“Drop your boat!”: The discursive co-construction of project renewal. The case of the Darwin mountaineering expedition in Patagonia

Errors, lies and misunderstandings: Systematic review on behavioural decision making in projects

“…The Contextualist school breaks with the assumption of a rational decision and stresses the relevance of the decision context. A key theme in the contextualist literature is the convergence of sense and meaning as an enabler for decisions that are perceived as 'right' or successful -either in the moment or in retrospect (Alderman and Ivory, 2011;Musca et al, 2014). Contextualist literature analyses decisions as the result of a sensemaking process (Weick, 1995), in which members of a group organise the cues they perceive, so the cues build a logical structure, i.e.…”

“…Contextualist research is thereby, other than the pluralist school, foremost concerned with the roots of different perceptions, rather than the consequences. Other research applies sensemaking to study why and when individuals or project teams are able to abolish old and obsolete goals and methods (Musca et al, 2014), or why certain theoretically incomparable alternatives are preferred over another within somewhat homogenous groups (de Camprieu et al, 2007). While research in the other two schools focussed on decisions that 'have gone wrong', the contextualist literature also discusses projects that are considered successful, such as Pitsis et al's (2003) analysis of the Sydney Harbour project, Musca et al's (2014) case study of a successful project turnaround, or Alderman and Ivory's (2011) discussion of the Eden project.…”

“…The literature draws from different general theoretical foundations in organizational theory, and cognitive and behavioural sciences, including Groupthink (Hällgren, 2010), sensemaking (Musca et al, 2014), self-justification theory (Jani, 2008), risk propensity and uncertainty avoidance (Keil et al, 2000), or 'planning fallacy' (Flyvbjerg, 2013), among others. All in all, the research displays strong heterogeneity in terms of theoretical background and researched phenomena, thus reflecting the multi-faceted nature of project decision behaviour.…”

Toward High Reliability Project Organizing in Safety-Critical Projects

“…For example, Table hypothesizes that high reliability projects might “accelerate the formation of a dedicated project organization with capable project leadership, develop and articulate a strong sense of mission in the team, and build in regular communication routines.” Garel and Lièvre's () study of a polar kayaking expedition evidences this accelerated team formation through training weekends and effective and early discussion of the project goals. Table also asserts that high reliability projects “afford areas of ignorance in the project the same importance of areas of certainty.” Musca, Mellet, Simoni, Sitri, and De Vogue's () observations of a mountaineering expedition in Patagonia showed that the project team robustly discussed uncertainties in weather forecasts and their ability to navigate the boat safely to the expedition start point, which ultimately resulted in significant rewording and reframing of the overall project goals. Godé‐Sanchez () draws on the experiences of French armed forces on operations in Afghanistan to show that individuals rapidly switch between routines and unpredictable mechanisms, methods, and tools of coordination.…”

“…Table 4 also asserts that high reliability projects "afford areas of ignorance in the project the same importance of areas of certainty." Musca, Mellet, Simoni, Sitri, and De Vogue's (2014) observations of a mountaineering expedition in Patagonia showed that the project team robustly discussed uncertainties in weather forecasts and their ability to navigate the boat safely to the expedition start point, which ultimately resulted in significant rewording and reframing of the over-the strong change mandate that drives many projects. This class of projects does not proceed at such high tempo, and is not as highly dynamic as an active operational context, such as the take-off and landing of aircraft on a U.S. navy carrier, or the real-time operating environment of a nuclear power plant.…”