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In times of growing complexity project management and the continuing ‘projectification’ of organisations (Midler, 1995) have arrived at a paradigmatic stalemate (Kuhn, 1970). The current theoretical and methodical foundations of project management may have reached the limits of their functionality in complex environments (Atkinson, 1999; Flyvberg, 2006; Flyvberg et al., 2005; Winch, 1996). This paper asks whether project management should continue to expand its tools to cope with complexity and whether current normative foundations must be challenged for new paradigmatic approaches (Whitty & Maylor, 2009, Geraldi & Adlbrecht, 2007; Whitty, 2005). This study argues for a review of conventional and agile project management paradigms. To overcome the paradigmatic crisis of project management it is proposed to create a unity of distinctions between conventional and agile project management in a systemically integrated project management practice.
This study applies a discourse practice analytical perspective to project management (Boje, 2014; Van Leeuwen, 2008). It is based on a systems theoretical assumption that projects and project management are social constructions of organisation (Luhmann, 1995). If projects are the result of recurring and organised conversations, project management can be considered the convention to govern these conversations (Bredillet, 2012 & 2006). The study employs a systems-theoretical second-order observation to how discourse practitioners in project management observe and self-describe their own practice and their management of complexity (Kiehne & Klein, 2006). It uses the concept of memes to identify recurring common attractors in the language patterns which inform project practice and management narratives (Boje, 2007; Whitty, 2005). The concept of the generic distinction is applied to identify points of attention in the decision logic of project managers (Spencer-Brown, 2010).
The results in this paper support the assumption that discourses in conventional and agile project management predominantly aim to differentiate themselves from each other. Yet, they both revolve around the same dominant narratives on how to manage projects. It turns out, that the reproduction of these narratives does not necessarily follow the logic of functionality in specific project contexts, but the logic of legitimacy of applying one or the other project management approach (Whitty, 2005). It is argued, that project management is a convention adequate to talk about projects. In times of complexity this paradigmatic foundation reaches its limits. In order for project management to overcome its ontological tendency, projects need to be rediscovered projects as conversations and project management as the means to facilitate these conversations meaningfully. The paper argues to overcome artificially constructed distinctions of different project management approaches for a systemically integrated project management practice. This paradigmatic shift may reposition project management in the social dimension of projects (Klein, 2012 & 2013) and as a means to facilitate the self-observation and self-description of project practitioners to conduct a successful project.