Svetlana Cicmil, Svetlana; Williams, Terry; Thomas, Janice; Hodgson, Damian: Rethinking Project Management – Researching the actuality of projects; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 24 (2006), No. 8, pp. 675-686
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.08.006
Cicmil et al. describe their idea for the future direction of project management research. The authors outline 3 ideas they had in mind when thinking about project management. (1) projects are complex social settings loaded with conflicts, (2) project management practice is a social conduct, (3) Heidegger’s Da-Sein. With this starting point Cicmil et al. describe their methodological considerations which are rooted in pragmatic epistemology. They argue that in this tradition non-quantitative research can build epistemic theories.
Moreover Cicmil et al. outline quality criteria/standards for Actuality Research. It needs to fulfil practical reasoning, sense-making and thus it can explain hard to quantify concepts of emotions, power, tensions, negotiations, and political agendas. Finally they highlight topics for future research which are suited to be explored using an Actuality Research approach.