: The study's review scope (Vom Brocke et al.,2009) focused on the research outcomes and theories of therethinking literature. The coverage of the structured literaturereview was rather comprehensive with the purpose of includingmost of the literature within the defined scope.

Phase 2: As stated above, it is possible to describe theproject management literature as either classical projectmanagement or rethinking project management; however, thetwo categories are not monolithic and all-inclusive (i.e. many

project management topics are not included in the twocategories). The present review's intention is to present anassessment of the alternative perspectives that have emergedas a result of, for example, the rethinking initiative in the UK(Winter et al., 2006c). For this reason, the outset of thecurrent study was the identification of key terms and topicsfrom the UK study that could be used in further searchprocesses. Initially, we decided that the key concepts wouldbe rethinking project management and reinventing projectmanagement.

Phase 3: In part 2, the goal was to create a search processthat, ideally, would both encompass the literature from theinitial search process in part 1 and capture other relevantliterature. Consequently, we identified relevant search stringsfor each of the 26 publications found through the initial study,which was a highly iterative process. The iterative develop-ment of search strings is listed in Appendix A. Table 2 presentsthe results:

The next step involved selecting the relevant contributions(articles and books) from the search result with 1279 entries inthe four databases, as shown in Table 2 above. Each of theauthors separately evaluated the result against the RPMconceptualization presented in the previous chapter, therebyperforming triangulation (i.e. multiple investigators) (Bryman,2008, p. 379). This entailed first examining the title and, ifnecessary, the keywords and the abstract. The authors presentedthe selected lists to each other and through a joint process this


resulted in 110 contributions consisting of “included” and“maybe included” contributions. The authors scrutinizedthe “maybe included” contributions again and selected a netlist of 74 contributions (these are marked in the referencelist with an asterisk). We will discuss the criteria forincluding and excluding contributions in more detail in thefollowing.

Inclusions: (1) The core of the conceptualization of RPMis the UK-based network initiative from 2004 to 2006, whichis documented in the “Special issue on rethinking projectmanagement” (e.g. Winter et al., 2006c), and it is easy toidentify and include papers in this category. (2) The next area isthe Scandinavian school of project studies, which shares manyideas with the UK initiative, such as a broader conceptualiza-tion beyond mere execution (Sahlin-Andersson and Söderholm,2002) and seeing projects as temporary organizations embed-ded in permanent organizations and wider environments (thecontexts) (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995; Packendorff, 1995).The area includes several papers taking temporary organiza-tions as their outset; however, inclusion requires rethinking orthe setting of new directions, and many papers use the termtemporary organizations only as a synonym for projects anddo not provide these new directions, and therefore are notincluded. (3) Projects-as-practice papers (Blomquist et al.,2010) are included as they build on the actuality of projects'theme from the UK initiative (Cicmil et al., 2006). Blomquistet al. (2010, p. 7) explained the relationship as follows: “Wethus build our thoughts [projects-as-practice] on the followingin both the practice turn in social science and managementresearch, as well as in the recent ‘rethinking project manage-ment’ ….” (4) A totally different area is the complexity turn inproject management research focusing on complex dynamicsystems (Cooke-Davies et al., 2007) and beyond — this hasbeen coined by Saynisch (2010b) as “Project ManagementSecond Order (PM-2)” and sets new directions. (5) There arefinally more scattered inclusions, e.g. “reinventing projectmanagement” (Shenhar and Dvir, 2007) and “perspectives onprojects” (Turner et al., 2010).

Exclusions: (1) It was fairly simple to identify and excludepapers belonging to classical project management (CPM).However, some of these papers needed more investigationwhen they described new methods, tools, practices, etc., but aslong as they built upon CPM thinking, we still excluded them.(2) A rather different approach involved excluding “makingprojects critical” (MPC) (Hodgson and Cicmil, 2006). Thisexclusion might be less obvious, but in line with Blomquist etal. (2010) we see this approach mainly as a criticism of bothCPM and RPM; although some writings might be in the grayzone between RPM and MPC, we decided to exclude MPCresearch. (3) Several empirical studies (e.g. with an ethno-graphic approach) might reach the conclusion that CPM isinsufficient and incomplete, but as with MPC, a criticism ofCPM does not in itself make it a candidate for inclusion. (4)Finally, we excluded editorials, book reviews and the like asthey lack the level of detail that we were pursuing.

The selection process was challenging, as the discussion ofinclusions and exclusions above entirely illustrates. However, it

is the authors' belief that the final list of contributions is largelyrepresentative and includes relevant sub-versions of RPM,despite the likelihood of omitting potential contributions.

Phase 4: We divided the literature analysis into two codingprocesses. First, we conducted an inductive analysis (Patton,2002, pp. 453–454), with the goal of identifying overarchingtopics and then categorizing each contribution within one of theassociated categories. We identified six categories through thisprocess. Though some contributions touched upon differentcategories, each contribution was only associated with the maincategory of the contribution. For example, Aritua et al. (2009)described how new approaches, techniques, etc. are necessaryin relation to multi-project management. Thus, we identifiedthe main category for this contribution as contextualization —concerned with how projects need to expand beyond the goalsof isolated projects and encourage thinking about projectsin a broader context. However, the contribution also exploredthe relationship between multiple projects and complexitytheory; thus, the contribution had complexity as a secondarycategory, which was the case in several other papers in whichthe complexity of projects or their environment, for example,acted as an underlying argument for rethinking, but still playeda secondary role in the paper. This forced the authors to focuson a narrow set of categories that were distinctively different.At an earlier stage, a larger number of the contributions wereoverlapping. This obliged the authors to reconstruct thecategorization or merge categories. For example, we latermerged two categories, called reflective practice and rethinkingeducation, into one category, called rethinking practice, sincethe two categories were highly linked. For example, somepapers were concerned with the link between practice andeducation (Berggren and Söderlund, 2008), others wereconcerned with educating reflective practitioners (Crawfordet al., 2006), while still others were related to reflective practicein general (Kreiner, 2012). After a long discussion aboutthe categorization, the authors in this case agreed that thedevelopment and rethinking of both practitioners and educationare so tightly linked that another category – encompassing bothof the old categories – would be more fitting. Second, wecarried out a deductive coding process to classify thecontributions into yearly distributions and their paradigmaticstance (inspired by Chen and Hirschheim, 2004) — looking atwhether the identified literature overall could be categorized asbeing either subjectivistic or objectivistic; we carried out thistask using Burrell and Morgan's (1979) distinctions.

Part 1 took place over a long period ranging from autumn2011 to autumn 2012, while part 2 was more concentrated,from October 2012 to January 2013 (i.e. determining 74contributions), although with subsequent revisions. Finally,the authors finalized the writing up of the literature review inMay 2014.

4. Analysis of rethinking project management research

This section presents the results of the inductive analysis,followed by the yearly distribution of papers and the categoriza-tion of papers according to their paradigmatic standpoint.

Table 3Categories identified through the inductive analysis.

Categorization Description

Contextualization Expanding the conception of the project to encompass elements such as the environment and organizational strategy (e.g. Dille andSöderlund, 2011)

Social and political aspects How social and political processes shape projects, e.g. power structures, emotionality and identities (e.g. Smith, 2011)Rethinking practice Offering or suggesting alternative methods, perspectives and ways to rethink practice, e.g. through education or reflective practice

(e.g. Crawford et al., 2006; Kreiner, 2012; Thomas and Mengel, 2008)Complexity and uncertainty Outlining the complexity of projects, their environment, etc. and new methods to cope with complexity (e.g. Lenfle and Loch, 2010)The actuality of projects Outlining the need to study how projects are actually carried out or empirical studies of the actuality of projects (e.g. Blomquist et al.,

2010; Packendorff, 1995)Broader conceptualization Offering alternative perspectives on projects, project management and project success or outlining how the field is broadening

beyond its current limits (e.g. Sahlin-Andersson and Söderholm, 2002)


The inductive analysis resulted in the six categories shownin Table 3 below. Since these categories are rather broad – theaim was to identify few, but broad categories with littleoverlapping – they will be elaborated upon in the following.

Contextualization covers literature that describes howprojects need to expand beyond the narrow goals of isolatedprojects and encourage thinking about projects in a broadercontext by focusing on the management of multiple projects, theorganizational strategy and the project environment. For example,Dille and Söderlund (2011) described how the conventionalanalysis of project organizations has neglected the institutionalenvironment and how institutional arrangements can severelylimit projects. Another example is the work of Alderman and Ivory(2010), who examined how the meta-project context impactson service-led projects. By existing within the context of ameta-project, these projects encompass considerations of activitiesbeyond the normal remits of the project manager. Anothersubtheme within this category is the management ofmultiple projects. For example, Aritua et al. (2009, p. 72)argued that the management of multiple projects “presentschallenges that are fundamentally different from singleproject management.” In connection with the managementof multiple projects, Aritua et al. (2009) proposed the use ofcomplexity theory to understand how it is possible to seethe multi-project environment as being made up of complexadaptive systems. Yet another example from this category isthe work presented by Maylor et al. (2006), who pointed outthat programs and portfolios are a mechanism for manage-ment in organizations and that they create issues that reachbeyond the problems associated with single projects. Hence,project management skills and techniques are not necessar-ily transferable to the management of multiple projects. Adifferent example within this category is the use of Kaikakuproject management, which integrates the corporate strategyinto the project by seeing it as an open value system (Oharaand Asada, 2009).

The category social and political aspects includes literaturewith a focus on social and political processes rather than thetraditional focus on specific tools and procedures. For example,Leybourne (2007) described how the emphasis is changingfrom a dominating focus on tools and techniques towards thesocial and behavioral elements of the management of projects

and how research within project management is expanding.On the other hand, Clarke (2010) explored how emotions canpotentially influence project managers' behavior and decisionswhen playing their role in relationship management in projects.The author suggested that project managers should use theirunderstanding and awareness of their emotions and those ofothers more actively in projects. Sense (2009), on the otherhand, focused on learning in relation to projects and morespecifically on the importance of social learning within projectsand project teams through an alternative characterization ofprojects. Small and Walker (2010) showed how projectcomplexity is socially derived with differences created fromhuman plurality. This implies that the project managementstrategy should go through continual adaptation in order torespond to the changing power and politics within projectpractice.

Rethinking practice encompasses literature that suggestsalternative methods, perspectives and approaches to rethink theways in which practitioners work with projects, for example,suggestions on how to educate project managers to enable themto cope better with the increasing complexity and uncertainty inproject environments (Thomas and Mengel, 2008). Berggrenand Söderlund (2008) showed how educational practices can bedeveloped in order to stimulate knowledge co-productionbetween practitioners and academia in order to improve projectmanagement education. Louw and Rwelamila (2012) examined asample of South African higher education institutions todetermine whether they had incorporated some of the thoughtsand concepts from, for example, the rethinking process in the UKinto their curricula. The different ways of rethinking educationare often linked to the concept of the reflective practitioner orsimilar concepts. This is the case for Louw and Rwelamila (2012)since they, among other rethinking topics, examined whether theeducational institutions linked project managers with reflectivepractitioners. Yet another example is the case of Sewchurran(2008, p. 316), who presented “an alternative to the prescriptive,model based, instrumental approaches”with the aim of achievingbetter-educated, self-organizing and reflexive project practi-tioners. Apart from literature more focused on the educationalside of project management, this category also encompassesliterature dealing with reflective practice in general, improvisa-tion and contingency approaches and ways to rethink or improve


practice. It is related to the work of authors such as Crawford et al.(2006), who stressed that increasing project complexity demandsthe education of more reflective project practitioners, in touchwith the newest theory and research, rather than solely focusingon technical skills. Similarly, Thomas and Mengel (2008) arguedthat complexity, uncertainty and chaos play an increasinglyimportant role in projects and project environments. Whileproject management training programs focus on standardizationof the field, the increasing complexity requires other forms ofprofessional development of project managers. Kreiner arguedthat “Achieving desired goals flexibly in unfolding realities, andimplementing prior plans, are both important aspects of theproject manager's work.” This dilemma is, according to Kreiner,important to keep inmind as a project manager since he otherwiserisks “taking the plans literally” (Kreiner, 2012, p. 715). Instead,the project manager should be prepared to adapt the plan since itmight be rendered inadequate and imperfect by a changing andturbulent environment. In a similar way, Leybourne (2010), forexample, argued in his study that managers within successfulorganizations allow their employees significant freedom toexperiment, for example with task management and unstructuredpractices of work.

The category complexity and uncertainty consists of contri-butions that deal with the increasing uncertainty and complexityin projects, project environments, etc. These are evident in thework of Atkinson et al. (2006, p. 687), who, based on discussionsthat took place as part of the RPM network in the UK, identified awide range of sources of uncertainty and stated that: “Moresophisticated efforts to recognize and manage important sourcesof uncertainty are needed.” To deal with such increasingcomplexity, these authors proposed alternative perspectives andtheories, such as evolutionary management and self-organization(Saynisch, 2010a), and systems thinking (Sheffield et al., 2012).As Kreiner (1995) pointed out, people involved in projectsmust recognize that the originally intended outcomes will notnecessarily remain relevant over time since the environment oftendrifts, thereby risking and undermining the success of the project.Cooke-Davies et al. (2007) conducted a review of the majorideas within complexity science and evaluated their potentialrelevance to the project management field, focusing especiallyon ideas with direct relevance to social complexity associatedwith the people who are involved in delivering complexprojects. Though the contributions often did not identifycomplexity as a main category, it frequently served as anunderlying argument for rethinking practice (e.g. Sheffield etal., 2012).

The actuality of projects covers literature that underlinesthe need for empirical studies of projects as its own point ofdeparture. A general argument within this category is that: “whilea great deal is written about traditional project management, weknow very little about the ‘actuality’ of project based workingand management” (Cicmil et al., 2006, p. 675). Blomquist et al.(2010, p. 5), for example, also pointed this out, by statingthat research into projects is “[…] insubstantial when it comesto understanding what occurs in projects.” For this reason,Blomquist et al. (2010) outlined the project-as-practice approachto research. The authors argued that whereas traditional project

research departs from some overall concepts and models fromwhich action is derived, the practice perspective begins with theindividual actions and asks what overall models and conceptsresult from those actions. Similarly, Packendorff (1995)argued that the research on project management is notsufficiently empirical. While project management researchgenerally views projects as similar, these simple classifica-tions are mainly due to the fact that research has only madeempirical observations to a limited extent (Packendorff,1995).

Broader conceptualization deals with contributions that offeralternative perspectives on, for example, projects, project manage-ment and project success, outline how the field is broadeningbeyond its current limits or describe the existing perspectiveswithin the field. Turner et al. (2010) outlined nine differentperspectives of projects, for example the project as a machine, theproject as a mirror, etc. On the other hand, McLeod et al. (2012)explored the evaluation of project success from a subjectivistperspective. Through a longitudinal case study, the authorsinvestigated how different stakeholders perceived the projectoutcomes and how they evaluated success, from whichthey derived a conceptual framework. Kolltveit et al. (2007)studied the project management literature and showed how thedominance of each perspective has changed over time.Through a case study, Koppenjan et al. (2011) showed howproject managers acknowledge and combine different com-peting perspectives in practice in order to meet the require-ments of control and flexibility.

The categorization of the 74 contributions resulted in theirdistribution among the 6 different topics, as shown in Fig. 3below:

Fig. 3 reflects the main categories within the differentcontributions. Still, some papers touched upon more than onecategory. As mentioned, complexity and uncertainty and rethink-ing practicewere often related. As also shown in Fig. 3, each topiccovered at least six contributions, while the most representedtopics were broader conceptualization followed by complexityand uncertainty. While broader conceptualization on the one handis a broad category in itself, it is also by far the largest, with a totalof 27 contributions. One argument for this could be that theresearch stream has been preoccupied with more conceptual andtheoretical research since there was an initial need to defineprojects and broaden our understanding of projects and theirsetting. On the other hand, social and political aspects togetherwith the actuality of projects were the least represented categories.It is interesting that while many of the authors within the RPMresearch stream argued for alternative approaches to projectmanagement rather than the rationalistic one employed within theclassical approach, only a minority of the rethinkingliterature has a primary focus on the social aspects relatedto projects. Again, this might be related to the fact thatthere was an initial need for the research stream toestablish itself and its view on projects before endeavoringto undertake further studies of practice. The fact that socialand political aspects together with the actuality of projectswere also rather small themes within the research streamsuggests that a well-grounded empirical understanding of

0

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30

Expandingcontext

Social andpoli�cal aspects

Rethinkingprac�ce

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Broaderconceptualiza�on

Fig. 3. Distribution of the contributions among the topics.


projects is not particularly strong within the RPM researchstream and that there has been a primary emphasis on thetheoretical base.

The development of the RPM literature over time is shownin Fig. 4 below:

Fig. 4 shows the increase in RPM literature since 2006, andthis is most likely to be a result of the RPM initiative in the UK,which lasted from March 2004 to May 2006 (Winter et al.,2006c). In consequence, the above figure illustrates that theresearch stream has been active since the RPM initiative in 2006.Accordingly, 59 of the 74 contributions were published after2005, which amounts to approximately 80% of the identifiedliterature. While we could argue that the move towards morealternative thinking is a product of significant efforts by centralactors within the project management community, as the aboveFig. 4 would suggest, there might be other explanations for such asignificant movement within project management research. Onemight be a general movement in the field away from objectivisticviews towards a more subjectivistic understanding and enquirieson projects, which in turn would lead to more heterogeneousand situated views and concepts on projects in general. Our

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Fig. 4. Distribution of the RP

analysis in this regard showed that only a small fraction of theidentified RPM literature employed an objectivistic view —we identified a total of 6 papers as objectivistic and 62 assubjectivistic, while 6 papers from the literature review wasnot classified as either objectivistic or subjectivistic. Thisseems to relate to the changing nature of project managementfrom a hard paradigm to a soft paradigm (Pollack, 2007), for whichthe RPM literature generally subscribes to the subjectivistic softparadigm.

Departing from the findings from the analysis, the nextsection will take a critical view of RPM research.

5. A critical look at “the brave new world”

Although the rethinking concept might be seen as apromising road for project management for both researchand professional practice, it is also essential to take a criticallook at “the brave new world” and use this critical look todiscuss how future research can expand and advance RPMresearch.

1998

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M literature since 1983.


The overall challenge for RPM is to become muchmore diffused and accepted as a useful enhancement of CPM.Although we have a solid body of knowledge for RPM, it is stilllacking wide diffusion into practice, and this is really a majorchange for the profession and academia, which will be discussedin the following.

First, the rethinking literature generally assumes that classicalproject management is the dominant view; for example, Morriset al. (2011b, p. 2) stated that classical project management “is thetradition that still dominates many of the textbooks to this day andwhose positivist, normative character arguably underlies thedominant professional model of the discipline — its body ofknowledge (Project Management Institute, 2008),” and this viewis supported by others (Andersen, 2008; Packendorff, 1995). Thisline of thought is easy to follow and indirectly supported by thisliterature review, as most of the literature that we encounteredinitially appeared to follow the classical view (we selected only74 out of 1279 contributions obtained in the search process).However, it would be surprising if the early studies on therethinking view (Lichtenberg, 1983; Lundin and Söderholm,1995; Packendorff, 1995) have only had a slight influence onacademia and practitioners.

Furthermore, Fig. 4 indicates an increase in the rethinkingliterature from 2006, so the classical view might face increasingchallenges, although it has been in existence since before theSecond World War (Lenfle and Loch, 2010; Morris, 2013) andis certainly highly institutionalized. There is thus a danger thatthe assumption of the dominant view has become a rationalizedmyth (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008; Meyer and Rowan,1977) that is reiterated repeatedly, while both scholars andpractitioners are in fact in motion.

Especially experienced practitioners might be aware of thechallenges of the classical view (Svejvig, 2012) and able toapply practices that circumvent some of the problemsencountered in the classical approach. One example is a studyby Hällgren and Söderholm (2011, pp. 508–509), in which theproject plans were obviously a rational part of the projectmanagement toolbox for progress reporting (the classical view),but they observed that the project plans also fulfilled thebroader purpose of enhancing understanding and facilitatingnegotiations (the rethinking view). The findings from the studyindicate that the project plans were used further than in theclassical view and were able to illuminate the complex terrainin praxis (Winter et al., 2006c). This limited exampleillustrates the potential gap between the dominant classicalview as the majority of the literature (the theoretical view)has described and presented and how it is enacted in practice.We thus need to understand the degree to which CPM is arationalized myth legitimizing project management as “prop-er” (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008), while practitionersmight enact project management in a different way, closer toRPM thinking.

Second, a natural question that follows concerns the currentstatus of RPM in practice. The UK initiative was launched backin 2006, but we do not know much about the diffusion andacceptance of RPM either in the UK or in other countries on abroader scale. Pollack (2007) discussed the changing nature of

project management from the hard paradigm (objectivistic) tothe soft paradigm (subjectivistic), and this study clearlyconfirms that the RPM literature belongs to the soft paradigm(62 out of 74 contributions were subjectivistic), but we lack abetter understanding of how the potential paradigmatic changeis reflected in practice.

Several of the papers in this literature review discussed projectmanagement education and practitioner development (Berggrenand Söderlund, 2008; Crawford et al., 2006; Louw andRwelamila, 2012). Education is one of the main areas to addressif we want to set RPM on the agenda and to imprint futureand current project managers and project participants. Thesenior-level education programs described by Berggren andSöderlund (2008) seem promising, and the same applies to thediverse MBA programs with a focus on developing reflectivepractitioners, e.g. at Manchester University (Crawford et al.,2006). However, these are scattered examples, and we need amore thorough understanding of the share of RPM-inspirededucation compared with more traditional project manage-ment education including certification and commercialtraining, as well as how to increase this share. To this end,Crawford et al.'s (2006) paper provides interesting recom-mendations for practitioner development within projectmanagement.

CPM is highly institutionalized and strongly supported by“de facto standards” or “best practices,” like PMBok (ProjectManagement Body of Knowledge) (Project ManagementInstitute, 2008) and PRINCE2-2009 (Projects in ControlledEnvironments) (Office of Government Commerce, 2009).Certification programs are associated with PMBok, PRINCE2and others, and they retain and reinforce the classical view ofproject management. We need to consider how we caninfluence the project management associations around theworld in order to critique, contribute to and update this formalbody of knowledge and the associated certification programswith RPM thinking (Morris et al., 2006), as this might be anecessary, but also very difficult, road to a higher degree ofdiffusion of RPM.

Third, classical project management has been criticizedfor being insufficient for praxis and the practices applied(Koskela and Howell, 2002; Morris, 1994; Morris et al.,2011b; Winter and Szczepanek, 2009). Morris (1994, p. 2)argued:

Modern project management emerged between the 1930sand the 1950s … Despite its long development, the conceptsand techniques of project management now available to thegeneral practitioner, however advanced and specific theymay be, are often inadequate to the overall task of managingprojects successfully.

Morris and colleagues more or less reiterated the statementin the recent Oxford Handbook of Project Management(Morris et al., 2011b), thereby indicating that the practicesdid not develop much between 1994 and 2011 —furthermore, other authors back this up (Lenfle and Loch,2010; Saynisch, 2010b).


With this in mind, it would be logical for the RPM researchstream to focus particularly on offering alternative practices,which have been proven in praxis, showing superiority toclassical project management. However, only 7 out of 74 papershave this detailed practice focus on researching the actuality ofprojects, and this certainly prompts more practice-oriented studies(Van de Ven, 2007). We need these more practice-orientedstudies in order to convince industry and practitioners about thepotential value of rethinking project management. Classicalproject management is so highly institutionalized that changingthe mindset is a real long-term institutional change (Van de Venand Hargrave, 2004).

It furthermore appears to be highly relevant to discussperformance achievements from classical project manage-ment versus RPM, because a real driver of “RPM in practice”could be that it outperforms classical project management.However, performance, value and success are complexconcepts that can be considered as multi-dimensional,dynamic and relative (inspired by Berg, 2001), makingthem difficult to compare in a sensible way, and this has tobe taken into account. Multidimensionality might meanmeasuring efficiency, effectiveness and innovation (Jugdevet al., 2001) and have a performance perspective far beyondtraditional value creation and benefit realization (Bradley,2010; Breese, 2012; Ward and Daniel, 2012). In any case,“RPM in practice” and the performance of RPM (comparedwith classical project management) are important themes forRPM research.

This critical look at the brave new world has posed severalquestions and highlighted unexplored avenues that can beused to expand and advance RPM research and practitionerdevelopment.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper presented the results of a structuredliterature review of the published RPM literature based on theclassification and analysis of 74 contributions and in additiontook a critical look at this brave new world. The first researchquestion regarded how RPM could be conceptualized and howit has developed over time. The conceptualization of RPM wasdistilled into important features representing the classical viewand how RPM embeds the classical view (i.e. enhancing ratherthan discarding it) (see Fig. 1), and this was further elaboratedwith the 6 overarching categories from the literature analysisof the 74 contributions: contextualization, social and politicalaspects, rethinking practice, complexity and uncertainty, actualityof projects and broader conceptualization. RPM has developed

over time, with scattered contributions until 2006, after which itbecame more consistently represented with a few yearlycontributions. An important outcome of this paper is thus amore integrated view with clearer boundaries for RPM. Thesecond research question concerned how future research canexpand RPM, and this was answered by taking a critical look atthis brave new world in which the overall challenge for RPM is tobecome much more diffused and accepted. This has severalramifications, such as: (1) a potential misleading assumptionof the dominant classical view embedded in the RPMliterature, in which practice is enacted in a different way,closer to RPM thinking; (2) insufficient knowledge about thecurrent status of RPM in practice, the share of RPM thinking inproject management education and the apparent lack of RPMinfluence on the formal body of knowledge and certificationprograms; and (3) finally, a need for more practice-orientedstudies (Blomquist et al., 2010; Cicmil et al., 2006; Van deVen, 2007) in order to convince industry and practitionersabout the value of RPM and to support reflective practitionerdevelopment.

There are some limitations to this paper. First, theconceptualization of the RPM research stream is broad andreaders should consider it as non-monolithic with manysub-versions. This implies a great diversity of the literaturereviewed, with the danger of being too inclusive, but alsoinvites further studies of conceptualizations of RPM andthe positioning of RPM within project managementresearch, which can bring greater clarity to RPM. Asecond limitation is that we might have missed somepotentially relevant literature, although we followed adetailed and structured search process as presented in themethodology section and appendix. We aimed to presentour literature review in a very transparent way in order toexhibit any potential shortcomings in our search process(Tranfield et al., 2003), which can then be addressed infuture studies.

Funding source

The paper has been funded within the “IT Project Managementand Innovation”, part of Aarhus University, and the funding ispublic funding i.e. not conflicting with any private interests(funding).

Conflict of interest

We, the authors, declare that we have no conflict of interest.


Appendix A

Table 4 below shows the iterative development of the search string with the search expressions in bold. The development processincluded the 26 contributions from part 1 (the explorative and unstructured literature review) in the search results — the number inbrackets in Table 4 shows the coverage of publications identified in part 1. The search period was from the database start period to2012. The search number 11 below makes up the final result, also shown in Table 2:

Table 4Iterative development of the search string.

Searchnumber

Additions to the search string (Scopus search format) Scopus EBSCOHost

ProQuest ScienceDirect

1 ALL (“rethinking project”) 140(13)

82(14)

104(12)

72(11)

2 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“reinventing project”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“beyond project”) 180(13)

136(15)

121(12)

84(11)

3 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project” AND “competing theories” OR “project” AND “competingperspectives”)

194(13)

173(15)

133(12)

86(11)

4 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project management” AND “relevance” AND “change”) 250(14)

202(15)

232(12)

88(12)

5 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“conventional project management”) 282(16)

219(15)

249(12)

95(14)

6 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project management theory” AND “comparison”) 284(16)

219(15)

250(12)

96(14)

7 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project management” AND “control” AND “emphasize” OR “emphasise”AND “control” AND “project management”)

338(17)

237(16)

270(13)

99(14)

8 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“perspectives on projects”) 355(17)

347(16)

270(13)

108(14)

9 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“temporary organisation” AND “project management”OR “temporary organization” AND “project management”)

357(18)

347(16)

270(13)

111(15)

10 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project management” AND “complexity theory”) 376(18)

363(16)

281(13)

114(15)

11 OR TITLE-ABS-KEY (“project management” AND “second order”) 377(18)

382(16)

287(13)

116(15)

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Further Reading

*Alderman, N., Ivory, C., 2011. Translation and convergence in projects: anorganizational perspective on project success. Proj. Manag. J. 42, 17–30.

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*Bredillet, C.N., 2010. Blowing hot and cold on project management. Proj.Manag. J. 41, 4–20.

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