Contextualized Project Management Practice: A Cluster Analysis of Practices and Best Practices

Abstract

The specificity of project management in different contexts and industries is recognized, but little empirical research encompasses a sufficiently broad range of contexts and project types to precisely identify these specificities. This article adopts such a wide perspective based on a large sample of data from an ongoing empirical investigation of project management practice. Contextual archetypes are identified (i.e., clusters of experienced practitioners that share similar organizational and project contexts). Archetypes of contextualized practice are then investigated through the study of the extent of use of empirically identified toolsets in each cluster. The results empirically confirm some well‐known assumptions about practice but also sharpen the knowledge and understanding of practice in real complex multidimensional contexts. A new concept of “performing‐maturity” emerged from the data. This concept sheds light on the entangled imbrications of maturity, competence, and success. Practices are regressed against performing‐maturity to reveal best contextualized practices.

Relationship between Stakeholders Perceptions of Project Success and Project Planning

“…Readiness can enhance the success of projects (Abdolvand, Albadvi, & Ferdowsi, 2008). Zwikael (2009) and Besner and Hobbs (2012) discussed the importance of planning for complex projects. Similarly, formal planning approval by stakeholders, along with securing their commitment to the project, was highlighted by Andersen, Birchell, Jessen, and Money (2006) as an important goal.…”

Suppliers’ software development project start-up practices

“…In general, in the literature discussing the activities related to project management the term practice is widely used (Loo 2002, Besner, Hobbs 2008, Besner, Hobbs 2013. For this study, we adopted the term practice from CMMI (Crisis, Konrad et al 2009) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Most of the project start-up practices are carried out only in the supplier firm.…”

Fatores que influenciam o uso e a seleção de um software de gerenciamento de projetos: aplicando o modelo de Liberatore e Pollack-Johnson em uma empresa pública brasileira de desenvolvimento de software

“…Todavia, o uso efetivo de projetos nas organizações não tem sido acompanhado de um desenvolvimento de teorias de gerenciamento de projetos. Portanto, paradoxalmente, isso mostra que o gerenciamento de projetos, no contexto organizacional, é algo completamente novo e, provavelmente, pouco compreendido (SHENHAR; DVIR, 1996), sendo ainda objeto de interesse da comunidade científica (BESNER; HOBBS, 2006;ALI;ANBARI;MONEY, 2008;AHLEMANN;EL ARBI;KAISER, 2013;HOBBS, 2013;DEMEULE-MEESTER;KOLISCH;SALO, 2013).…”