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The craft of project shaping

Charles Smith
Project Craft, Knutsford, UK, and

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Received 4 August 2009 Accepted 18 September 2009

Mark Winter
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to look closely at the actuality of project formation to investigate the performance of project shaping those acts performed by individuals to make that form of sense that constitutes a new project, and to propose a framework for mapping the skills of those individuals who are directly involved in shaping projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a sensemaking approach from illustrative narratives in order to propose a model of how a project outcome is shaped. The analysis is based on thinking that emerged from the Rethinking Project Management Network and other academic communities. Findings Signicant factors in project formation are: the timing of the conversion of work into controlled project form (the control model of projects), the role of factional interests and power structures (tribal power), the alignment of project scope with a need for transformation (transformation and value), the fast production of tangibles such as project mandates that embody the project essentials (enacted reality), and responsiveness to the dynamics of the wider social context (external dynamics peripety). Research limitations/implications It is apparent that the process of project formation, and the shape each project takes, is highly dependent on the actions of key individuals (shapers volition). There is further scope for expanding the understanding, within the structure of the framework, of the full array of activities performed by individuals in action as project shapers. Practical implications The framework developed is of immediate value to those individuals who use their skills to mould a project, providing a conceptual basis they can use to learn and extend their skills. Originality/value Much of the interest to date in project formation has focused on instrumental managerial practices of governance. This paper focuses on lessons to be learned from the actuality of project formation the conversion of work in organisations from a muddle of ambiguity and complexity into that particular form of cohesion and accepted sense that is a dened project or programme. Keywords Project management, Skills, Task-centred leadership Paper type Research paper

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business Vol. 3 No. 1, 2010 pp. 46-60 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1753-8378 DOI 10.1108/17538371011014026

Background context In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of the front end of projects to project success. For projects, to be successful, they must be soundly based; conversely, projects that fail have the seeds of their failure implanted from the outset. In this paper, we examine some examples of project formation to extract the factors that are crucial to that critical phase of a project. We then develop a framework for understanding the skills associated with the shaping of projects, and conceptualise these skills in terms of the craft of a hypothetical individual the project shaper. Finally, we outline some principles for addressing the development of this craft.

We locate our analysis within a perspective of learning from actuality, i.e. research as empirical analysis of lived experience (Cicmil, 2006). We base our analysis on the authors experience as organisers of the Rethinking Project Management (RPM) Network. This research network, which ran from 2004 to 2006, was a group inquiry process that interrogated current theoretical perspectives and emerging practices, to develop insights into project management practices. The principal output from this network is presented in a series of papers (Maylor, 2006). The main conclusions arising from the network are set out in Winter et al. (2006b), and its processes of inquiry and learning in Winter et al. (2006a). The network conclusions have been encapsulated in ve directions for future research, which will be referenced in our discussions and so, for convenience, are briey stated here: (1) From the lifecycle model of projects and project management towards theories of complexity of projects and project management. (2) From projects as instrumental processes towards projects as social processes. (3) From product creation as the prime focus towards value creation as the prime focus. (4) From narrow conceptualisation of projects towards broader conceptualisation of projects. (5) From practitioners as trained technicians towards practitioners as reective practitioners. The thinking of the RPM Network evolved in response to a range of inputs, mainly in the form of narrated stories, from practitioners. It is through the interrogation of such stories that innovative explanations and frameworks for understanding projects and their management can be developed, taking us beyond the concepts of the project life-cycle model currently central to mainstream project management thinking. This wider thinking will also enable us to develop our understanding of the capabilities of expert practitioners. The need is to go beyond the toolkit skills embodied in published project management standards, to consider expertise in the project eld n (1983). from the perspective of the reective practitioner, as dened by Scho Project formation In this paper, we investigate the capabilities of reective practitioners engaged in the formation of projects. The front-end has long been recognised as an area critical to project success, for example, Morris (1994) has advocated a fundamental change of emphasis within the project profession, from project management to the management of projects. To achieve success, we must rst ensure we are not merely managing projects right, but also managing the right projects. Concerning the nature of success, there has been much recent work on widening the criteria of success beyond the traditional time, cost, quality model, for example Khazanchi and Reich (2008). In this paper, we follow the lead of the RPM Network and consider success in terms of the creation of value and benet to different stakeholders, which can be nancial and/or non-nancial value depending on the nature of the project (Network Direction 3). In this context, rightness can be considered as being concerned with the alignment of a project with strategic aims, the delivery of something that will create the desired value, but it is also concerned with viability: the possession of realistic aims, resources,

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funding and support, etc. There is good evidence, for example Williams (2007) and Williams et al. (2009), that projects that fail have the seeds of their failure a deciency in their viability implanted from the outset. However, in the organisational environment, much of the recent interest in getting to grips with the management of projects has been focused on the performance of governance. From this perspective, to avoid failing projects we must prevent their birth, weeding out those projects that do not adequately address strategic aims, and destroying the seeds of failure before they can germinate. This is a gate-keeping or stage gating philosophy, in which those responsible for governance inspect arrivals at the gate, and perform a policing function to determine what shall be permitted to pass through, and what shall be prevented from passing (Cooper, 2005; Ofce of Government Commerce, 2007). Its focus is on the exercise of managerial power, at project initiation, or perhaps more accurately at the moment when the demand arises for signicant investment: of money, resources or commitment. Its concern is directed towards corporate ends: the protection of investment. Our intention in this paper has a different purpose, which is to look more closely at those complex and messy social processes that lead to a particular project being proposed. Our concern carries with it an increased awareness of projects as socially constructed entities. Rather than being pre-existing objects to be subjected to the instrumental techniques of conventional project management, they are created and ns shaped by individual players in the workplace. In the language of Scho epistemology of practice, the creation and shaping of a project is a complex stream of reection-in-action and the general outcome of this process is always a constructed n (1987) explains in the following extract: reality as Scho
[. . .] underlying this view of the practitioners reection-in-action is a constructionist view of the reality with which the practitioner deals a view that leads us to see the practitioner as constructing situations in practice, [. . .] In the constructionist view, our perceptions, appreciations, and beliefs are rooted in worlds of our making that we come to accept as reality.

ns work on the reective practitioner, our As well as being grounded in Scho perspective is also based on the work of Weick (1995), where we consider projects as outcomes of organisational sensemaking. In this context, sensemaking should not be confused with a rather simplistic, and perhaps unhelpful, belief that individuals in organisations merely make sense of the environment in which they nd themselves. Weick in fact outlines seven crucial properties of sensemaking grounded in identity construction, retrospective, enactive of sensible environments, social, ongoing, focused on and by extracted cues, and driven by plausibility rather than accuracy which, as we shall see, are highly pertinent to the social process of project formation. In summary, our aim is to investigate the performance of project shaping those acts performed by individuals to make that form of sense that constitutes a new project. We shall then propose a six-element framework for naming and framing the skills of those individuals who are expert at shaping projects, conceptualising their craft in terms of a hypothetical project shaper the person or persons who determine the form a particular project will take. We shall also discuss how we might encourage and enhance the development of these skills in preparing such people the project shapers for the world of projects.

Methodology To present our arguments, we have used a sample of three project narratives. These have been selected from stories originally presented to the RPM and to a series of workshops in 2003 and 2004 under the Making Projects Critical (MPC) umbrella (Hodgson and Cicmil, 2006). Our analysis draws heavily on that of the RPM Network, where the stories were presented to the academic audience and then subjected to challenge and discussion. Note that the presentations themselves were not recorded, and the narratives presented below are only a brief summary of the original accounts. It is the ideas emerging from the workshop discussions, recorded in the network interim reports, that have provided the material for our analysis. The three narratives presented here have been selected from the many presentations on the basis of their potential to illustrate our chosen topic of interest in this paper that of project formation. We have then taken the issues apparent in these narratives and found they can be usefully made sense of through a six-element framework: the conversion of work into controlled project form (the control model of projects), the role of factional interests and power structures (tribal power), the alignment of project scope with a need for transformation (transformation and value), the fast production of tangibles that embody the project essentials (enacted reality), and responsiveness to the dynamics of the wider social context (external dynamics peripety). The terminology for these framework labels will be explained and exemplied later in this paper. The terminology is also dened and adopted by Smith (2007). Illustrative project narratives and observations The stories presented here are researcher reports, summarised with sufcient content to expose the issues, and with names and specic details removed to preserve anonymity. Project narrative 1: Bernard
Bernard works for a large multi-national manufacturing company with facilities in the UK and elsewhere. He calls himself a project manager, but disclaims any interest in the book version, epitomised by the company project management manual, which is about projects that already exist. He describes his job as being to make projects to get them up and running in a highly complex environment. Not only is the company multi-national but their products are multi-national, component manufacture and assembly taking place in different countries. They have a multi-dimensional matrix system of management: national management, functional management, product management, client management, etc. so some people have two, three or four bosses. The need for a new project usually comes from the customer teams, who have identied changes to a product to keep clients happy. Bernard then has to negotiate the project specication with everyone else. He is concerned to address client needs and get everyone on board, because if people are against some facet of the project, their opposition will sap the project energy and it will not succeed. To create effective projects, Bernard seeks out those with inuence, supporters of the project and potential blockers, and then talks to them to nd the limits to what they can accept as a project. Decisions are always made by consensus; the project manager does not actually make any. He works through personal inuence, and for that it is his credibility that counts not his place in the hierarchy. The whole process is time-consuming because it needs a lot of personal interaction with every party, talking to people face-to-face to nd out what is on their minds and to understand

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their position. They have meetings galore, large and chaotic, which can sometimes go on for days. They cannot leave unnished business because critical information would be missed, and decisions would not hold. For Bernard, the creation of sound projects is not to do with manuals and procedures. Project formation is concerned with getting everyone on board. He is particularly concerned that opposition will sap the project energy. The aim is to create projects in which everyone is playing together, projects with drumbeat.

In summary, we see here that project shaping is essentially a human and social process, developing a project that makes sense to the various groups who have interest (and the power to damage) his project. Now consider our second example. Project narrative 2: Matthew
Matthew was asked to take over a government-sponsored project that had been going for about a year out of its two-year programme. He had never done any project management, but this job was thrust upon him. He took it as a challenge, and in the few weeks before he started he swotted up the standard methodology prescribed for the project. The job was basically about setting up a pilot IT facility that would enable people in various agencies to share information. His task was to deliver this pilot, something that works, within a year. When he got into the job, however, he was taken aback by the chaotic state of the work. There was no business case, no single clear vision, and no specication of the requirements. People working on the project were going their own ways, inventing their own ideas of how it would work. There was no way this uncoordinated activity could lead to a meaningful trial that could be completed by the promised deadline. To rectify this state of affairs, he set some very simple priorities: to agree the content of the project and to try to do something useful. He hammered out a project scope something properly dened that could be achieved in the time allowed and set up project control mechanisms: budgets, milestones, reporting arrangements, a risk log, monthly reviews. He found the use of a recognised standard was immensely valuable, giving him authority to bring the parties into line. The deadline was achieved, with a demonstration system up and running, and a report produced, with only days to spare. In retrospect, Matthew recognised that the users, the people who would operate the new system, were not happy that their inventive ideas had been reduced to this rather limited project scope; he should have involved them earlier in decisions. He also recognised that his contact with the project sponsor had been erratic, and consequently there was some dissatisfaction with the product. But, overall, he was pleased that he had shown what project management can achieve in a difcult situation, and moreover he had shown that he could do it. He also acknowledged that the story he told was probably unfair to his predecessor, giving the impression he had left everything in a mess. In fact, he had been the person with the imagination and foresight to conceive the whole idea and had made it happen. When Matthew took over the project, the people were already overwhelmingly committed to its success.

In summary, this is a story of order created from chaos, from a creative, diverse, emergent strategy towards a project that is dened, possible, time-limited, and controlled , i.e. a project that can be delivered to a deadline. It is also, in principle, directed towards a social transformation, but we see that the objective was distorted by the need to shape a project that accorded with conventional managerial norms. In terms of project shaping, we see the importance of the volition and energy of one key individual the leader and face of the project. As in the previous case, he is closely engaged in a complex social world. We can also note the power he acquires through

generating project artefacts specications, plans and prototypes and through them creating his own identity as a recognised control-orientated project manager. Project narrative 3: Robert
Robert was seconded into the pensions ofce of a large corporation to act as project manager for the introduction of a new IT system for administration. This would allow the operation to be handled with fewer than half the existing staff, with better turn-round, better access to information and enormous cost savings. There was a project team already there when he arrived. It had two managers, who had already set out their plans and were ready to go. Their aim, approved by the ofce executive, was to deliver a top-class administration system, and through it bring a new culture to the ofce. The project budget had been approved, but on condition that the team would take on a professional project manager. Robert took this role and his remit was to apply recognised project management techniques to deliver the new system. However, Robert identied two major problems. The rst was the scale of the ambition that there was too much work to be done, within a tight timescale and using people who had not done the work before so something would have to change if the completion date was to be met. His second concern was that the executive appeared to have distanced themselves from the project. He decided to bridge that gap and get closer to the executive, and discovered they did not really have condence in the project. He also discovered there was another agenda, the impending divestment of a large part of the company, and they needed Roberts project completed so they could pass on a big part of the pension fund with that sale. None of this had been mentioned in the project brief. Roberts solution to these problems was to form an alliance with the director of administration and bring the divestment agenda to the foreground. Together, they struck out swathes of the project scope, optimising the new system to deal with the big nancial transactions and signing a reduced-scope contract with suppliers. The administration software, with its efciency savings, which had been so important, was cut back, to the dismay of the administration and project team to whom this aspect had been central. Although the change of direction had been painful, the scope was now feasible, and the project was aligned with the primary interests of the executive. However, the project team felt they had lost their ownership of the agenda, and were demoralised.

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In summary, we nd again that one of the determinants of project success is located in understanding the interests of social groups. These interests are diverse, but one group, that is concerned with the company divestment, has more tribal power than the others. We also see that projects are vulnerable to forces for change, which an astute project manager should be able to read and anticipate. Project shaping therefore continues throughout the life of the project, and includes activities such as horizon scanning and recognising the options to hold or change course. In dealing with these options, the individual project manager is faced by decisions of allegiance, remaining loyal to the existing project, or betraying the project to new zones of power. Making sense of the three example narratives a conceptual framework From the above examples, we can discern six important inuences on the process of project formation (Figure 1). The elements of this framework are described in the following subparagraphs and the descriptions are illustrated by reference to occurrences in the example narratives. The relevance of the six elements to each of the narratives is then summarised in Table I.

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Tribal power

Shapers' volition

External dynamics Peripety

Enacted reality

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Transformation and value Control model of projects

Figure 1. A framework for making sense of project shaping

The shaped project

Element of shaping framework Control model of projects Tribal power

Narrative 1: Bernard Negotiated project specication Complex organisation. Everyone on board

Narrative 2: Matthew Hammered into line with recognised project management standard Interests of diverse of diverse agencies, sponsor, users supplanted by project manager User and sponsor values over-ridden. Lost creativity

Narrative 3: Robert Existing project plan and recognised project management techniques Two tribes: administrators and executive Transformation in administrative processes, value to divestment plans Switch in plan enacted through new supplier contract Shift in project scope through recognition of new agenda Speaker chooses to recognise new agenda and switch project scope

Transformation and value Enacted reality

Customer value. Making sense to all parties Enacted in project specication

Table I. Application of shaping framework to illustrative narratives

Enacted in approved standard project documentation Project shape held for Attempts to pre-empt and External hence avoid energy-sapping this phase of the project dynamics opposition peripety Shapers volition Speaker has role as Speaker uses his power company shaper to shape something that works

Inuence 1. The control model of projects All three examples illustrate a process of projectication, which hitherto is a term used by other researchers to refer to the projectication of society. For example, Hodgson and Cicmil (2006) refer to the growing colonisation of all quarters of life by project-related principles, and (Midler, 1995) refers to the projectication of the organisation, whereby the traditional functional organisation is replaced by a project-based structure. In this paper, we extend the concept of projectication from

these general forces to cover their local manifestation in the treatment of particular projects or programmes of work. Work that is chaotic, being loosely dened and distributed among many parties, is brought into, or projectied into, the ordered regime of the controlled project, having dened ends and dened tasks, and under the control of the project manager. The players are seeking to shape a project embodiment that is compatible with the principles of accountability. The managers wish is to make a commitment, to promise that the project will be delivered on time, to specication, within budget, and to that end they mould the project into a form in which it can be controlled and executed with reasonable condence that it can be completed as intended. However, we can also see that this process of projectication carries penalties. We see compromise (narrative 1) where diverse aims are coalesced into a single package that suits everyone. We see the destruction of creativity and initiative (narrative 2) in the interests of producing something properly dened that could be achieved in the time allowed. And we see useful valid endeavours over-ridden (narrative 3) by new more powerful agenda. Two opposing narratives can be identied. The project management narrative, reecting the mission of the project management community, proclaims its mode of working as the ordered and reliable route through which organisations can align resources and efforts to deliver strategies and promises. There is also a contrary narrative, which portrays project management as a tyranny, destroying autonomy, initiative and creativity. However, rather than declare an allegiance to one narrative or the other, as though they belong to two separate managerial factions, our preference is to recognise the importance of both views. There are times for focused and tightly controlled delivery of tangible products, and times for a more exible and pragmatic management approach. The timing of projectication can be crucial, to gain the benets of controlled delivery while minimising damage to creativity. This we express through the mantra: beware premature projectication. We should also be wary of setting up a simplistic projectication dichotomy, as though work must necessarily be free and uncontrolled or else brought within a rigidly controlled project domain. This is not the case. Of the RPM Networks proposed ve directions for future research, the fourth, which recommends a shift in thinking towards a broader conceptualisation of projects, points our project shaping towards recognition of projects as having multiple purposes, not always pre-dened, and being permeable, contestable and open to renegotiation. Work does not proceed in either order or disorder. There are many shades between. Inuence 2. Tribal power Projects are formed in the social world. There is no single rationality that can be deployed to design the optimum correct project. Projects emerge from the manoeuvres of diverse groups of people the tribal world of organisations having diverse agenda. Sometimes, as for example, in the multinational enterprise described in narrative 1, power is diffuse, and projects are negotiated to nd a form acceptable to many parties. Elsewhere, there are clear power imbalances. In narrative 2, the power of central government leads to the formation of a project that exemplies the world of government targets, formulated in terms of what is possible within strict timescale limits, over-riding the creative endeavours of the knowledgeable parties in the eld.

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In narrative 3, the original scope, established by the relatively powerless administration tribe, is over-ruled by the powerful agenda of corporate nance. The impact of tribalism continues throughout the delivery of the project. Projects depend for their success on the energy of those involved in them. This can be deployed in the interest of progress, or it can be diverted sapping the project energy into intertribal struggles. Our speaker in narrative 1 is aware of this danger, and is concerned to avoid it from the start. In our other two examples, signicant groups of people are disenfranchised, and while continuing to work under their contractual obligations, withdraw their enthusiasm. For a project to succeed, its conceptual shape at inception must take account of this multi-tribe world. If not it is likely to be plagued by energy-sapping struggles. The aim of our project shaper must be to act as an expert player in this social world, endeavouring to facilitate and create, as in narrative 1, projects with drumbeat. This shift in perspective is encapsulated in direction 2 (projects as social processes) of the recommendations of the RPM Network. It is also fundamental to Weicks properties of sensemaking. Any analysis of project formation must take account of the social world from which they emerge, and achieve an acceptable level of plausibility for parties with a diverse range of interests. The assumption implicit in conventional project management methodology that there exists a unitary common purpose cannot be sustained. Inuence 3. Transformation and value While mainstream project management is concerned with the delivery of tangible outputs, the speakers in our examples have, as their primary concern, objectives that go well beyond the immediate product delivery and into the realm of value. In narrative 1, this is reected overall in the laudable aim of greater client happiness, but will presumably be embodied in more immediate and commercial value-driven aims in specic projects. In narrative 2, there are two forms of value being sought. While the longer term aim is to develop functional capabilities that will improve communications between government agencies, the more immediate aims are more mundane the demonstration of competence and a working product (something that works). In narrative 3, we see two competing concepts of value: the value of efcient working of administrators is over-taken by value in terms of the efcient divestment of parts of the company. In all narratives, the purpose of the projects is to drive some form of transformation. The RPM Network research direction 3 points to this shift in emphasis. In their review of the RPM Network conclusions in relation to the eld of IT, Sauer and Reich (2009) recognise this shift, but go on to argue that the project manager should focus, head-down, on delivery; it is for others to harvest value by using the product delivered by the project. Our view, on the other hand, is that the project manager has an ongoing interest in the value of a project, however it is dened. A failure to take value into account brings additional risk to the project, as it will inevitably alienate the tribes affected and drag the project into energy-sapping disputes as noted in the previous section. We should also note that in our second and third narratives the focus of our project shaper on value opened up additional opportunities to reshape the project into a form that was actually more likely to succeed. A head-down project manager would have failed to jump these hurdles. It is therefore in the project managers own interest to

engage with the relevant tribes and understand their concepts of value, and to act to shape the project accordingly. Inuence 4. Enacted reality The denition of each project emerges from a complex human and social environment, but because this world is unstable a project is itself also inherently lacking in stability. Any version of the project scope can be open to challenge as different groups manoeuvre to promote their tribal interests. Project progress, however, requires some degree of stability of purpose, and this is achieved through enactment. In the terms set out by Weick, our project shapers are acting as sensemakers, creating the project a clear and ordered form of organisational sense out of the chaos of complexity. However, it is not enough merely to agree, verbally, a form of sense. Weick points to enactment as a key property of effective sensemaking. Individuals are active the I or the we who intentionally create new entities that embody their preferred form of sense. In the project context, to establish their projects as reality, the shapers must act to create artefacts that can be seen, inspected and queried, so the project has, associated with it, some incontrovertible facts that establish it as a stable and tangible entity. In narrative 2, the project standards are seen as an important aid to enactment. The project manager produces and authorises standard documentation, and hence brings legitimacy to the limited project scope he is imposing on the distributed, and previously creative, contributors to the project. In narrative 3, those seeking to change the project scope do not enter into prolonged discussions, but they establish their new version of project reality by signing a new contract, having reduced scope, with the supplier, enacting the new project form through the artefact of the legal document. These approaches, based on the legitimisation of key documents, are well-established project enactment tactics. Other, and stronger, techniques are also available (although not evidenced in our small set of examples presented here) through the production of tangible hard objects: early production of software, models, etc. Inuence 5. External dynamics peripety Despite efforts to achieve enacted stability, the project continues its course within a social world that is continually changing. However, in practice, change is not steady and continuous. Projects experience periods of relative stability, when those involved may successfully hold to a dened plan, which are interrupted by signicant shifts in plan. A useful perspective on these dynamics is the dramatic concept of peripety. This term was used by Aristotle to denote a point in the plot of a play when the arrival of some new information transforms our understanding of what is happening on the stage. Engwall and Westling (2004) elaborate this concept in the context of development projects, but it is relevant to other forms of project. In our examples, the projects in narratives 2 and 3 undergo a signicant, and sudden, shift in strategy. The signicance of peripety is not merely that there has been some change in fortune, a twist in the plot, or an untoward event. Something has appeared which leads to a reframing of the understanding of all that has gone before. It is not only the outcomes that are changed, but the questions that frame the project thinking and plans. In narrative 2, the project is re-aligned to respond to a new demand for something that

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works, while in narrative 3 a new corporate nancial agenda diverts, in its wake, the agenda of the project. What does this mean for practitioners? Is peripety merely something that may happen to the project, something we hope to avoid but which will afict us from time to time, an unfortunate consequence of uncontrollable events? In fact, the project shaper can do better than succumb to this passive view. For example, at signicant moments in the internal life of a project (e.g. build up of resources, rst signicant investment), it is also often more open to external inuence. Experienced shapers will, at these times, go out of their way to seek out such external messages, believing it is better to receive them sooner rather than later when the disruption could be worse. They will also recognise that there is a time to change course, and a time to persevere with the chosen route; a time to scour the horizon for approaching messengers, and a time to plough onwards, focus on the work in hand, and shoot messengers on sight. This view of the project shaper as an active participant in change again runs contrary to mainstream thinking, which often conceives the project manager as a neutral player, maintaining course until instructed otherwise. Weicks description of sensemaking as ongoing reinforces this element of our framework. The expert practitioner will continue to apply project-shaping skills throughout the life of a project. Inuence 6. Shapers volition While mainstream project management approaches describe project formation in strictly impersonal terms, as vehicles for the delivery of organisational strategies, our three example narratives show that the highly personal matter of individual volition is a major determinant of the form a project eventually takes. It is this aspect of project formation that leads us to the concept of the project shaper. For each project, the scope becomes what it is because of the strong action of an individual who chooses to shape it in that way. Shapers must necessarily be constrained as to what is possible by the power structures and strategies of the organisational world in which they operate, but it is also evident that the project form they establish is at the same time primarily designed to be supportive of their own identity development. In narrative 1, the project manager disclaims hierarchical power, but it is his authority as a safe pair of hands that empowers him to negotiate and act, and it is, in turn, this authority that he re-establishes each time he sets up a consensual project. In narrative 2, the project is diverted from its creative course to serve the immediate short-term interest of the project manager, to set out his credentials as a person who can deliver to a deadline, and hence establish his reputation as a heroic project manager. The project manager in narrative 3 has yet another agenda, in this case to position himself as an executive strategist, rejecting the role of project technician assigned to him. It can thus be seen that in shaping a project, the shapers are at the same time enacting themselves as organisational players: choosing allegiances, supporting their personal agenda within the organisation, protecting their credibility and reputation, and, if failure is on the cards, manoeuvring themselves into winning positions. The concept of project manager as shaper is at odds with mainstream procedural norms, which envisage two distinct and separate roles: that of the project manager, responsible for delivery of the project as specied, and that of the sponsor, responsible

for strategy and direction. In their review of the RPM Network conclusions, Sauer and Reich express their concern about this dilemma. They support the principle that project managers should act creatively and innovate in pursuit of wider goals, but then note that many of their interviewees are uncomfortable with this position, believing that the project manager should concentrate exclusively on matters of immediate concern time, costs and deliverables. An expectation that a project manager should manoeuvre, as in narratives 2 and 3 above, will merely add to the load on his or her shoulders. However, in the narratives, we have considered here, there is actually a strong convergence of interests. It is the project managers who become aware of the wider needs for redirection to create a viable project, and who then act to reshape their projects. Their own sense of self-preservation to avoid nding themselves in charge of a mal-formed project is sufcient motivation. Once again, Weicks sensemaking model specically his emphasis that sensemaking is founded in identity construction supports our position. It is inconceivable that an expert project manager would ignore their potential shaping role since this would be an abdication of their own identity construction. Developing project shaping capabilities As set out in research direction 5 put forward by the RPM Network, there are two distinct levels of knowledge deployed in the management of projects. The rst concerns the technical knowledge of detailed procedures and tools set out in project management manuals. In this paper, however, we are concerned with a different knowledge level, that of the reective practitioner, who can learn, operate and adapt effectively in complex project environments. Effective project shaping demands an understanding of the project environment, learned through experience, intuition and the pragmatic application of theory in practice. The practitioners in our narrative studies did not acquire their shaping skills from textbooks, but through the performance of managing. The textbook methods are merely resources, to be brought in as needed to support a particular strategy of the moment (as for example in narrative 2 where our shaper specically wishes to bring diverse creative people under tight control). For the capabilities of the project shaper, we are concerned with expert action (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 2005) rather than in teachable facts, and it is therefore clear that traditional book and course approaches to learning are not appropriate. Crawford et al. (2006), drawing on experience from the RPM Network, point out that experienced practitioners can make signicant advances in developing their knowledge and capabilities though processes of reective practice and experiential learning, and they outline some example approaches that might be followed to better understand and thereby enhance these forms of learning. It is in these directions that those wishing to improve project-shaping capabilities, for themselves or their organisations, need to look. Walker et al. (2008) propose that the journey towards expertise can be enhanced through the learning experience of collaborative research. Smith (2007) introduces the concept of the project shaper, and treats the capabilities of a person fullling such a role as a subset of a wider category of reective project skills under the heading of ProjectCraft, which covers, in addition to shapers, the craft skills of project directors, strategists, transformation agents, project deliverers, and the project priesthood (custodians of project management knowledge). Project

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ns (1983) reective practitioners, faced with practitioners are variants of Scho confusing messes having no technical solution, and their methods of inquiry are essentially that of sensemaking, trial and error, intuition and muddling through. As another example contribution towards developing and enriching the craft capabilities of practitioners involved in projects, Winter and Szczepanek (2009) encourage a more pragmatic and reective approach to working on projects, based on the idea of deliberately seeing projects from multiple perspectives, exploring the insights and implications which ow from these, and crafting appropriate action strategies in complex situations. Finally, in the context of learning, we should re-afrm that we have chosen not to prescribe who, organisationally, we expect to acquire such capabilities. Mainstream project management practice is decidedly prescriptive in this respect. A project sponsor is assigned the role of dening a project, and others shall follow. However, all organisations are populated by intelligent people, and all practitioners have the wherewithal to reect on their practice, and many will have the opportunity to assert their rights to shape projects. Indeed, as we have noted, project managers by the nature of their task have an interest in shaping the object of their attention, the project, into a form having a reasonable prospect of a successful outcome. Conclusions shaping sound projects We observed, in our introduction, that the formation of a project is critical to its success. We have demonstrated here that the formation of sound projects depends on far more than good gate-keeping governance. Projects emerge from the socio-political world, and arrive at their organisational gates with a political agenda already attached. Smith (2007) describes the processes by which all manner of dubious projects misshapen and fraudulent can pass easily through such governance procedures. If a sound project is to be established, those with an interest in its success need to recognise the fundamentals of project shaping, and assert their presence by acting as shapers or by ensuring they have an effective agent shaping on their behalf. In this paper, we have demonstrated the importance of effective project shaping for project success. We have emphasised that projects are constructions, created through the agency of motivated individuals. We propose the concept of the project shaper to embody the activities of such individuals. We have put forward a six-element framework that can be used by practitioners to conceptualise the craft of shaping, and to improve their awareness of how projects are actually formed, and thereby enhance their ability to reect and learn from their own experience as shapers. This framework is also supported by research elsewhere, for ns work would show a strong correlation with example, further consideration of Scho what he calls the craft of problem setting in messy, indeterminate situations; and similarly with Weicks work there is an equivalence between the framework here and Weicks (1995) seven properties of sensemaking as shown by the following examples: tribal power social enacted reality enactive of sensible environments, external dynamics peripety ongoing, shapers volition grounded in identity construction. Further consideration of these links, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Not only this, the real world of projects embraces a far wider variety of project types and forms than we have addressed here. There is great scope for expanding our understanding, within the structure of the framework, of the full array of activities performed by

individuals in action as project shapers. However, this can only be achieved through in-depth research into the actuality of projects. The considerations relevant to such research, towards better understanding of practical action and lived experience, are discussed by Cicmil et al. (2006). We hope that the arguments we have set out here, promoting the central role of the project shaper and setting out a framework for understanding the activities of such an individual, can form a basis for such research.

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References Cicmil, S. (2006), Understanding project management practice through interpretive and critical research perspectives, Project Management Journal, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 27-37. Cicmil, S., Williams, T., Thomas, J. and Hodgson, D. (2006), Rethinking project management: researching the actuality of projects, International Journal of Project Management., Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 675-86. Cooper, R.G. (2005), Product Leadership: Pathways to Protable Innovation, Basic Books, New York, NY. Crawford, L., Morris, P., Thomas, J. and Winter, M. (2006), Practitioner development: from trained technicians to reective practitioners, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 722-33. Dreyfus, H.L. and Dreyfus, S.E. (2005), Expertise in real world contexts, Organization Studies, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 779-92. Engwall, M. and Westling, G. (2004), Peripety in an R&D drama: capturing a turnaround in project dynamics, Organization Studies., Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 1557-78. Hodgson, D. and Cicmil, S. (Eds) (2006), Making Projects Critical, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Khazanchi, D. and Reich, B.H. (2008), Achieving I.T. project success through control, measurement, managing expectations, and top management support, International Journal of Project Management., Vol. 26 No. 7, p. 699. Maylor, H. (2006), Special issue on rethinking project management (EPSRC network 2004-2006), International Journal of Project Management., Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 635-7. Midler, C. (1995), Projectication of the rm: the Renault case, Scandinavian Journal of Management., Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 363-75. Morris, P.W.G. (1994), The Management of Projects, Thomas Telford, London. Ofce of Government Commerce (2007), Managing Successful Programmes, The Stationary Ofce (TSO), London. Sauer, C. and Reich, B.H. (2009), Rethinking IT project management: evidence of a new mindset and its implications, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 27, pp. 182-93. n, D. (1983), The Reective Practitioner, Basic Books, New York, NY. Scho n, D. (1987), Educating the Reective Practitioner, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Scho Smith, C. (2007), Making Sense of Project Realities: Theory, Practice and the Pursuit of Performance, Gower, Aldershot. Walker, D.H.T., Cicmil, S., Thomas, J., Anbari, F.T. and Bredillet, C. (2008), Collaborative academic/practitioner research in project management: theory and models, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business., Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 17-32. Weick, K. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

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Williams, T. (2007), Post-project Reviews to Gain Effective Lessons Learned, Project Management Institute, Newtown Square, PA. g, K.J. (Eds) (2009), Making Essential Choices with Scant Williams, T.M., Samset, K. and Sunneva Information Front-end Decision Making in Major Projects, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Winter, M. and Szczepanek, A. (2009), Images of Projects, Gower, Aldershot. Winter, M., Smith, C., Cooke-Davies, T. and Cicmil, S. (2006a), The importance of process in rethinking project management: the story of a UK Government-funded research network, International Journal of Project Management., Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 650-62. Winter, M., Smith, C., Morris, P.W.G. and Cicmil, S. (2006b), Directions for future research in project management: the main ndings of a UK government-funded research network, International Journal of Project Management., Vol. 24 No. 8, pp. 638-49. Corresponding author Charles Smith can be contacted at: charles@projectcraft.org.uk

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