Abstract:
This paper proposes that the project management discipline would benefit from the findings
of practitioners who conduct research into their own practice. Project management researchers
associated with a UK government-funded research project [1] have recently suggested that the
project management field requires more research into ‘project actuality’, focusing on social
processes of how project managers think in action and that such research could contribute to
more satisfactory outcomes of contemporary projects. This paper describes a hypothetical
dilemma faced by a project manager and briefly describes four doctoral research projects
carried out by practitioners who used action research, case research and systems thinking
methodologies to address real problems they faced in their projects. It discusses their findings
and some common features of these projects and argues that practitioner research using
interpretative and critical research methods into actual problems faced by project managers
could contribute to useful knowledge for project managers.
