A knowledge based theory of projects

Project management has been successfully applied in wide range of industries where planning and control are predictable and enforceable, such as construction and military systems. These are environments where the solution and activities are known or can be accurately described. Knowledge Economy projects are characterised by activities that are knowledge intensive or novel, by highly unique or unknown solutions, or where the environment is complex and dynamic. These projects can be more difficult to plan and even more difficult to control. To resolve this situation this paper proposes a novel and radical new theory of the project. It is suggested that a project may be described in terms of the knowledge required to execute and deliver it. In so doing the focus is shifted from what is unknown to a dimension that can be better planned and is more beneficial to the effective delivery of the project. It is intended that this theory may be used to underpin new project management theories and new implementation methodologies suited to the knowledge economy. An introduction to projects and the problem According to the Project Management Institute (PMI, 2007), a project is “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result”. Kerzner (2001, p2) defines a project as a series of activities and tasks with a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications, between start and end dates, possibly within funding limits, consumes resources and cutting across functional lines. Projects involve coordinated activity to achieve these goals. Turner (2006) regards a project as a temporary organisation, which the owner creates to create value, consuming resources to do non-routine, risky work to deliver an output, and which will be operated to achieve a beneficial outcome. Project management is an approach used to manage project activities and resources in the most optimum manner. British Standards (1996) define project management as the planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to a specified cost, quality and performance (BS6079). The problem facing project managers in the initial stages of most projects is that a great deal of uncertainty exists and will persist throughout the project’s duration. Even with the support of experienced technical team members during the planning process, the novelty of technology, environment, requirements and solutions predictably limits a project manager’s ability to reliably forecast what has to be done, how long it will take and how much it will cost. Methodologies have been devised to alleviate the inherent uncertainty of these types of projects. Iterative methodologies for information technology, such as the spiral model (Boehm, 1988), divide a large problem into a series of increasingly complete layers or versions of the final solution. They iterate or repeat the waterfall model a number of times throughout the duration of the project as to reduce risks such as of delivery diverging from requirements or changes in scope throughout the project lifecycle. Reference as: Onions, P.E.W. (2007), "A knowledge based theory of projects", unpublished paper, available online at http://www.patrickonions.org/docs/academic/, January 2007 Practitioners have also found solutions, albeit it workarounds. Business pressure to ‘get on with it’ and scarcity of specialists to support planning have led to the common practice of ‘building fat’ into estimates for activity costs and durations. This practice entails overestimating the parameters of each task so as to allow for as-yet unknown risks. Approaches, such as Critical Chain (Goldratt, 1997) and the Theory of Constraints (Goldratt, 2002; Dettmer, 1998) eliminate risk padding from each activity and include a buffer in the project plan to absorb task overruns. Failure to adhere to estimates is therefore inevitable when using conventional methodologies. Project failure in knowledge intensive environments is frequently described as high (Goulielmos, 2003). A series of reports published between 1995 and 2001 (IT Cortex, 2006) found that between 40% and 83.8% of all information systems projects are described as failures. To be fair though, it must be noted that definitions of failure differ. Goulielmos (2003) for example appears to test projects according to their ability to meet softer organisation objectives rather than planning criteria. Solutions are therefore needed to alleviate the fundamental problem; that scope and work are inherently unknown and even unknowable at the beginning of the project. Project managers on knowledge intensive projects are often unable to initially identify tasks or outcomes in sufficient detail, hampering accurate and precise estimation or planning of the time, cost and resources. Project management methodologies based on the breakdown and estimation of activities are therefore impractical in complex environments, where the solution is unknown or novel, or where activities are creative, novel or knowledge intensive. Examples of these types of situations where there is intrinsic uncertainty in the deliverables (scope of work) and activities required to produce them include information systems, high technology, pharmaceuticals, medical research and web site design projects. A proposed solution It has been noted that information (and, using the broadest of definitions, knowledge too) is a resource used in projects (Turner, 2006). Focusing on knowledge would appear to be prudent in order to reduce the uncertainty and manage complexity of Knowledge Economy projects. Completion and success is strongly dependent on the knowledge used in the execution of the project. For example, selection of skilled individuals has been seen to be critical to project success (Kerzner, 2001, p161-216). Knowledge loss is detrimental, and Burke et al. (2005) show that knowledge retention and reuse on similar projects has a positive correlation with project performance. On this basis, it is proposed that a solution may be found in managing Knowledge Economy projects and their risks through quantification of the knowledge needed, applied and generated during the course of the project. No theory was found to describe project management in terms of its knowledge, so the first step in this novel strategy will be to model projects according to knowledge. Theories and methodologies for project management may then be developed on the basis of this theory. A knowledge based theory of projects A project P may be described as a finite collection (or set) of planned and unplanned activities A with specific objectives, and constrained by limits usually measured in terms of time, cost and quality: