Recent studies show that despite their growing popularity, megaprojects-large-scale, complex projects delivered through various partnerships between public and private organisations-often fail to meet costs estimations, time schedules and project outcomes and are motivated by vested interests which operate against the public interest. This paper presents a more benign and theoretically-grounded view on what goes wrong by comparing the project designs, daily practices, project cultures and management approaches of two recent megaprojects in the Netherlands and Australia, showing how these projects made sense of uncertainty, ambiguity and risk. We conclude that project design and project cultures play a role in determining how managers and partners cooperate to achieve project objectives to a greater or lesser extent.

Go ov ve er rn nm me en nt ta al li it ty y M Ma at tt te er rs s: : D De es si ig gn ni in ng g a an n A Al ll li ia an nc ce e C Cu ul lt tu ur re e o of f I In nt te er r-O Or rg ga an ni iz za at ti io on na al l C Co ol ll la ab bo or ra at ti io on n f fo or r M Ma an na ag gi in ng g P Pr ro oj je ec ct ts s

In this paper we investigate a uniquely complex organizational context-that of the fast-tracked large-scale project management of a significant piece of Sydney 2000 Olympic infrastructure, which we researched in terms of its management through the "future perfect." In a grounded analysis we resolved to track how the future perfect developed in the life of one large, complex project whose uniqueness meant that it was unable to be strategically planned in advance. We tracked the use of what we term "future perfect strategy" through analysis of data collected both in leadership meetings of the directing agency, "PALT"-Project Alliance Leadership Team-as well as in individual interviews that we conducted in and around the project, and through analysis of media coverage. Overall, the project was a success, but some problems arose along the way to completion. Largely, these were focused on issues of social rather than technical construction-something even the most strategic of plans cannot account for. As well as identifying some of the specific mechanisms for encouraging future perfect strategy that were used in the project, including encouraging "strange conversations," "playing end games," "workshopping," and "projecting feelings, concerns and issues," we also suggest some ways that the social construction issues might be handled in the future. (Interorganizational Collaboration; Project Management; Strategic Management; Future Perfect) The Future Perfect How do we deal with it now to avoid it later?This question was put by one of the Project Alliance Leadership Team members during the project that frames our reflections in this paper. In many respects, it is a quintessential management question-how to make the uncertainty attached to the future something that can be dealt with in advance of it occurring? There are many, equally quintessential, strategic management answersbut none of them frame this paper. Instead, we introduce the reader to a new conception, that of managing through the future perfect, an approach to strategic management that occurred in a context where planning was practically impossible. Out of this adversity-in which to plan was a luxury that could not be affordedemerged a new approach to strategic management.The concept of the future perfect is one that, for us, is rooted in the philosophy of Alfred Schütz (1967, p. 61), who defined the future perfect as the cognitive process by which an " actor projects his actions as if it were already over and done with and lying in the past Strangely enough, therefore, because it is pictured as completed, the planned act bears the temporal character of pastnessThe fact that it is thus pictured as if it were simultaneously past and future can be taken care of by saying that it is thought of in the future perfect tense." While many researchers and authors have adopted Schutz's notion of the future perfect (see

Recent studies of temporary organizing and project-based work explain how organizational actors establish and maintain clear role structures and harmonious relations in the face of precariousness by engaging in stabilizing work practices. This focus upon 'order' undervalues conflict-ridden negotiations and power struggles in temporary organizing. This paper demonstrates that in temporary organizing conflict and order may exist in tandem. Drawing close to the collaborative dynamics in a large-scale global project, we analyse the political struggles over role patterns and hierarchic positioning of client and agent in the temporary organization of the Panama Canal Expansion Program (PCEP). In such projects, the agent typically takes the position of project leader. In this case however, the client was formally in charge, while the agent was assigned the role of coach and mentor. The diffuse hierarchy triggered project partners to engage in both harmony-seeking social and discursive practices and to enter into conflict-ridden negotiations over authority

This article presents findings from longitudinal ethnographic research of a mega-project alliance. For five years we followed the leadership team of a large Australian Alliance Program made up of a large public and several private organizations, analyzing `practice' as novel patterns of interaction developed into predictable arrays of activities, changing and transforming while at the same time continuing to be referred to as `the same'. In this article we focus on three such arrays of activities: authoring boundaries, negotiating competencies and adapting materiality. We suggest that these are essential mechanisms in becoming a practice. While most studies of practice deal with already established practices, the significance of our research is that we develop a notion of practice as it unfolds. In this way we can provide a better account of the constant change inherent in practices.