Floating in Space? On the Strangeness of Exploratory Projects

Lenfle, Sylvain

doi:10.1002/pmj.21584

Cited by 55 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…We are very pleased to see how the articles in this special issue have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of knowledge on exploratory projects. Let us hope that this formalization effort will contribute to recognizing the specific rationality of such projects, which until now have too often been perceived as strange, if not unmanaged or poorly managed (Lenfle, 2016). Obviously, there is still much to be discovered about how to organize such projects, as well as their impact on permanent organizations.…”

Section: The Contributions Of the Articles In The Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploratory Projects: From Strangeness to Theory

Lenfle

Midler

Hällgren

2019

Project Management Journal

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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.

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Section: The Contributions Of the Articles In The Special Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploratory Projects: From Strangeness to Theory

Lenfle

Midler

Hällgren

2019

Project Management Journal

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“…those funded by the EC, do not have such customer-driven changes to requirements. Loch et al (2006) and Lenfle (2016) describe an iterative PDCA (plan-do-check-act) cycle as a basic building block in experimentation. Loch et al (2006) argued that PM where all task and requirements must be defined before the project can start fails to implement PDCA cycles, consequently failing to be experimental and explorative.…”

Section: The Research Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring scenario development – a case study of two collaborative research projects

Fossum

Aarseth

Andersen

2019

IJMPB

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Purpose -The paper explores scenario development (SD) as a method for engaging known challenges in collaborative research projects, i.e. SD is the construct under investigation.Design/methodology/approach -Criticism of the dominant, rational approach to project management (PM) and its underlying hypotheses highlights a considerable PM research gap for research projects (research problem). We undertake a six-step constructive research approach to investigate if SD (the construct) constitutes a fruitful method to support the management of collaborative research projects. A two-part literature review summarizes known challenges in collaborative research projects and introduces the history and application of SD methodology. The work includes participatory action research (PAR) in two case studies, constituting a qualitative research method.Findings -We found the SD method to be useful for structuring and analysing intuitive project processes. However, using SD in the management of single projects presents some fundamental challenges. SD, like PM, struggles with issues related to myopic decisions, a "predict and provide" attitude with clear aspects of path dependency in the project front-end as well as inconsistent and/or missing identification of success criteria among different stakeholders.Research limitations/implications -This paper does not provide any comprehensive, normative account of scenario techniques or compare SD with other foresight and future studies methods. Although PAR is in itself a research method that demands systematic description and execution, the focus of this paper is the overall constructive research approach.Practical implications -The paper offers a broadened repertoire of methods to describe and analyse project stakeholder situations (collaborative aspects) and to structure and balance the need for both rational and intuitive project processes (research aspects). The SD method also supports development of graphical storylines and facilitates the use of influence diagrams, event trees and cost/benefit analysis.Originality/value -Although PM literature contains several references to SD, the practical application of SD at single-project level has, to our knowledge, never been described in the PM literature.

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“…Numerous studies on radical and disruptive innovation have enabled researchers to characterize, analyze, describe, and prescribe the generative processes that help to deal with the unknown in a large variety of situations. They have proposed new criteria for evaluating the generation phases (see, for instance, Elmquist and Le Masson, ), and a large variety of new processes to deal with the unknown: new types of project management (Lenfle, ), new forms of competence management and value management (Hooge and Dalmasso, ), new ways to interact with the firm's environment through open innovation (Chesbrough, ) and open innovation in the unknown (Agogué et al ., ), new ways to acquire knowledge through absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, ; Lane et al ., ) and absorptive capacity in the unknown (Le Masson et al ., ; Kokshagina et al ., ), and new types of collaboration at the ecosystem level to face the unknown (Le Masson et al ., ; Lange et al ., ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing Decisions in the Unknown: A Generative Model

Masson

Hatchuel

Glatin

et al. 2018

European Management Review

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This study examines how design theory enables to extend decision-making logic to the 'unknown,' which often appears as the strange territory beyond the rationality of the decision-maker. We contribute to the foundations of management by making the unknown an actionable notion for the decision-maker. To this end, we build on the pioneering works in 'managing in the unknown' and on design theory to systematically characterize rational forms of action in the unknown. We show that action consists of designing decisions in the unknown and can be organized on the basis of the notion of a 'decision-driven design path,' which is not yet a decision but helps to organize the generation of a better decision-making situation. Our decision-design model allows us to identify four archetypes of decision-driven design paths. They enable us to discuss the variety of known organizational forms that managers can rely on to explore the unknown.Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher's website.

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Floating in Space? On the Strangeness of Exploratory Projects

Cited by 55 publications

References 40 publications

Exploratory Projects: From Strangeness to Theory

Exploratory Projects: From Strangeness to Theory

Exploring scenario development – a case study of two collaborative research projects

Designing Decisions in the Unknown: A Generative Model

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