Exploratory Projects: From Strangeness to Theory

Abstract

By now project studies have come to the point where we as a scholarly community can no longer claim we are a young area of research. Since the 1960s project studies have developed a scholarly pedigree that spans a significant number of empirical contexts, methodological approaches and perhaps, most importantly, theoretical contributions. There are a number of reviews classifying the past and outlining the future; our intention is neither to repeat nor challenge these reviews (see Söderlund, 2004, 2011). Building on the insights gained from these reviews we do, however, identify three research streams that are particularly relevant to exploratory projects.

Facilitating Contextual Ambidexterity in a Global Operations Expansion Program

“…The findings highlight the role of the context. Moreover, the findings would likely be different if we had also included the very first attempts to develop the technology in the early 1990s (i.e., purely exploratory projects; Lenfle et al, 2019;Loch & Sommer, 2019). This, however, is outside the global operations expansion program.…”

“…Project studies on ambidexterity have tended to focus on structural and temporal ambidexterities in a project. Research on ambidexterity in the project setting has mainly assumed that projects are either exploratory or exploitative in nature (e.g., Lenfle et al, 2019;Midler et al, 2019), addressing ambidexterity mainly at the levels of projects (e.g., Aubry & Lièvre, 2010;Tillement et al, 2019;Turner et al, 2014Turner et al, , 2015Turner et al, , 2016 and project-based organizations (e.g., Davies & Brady, 2016;Sailer, 2019). For example, Liu and Leitner (2012) studied the antecedents and project performance implications of exploration and exploitation in a complex infrastructure project, concluding that structural separation is ineffective due to the natural cycling between exploration and exploitation in the project setting.…”

“…Recently, Tillement et al (2019) provide a complementary view by introducing the concept of hybrid project (i.e., project-level coexistence of exploration and exploitation), illustrating also how hybridization evolves in time through deliberate exploration and emerging exploration and how it can be managed. Linking to the notions of structural and temporal ambidexterity, research has also assessed exploratory projects (see Lenfle et al, 2019), for example, by studying the tension between flexibility and control in such projects (Loch & Sommer, 2019).…”

Executives’ Decision Processes at the Front End of Major Projects: The Role of Context and Experience in Value Creation

“…Because exploration projects carry more risk, are less certain, and take longer to develop than exploitation projects, we argue that they require different evaluation processes. Had the executives’ project concepts been evaluated through formal project processes, they would have been likely classified as high-risk and subjected to longer and more elaborate scrutiny (Lenfle et al, 2019; Samset & Volden, 2016), potentially leading to missing valuable opportunities. Exploitation projects are less risky (often with a smaller relative return), easier to predict and, therefore, well suited to being evaluated with traditional project management processes.…”

Innovation in project management through framing and challenge redefinition

“…As has been emphasized, there are no published studies on framing in project management, although there is a growing literature on exploratory and innovation projects (Germain and Aubry, 2019;Lenfle et al, 2019).…”