Making Sense of Complexity in Projects: An Analysis of Discourses about Complexity in Project Management [Hardcover]

1. Introduction? 2. A Discursive Perspective on Project Management? 3. The Becoming of Project Management??4. The Becoming of a Community  Identity and Alterity in Conventional and Agile PM???5. Dimensions of Coping with Complexity??6. The Systemic Perspective on PM??7. Conclusion and Outlook???

The aim of this book is to provide an alternative perspective on projects as discourses and project management as a means to observe and conduct these discourses.?It will be of relevance to those interested in current issues underlying project management, as well as to scholars of project management, organisational studies, and governance.

This book explores project management (PM) from a new perspective. Project management is facing a paradigmatic stalemate. Its major challenge is complexity. Its current paradigmatic foundation in first-order cybernetics has reached its limits. More tools are created and project management is applied to any potential context, expecting better results while doing more of the same. Beyond conventional project management, agile and other project management approaches have emerged as new options to answer the complexity challenge. Yet, the question remains whether new options and more tools in light of the current shortcomings can create enough momentum for project management as a whole to overcome its paradigmatic stalemate and evolve toward new paradigms based on second-order cybernetics. This book will embark on a journey to explore current paradigms in project management and argue why an analysis of discourse practices in project management may be critical to generating new paradigmatic perspectives.

The aim of this book is to provide an alternative perspective on projects as discourses and project management as a means to observe and conduct lóƒ