Building Adaptive Capacity through Learning in Project-Oriented Organisations in Infrastructure Planning

Abstract

Transport infrastructure networks are currently being challenged by rapidly changing contexts, such as climate change, new IT and mobility technologies, ageing infrastructure, demographic changes and growing engagement of stakeholders. These challenges call for an adaptive management approach in infrastructure planning. Apart from making the physical infrastructure more adaptive, organisational adaptive capacity is currently being discussed in both literature and practice. The literature describes learning as one of the key elements of organisational adaptive capacity. However, it remains unclear how infrastructure network agencies learn. Most of these agencies are organised in a project-oriented way. Projects can be considered as information exchange platforms of individuals that have to align their knowledge and interpretations to collectively make sense of this information to deliver a project-result. However, projects operate relatively autonomously from their parent organisation. This article aims to enhance the understanding of how projects learn from each other and how the parent organisation learns from projects and vice versa. To this end, we have conducted an in-depth case study of a typical project-oriented organisation in infrastructure planning: Rijkswaterstaat—the executive agency of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management in the Netherlands. Data was collected through documents and semi-structured interviews with members of a selection of projects of Rijkswaterstaat and other members of this organisation. We used Social Network Analysis to support the analysis of the data. Subsequently, the results were confronted with literature to understand how collective learning occurs in project-oriented organisations.

Learning across teams in project-oriented organisations: the role of programme management

“…Boyer and Roth (2005) found that different groups can join to form “a group of groups” (Boyer and Roth, 2005, p. 349), thereby expanding learning through relatively weak relationships between separate groups. De Groot et al (2020) described that project-oriented organisations deliberately group projects into programmes to improve overall performance. Although most programmes are not intended to improve learning, they can provide the link for inter- and meta-project learning organisation (Buijs, 2010; De Groot et al , 2020).…”

“…However, team learning – “the process of aligning and developing the capability of the team to create the results its members truly desire” (Senge, 1990, p. 236) – in projects is strongly affected by the focus on project results. De Groot et al (2020) argued that the predominantly problem-oriented and internal focus of project teams hinders learning to other project teams and their parent organisation. Projects are temporary constructs for delivering predefined results within set conditions of time, scope and budget (Gemünden et al , 2018; Pellegrinelli, 1997).…”

“…Learning beyond a single project, requires knowledge transfer to other project teams (inter-project) and to the parent organisation (meta-project). Programme management may help to overcome the impediments of single-project management to inter- and meta-project learning (De Groot et al , 2020). A programme is defined as a framework for grouping projects to achieve benefits that would not be realised if they were managed independently (Lycett et al , 2004; Pellegrinelli, 1997).…”

Learning from Other Places and Their Plans: Comparative Learning in and for Planning Systems

“…Indeed, as Willems et al (2020) also point out, and in line with classic analyses such as (Scott, 1998), once engineeringdominated public organizations are in charge of complex projects, they are hard to dislodge, and the associated discourses on expertise, steering, and participation are hard dismantle. De Groot et al (2020) give central place to the project level of organization, with in some cases projects serving as new entities coordinating various organizations, and in other cases as more rudimentary information exchange platforms coordinating actors within the organization. The authors observe the general success of projects in terms of local adaptation but also the distance between project discourse and the mother organizations, or higher management (echoing the Luhmannian analysis of Seidl, 2016; see also Van Assche & Verschraegen, 2008).…”

“…De Groot et al (2020) and Willems et al (2020) both bump into the central issue of complexity in current governance. Complexity is both necessary and problematic in the search for answers to big problems in democratic societies.…”