Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ahern, Terence
• Leavy, Brian
• Byrne, P.J.

Titel

Complex project management as complex problem solving: A distributed knowledge management perspective

Ist Teil von

• International journal of project management, 2014-11, Vol.32 (8), p.1371-1381

Ort / Verlag

Kidlington: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Traditional project management (PM) privileges planning and downplays the role of learning even in more complex projects. In contrast, this paper draws inspiration from two organisations that were found to have developed complex PM expertise as a form of complex problem solving (CPS), a practice with implicit learning because complex projects are unable to be completely specified in advance (Hayek, 1945). Central to this view of complex project management as a form of complex problem solving is the governance challenge of knowledge management under uncertainty. This paper proposes that the distributed coordination mechanism which both organisations evolved for this contingency can best be characterised as a ‘common will of mutual interest’, a self-organising process that was fostered around project goals and paced by the project life cycle (Kogut and Zander, 1992). The implications for theory, research, and practice in complex PM knowledge management are examined. •Complex projects are unable to be completely specified in advance.•Complex PM as a practice and a form of complex problem solving (CPS)•A distributed approach to knowledge management based on organisational CPS•Organisational CPS creates knowledge that is unspecifiable at the project outset.•Coordination by a ‘common will of mutual interest’ as a distributed tacit dimension