Using Principal–Steward Contracting and Scenario Planning to Manage Megaprojects

2021 ◽  
pp. 875697282110618
Author(s):  
J. Rodney Turner

Performance on megaprojects is dismal. Megaprojects are complex, but people use constructs inappropriate in complex situations for their management, particularly contractual arrangements based on principal–agent governance and conventional project management, which is good at solving puzzles, but not at enlightening mysteries. I review current thinking. Principal–steward contracting is a liberal governance structure required in complex situations. Conventional project management emphasizes control at the expense of innovation. In cases of high uncertainty, innovation is required as unexpected events occur. Scenario planning is offered as a way of approaching the management of complex megaprojects, to construct narratives, and to identify alternative outcomes.

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 841-855 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Rodney Turner ◽  
Laurence Lecoeuvre

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to place project marketing within the framework of organizational project management. There has been an ongoing discussion in the project marketing literature about whether project marketing is part of project management or project management is part of project marketing. Marketing is done by organizations to create a demand for products or services that have value for customers. The authors identify three types of organization involved in the management of projects, the project, the initiator and the contractor, and review current thinking on how they market their products and services, and create networks and dialogs to bring value to stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The authors review the literature on project marketing, and develop new models based on an organizational perspective. The authors develop propositions as a basis for further research. Findings Marketing is done by three types of organization. The authors label these as marketing BY the project, marketing FOR the project by the contractor, and marketing OF the investment made by the project by the investor. The authors draw links with marketing theory, and introduce the service-dominant logic as a new perspective on organizational project marketing. Research limitations/implications Traditionally, project marketing theory has taken the perspective of the overlap between project management and project marketing. The authors take an organizational perspective, and identify avenues for research into how the types of organization involved in the management of projects create dialog with their customers and stakeholders to exchange products and services that have value for them. Practical implications Project managers have not traditionally viewed project marketing as having relevance to them. The authors show that providing a service to stakeholders is an essential part of the management of projects. Originality/value The authors develop directions for research into project marketing as part of organizational project management.


Author(s):  
Michael Elliott ◽  
Ray Dawson

With almost thirty years since the start of our quest to find Fred Brooks' magical “Silver Bullet” to slay our productivity horrors, and twenty years since the first Standish report on IT project success and failures, are we getting closer? This paper discusses and challenges current thinking on process improvement initiates to provide answers of how we can significantly improve IT project productivity and consider that to achieve a step change in improvement requires a different approach. Recent Standish research has highlighted the Agile Methodology as being particularly successful for the smaller IT project. However, what specifically is creating this improvement? Is it the process itself or is there something that the process enables? The hypothesis presented is that in order to create the step change improvement in IT project management delivery, we need to significantly improve the inter-personal skills of the whole IT project management team. The revolution for improved productivity will stem from challenging the typical career paths of technology learning to provide a much greater focus on the softer skills.


Author(s):  
Rémy Ghidossi ◽  
Fabrice Meunier

In his day, Pasteur already identified the importance of oxygen to wine and his famous quotation is often repeated: “It’s oxygen that makes wine.” A great deal of scientific work has been done on the impact of oxygen on wine. This article aims to review current thinking on the quantities of oxygen that are, or should be, supplied to wine during vinification and aging.


Author(s):  
Stefan Hartlieb ◽  
Gilbert Silvius

This chapter reports a study into the management of uncertainty in the disciplines of business development and project management. The first part of the chapter analyses the disciplines by looking at the process, the planning, uncertainty and risk and the measurement of success. Based on our analysis of these two disciplines, we conclude that they differ substantially in the perception and handling of uncertainty and how this is included in the overall process. We found that business development uses additional methods, for example scenario planning, to manage the uncertainty that is inherent to the business development process. The second part of the chapter reports an explorative study into the potential application of scenario planning in project management. This study shows that scenario planning may benefit project management in creating a shared understanding of the project as well as the provision and consideration of different information. In the planning processes of the project, this information is considered useful in risk management and milestone planning.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1219-1244
Author(s):  
Stefan Hartlieb ◽  
Gilbert Silvius

This chapter reports a study into the management of uncertainty in the disciplines of business development and project management. The first part of the chapter analyses the disciplines by looking at the process, the planning, uncertainty and risk and the measurement of success. Based on our analysis of these two disciplines, we conclude that they differ substantially in the perception and handling of uncertainty and how this is included in the overall process. We found that business development uses additional methods, for example scenario planning, to manage the uncertainty that is inherent to the business development process. The second part of the chapter reports an explorative study into the potential application of scenario planning in project management. This study shows that scenario planning may benefit project management in creating a shared understanding of the project as well as the provision and consideration of different information. In the planning processes of the project, this information is considered useful in risk management and milestone planning.


Author(s):  
Helene Jackson ◽  
Pegmccartt Hess ◽  
Annaclare Van Dalen

Studies of preadolescents strongly suggest that the prevalence of depression and suicidal activity among them has been seriously underestimated. The authors review current thinking about preadolescent suicide; discuss its implications for clinicians, supervisors, and agency administrators; and recommend a research agenda to guide and support effective practice with preadolescents at risk for suicide.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao Zhai ◽  
Ming Shan ◽  
Amos Darko ◽  
Yun Le

Over the past two decades, project governance has attracted increasing attention from researchers and practitioners worldwide and has become an important research area of project management. However, an inclusive quantitative and systematic analysis of the state-of-the-art recently available research in this field is still missing. This study attempts to map the global research on project governance through a state-of-the-art review. A total of 285 bibliographic records were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database and analyzed by the visual analytic tool—CiteSpace. The results indicated that there has been an increasing research interest in project governance. The most productive and the most highly cited author in the area of project governance is Müller R., and most of the existing project governance research achievements are from Australia, China, USA, and Norway. By synthetically analyzing the keywords, future research might focus on governance of megaprojects and project success. Additionally, 9 knowledge domains of project governance were identified, including conceptual framework, public projects, governance structure, governance context, megaproject governance, contractual and relational governance, sustainability, portfolio governance, and project success. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by mapping the existing project governance research. It is particularly helpful to new and early-stage researchers who plan to do research on project governance, as it can provide them an overview of project governance research, including key authors, main institutions, hot topics, and knowledge domains. Moreover, the findings from the study are beneficial to industry practitioners as well, as they can help industry practitioners understand the latest development of governance theory and practice and thereby help them locate the best governance strategies for project management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 5252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Xu ◽  
Heng Zhang ◽  
Guiyu Bai

Under the dynamic competition situation, the innovation competition interaction between enterprises will take the form of mutual responding, while the formulation and implementation of responsive innovation strategy will be influenced by both shareholders and managers in the principal–agent relationship. In our research, we try to understand how the difference of governance logic between shareholders and managers affects innovation interaction strategy of enterprises. In order to achieve this research goal, this study takes all eligible listed companies (from 2007 to 2016) in China’s stock market as samples. The results show that the parent company shareholding has a negative impact on the subsidiary responsive innovation, while companies whose managers hold more shares select the relatively positive strategy responsive innovation. Moreover, the degree of separation between ownership and control rights and the external institutional environment can moderate the above relationship. Relevant conclusions can provide some reference value for the formulation of responsive innovation decision of listed companies and provide new insights for the design of parent–subsidiary corporate governance structure and the design of managerial equity incentive mechanism in the context of corporate group governance.


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