Project-as-Practice: In Search of Project Management Research That Matters

Abstract

Research on projects is not only an immature field of research, but it is also insubstantial when it comes to understanding what occurs in projects. This article contributes to making project management research matter to the academic as well as to the practitioner by developing a project-as-practice approach, in alignment with the ongoing debate in social science research. The article outlines a framework and argues that there are two major challenges to the researcher and also suggests how these challenges can be met. Underlying notions of the practice approach are outlined to ensure a development of the project-as-practice approach that makes project management research matter!

Full text

March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
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PAPERS
INTRODUCTION ■
The relevance of management theories for management practice is a
topic of frequent debate in management journals and throughout con-
ferences. Over the last couple of years, some topical contributions have
been made by authors such as Bennis and O’Toole (2005), Ghoshal
(2005), and Mintzberg (2003) with a common theme concerning the shortcom-
ings of management models and management theories in terms of under-
standing (and guiding) management practice.
Ghoshal (2005), by claiming that bad management theories destroy what
otherwise would have been good practice, is perhaps the most outspoken of
these critics. Management theories are, he claims, too scientific and rational.
In addition to disregarding the importance of human interaction, they are
also based on deductive reasoning, biased assumptions, and partial analysis.
All in all, management models are claimed to be (1) irrelevant descriptions
of what is really going on in organizations and (2) not a sound and solid
foundation on which management action should be based.
Given these flaws, it is obviously a concern if management theories
become self-fulfilling, which is highly likely as people use theory to guide
practice. If self-fulfilling theories are also used in education, their nature as
bad theories becomes even more pronounced (Mintzberg, 2003). Therefore,
Ghoshal (2005) advised us to be very careful when proclaiming that we have
built theory on the very nature of a management phenomenon.
Similar problems are also apparent in project management. Traditionally,
project management as examined by researchers has resulted in a number of
bodies of knowledge trying to describe what is generally recognized as good
practice. Over the past several years, there have been calls for an alternative
approach to good practice. Cicmil and Hodgson (2006, p. 14) argued that the
iron triangle, which could be seen as the mainstream of project research,
bedevils project management research. Furthermore, Smyth and Morris
(2007) built on this when outlining weaknesses in dominant research
methodologies frequently used in project management studies. Cicmil (2006,
p. 36) asserted that project theory would be served by a qualitative approach
with a critical interpretive approach that might “generate alternative under-
standings of what goes on in project practice and how practitioners partici-
pate in and manage complex organizational arrangements.” Ivory and
Alderman (2005, p. 5) argued that project management theory needs to dis-
tance itself from prevalent rationalistic assumptions. In a similar vein,
Bresnen, Goussevskaia, and Swan (2005, p. 39) concluded that there is still a
lot to understand regarding project organizing and that situated events are
Project-as-Practice: In Search of
Project Management Research
That Matters
Tomas Blomquist, Umeå University, Sweden
Markus Hällgren, Umeå University, Sweden
Andreas Nilsson, Umeå University, Sweden
Anders Söderholm, Mid Sweden University, Sweden
ABSTRACT ■
Research on projects is not only an immature
field of research, but it is also insubstantial when
it comes to understanding what occurs in proj-
ects. This article contributes to making project
management resear ch matter to the academic as
well as to the practitioner by developing a project-
as-practice approach, in alignment with the
ongoing debate in social science research.
The article outlines a framework and argues that
there are two major challenges to the researcher
and also suggests how these challenges can be
met. Underlying notions of the practice approach
are outlined to ensure a development of the
project-as-practice approach that makes project
management research matter!
KEYWORDS:
project-as-practice; practice
research; relevance-based research; relevance
challenges; project management research
Project Management Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1, 5–16
© 2010 by the Project Management Institute
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com)
DOI: 10.1002/pmj.20141

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March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Project-as-Practice
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important to understand organizational
change. Bredillet (2005, p. 4) highlighted
the need and wish for studies that focus
on “what we are and where we are going,”
while Cooke-Davies (2004) argued that
the underpinning theory of project
management practice is never or sel-
dom articulated (see, e.g., Cleland &
King, 1983; Turner, 2008, for exceptions).
Following these lines of thought,
project management is not only an
immature field of research, but many of
the normative and traditional contribu-
tions are also insubstantial when it
comes to understanding what is really
occurring in projects (see Winter, Smith,
Morris, & Cicmil, 2006). At the same
time, there are numerous different
schools of thought or perspectives of
project management. Anbari (1985)
suggested five, Söderlund (2002) sug-
gested seven, and Bredillet (2007)
(together with Anbari and Turner) sug-
gested nine. Then again, the number of
schools of thought is less important
than the notion that project manage-
ment today still has a predominantly
rational focus. Söderlund (2004) point-
ed out that process and real-time case
studies and project organization issues
are of particular interest. If these
issues are to be considered, we need to
go beyond project management mod-
els, A Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK®Guide), project
plans, work-breakdown structure
(WBS), program evaluation and review
technique (PERT), and Gantt schedules
(cf. Maylor, 2001) when trying to under-
stand projects. Going deeper with ana-
lytical and mostly rational theoretical
models of project management will
only provide more make-believe state-
ments on project management issues.
Even though the critique of project
management models is diverse and may
lead to different conclusions, it seems to
be widely agreed upon that there is no
such thing as one unified theory on
projects (Sauer & Reich, 2007; Smyth &
Morris, 2007; Turner, 2006). However, as
history of general management informs
us (cf. Cyert & March [1963], atheory of
the firm that never became the theory),
there never will be one theory because
projects are at the most basic level an
open-system organization with many
contextual dependencies, as well as
individual variation (see also Engwall,
2003; Turner & Keegan, 1999).
Consequently, we need to first look
at what people do within the context
of projects before we can start our quest
to understand projects themselves
(cf. Geertz, 1973). This is still research
about projects. But this is research on
what people do in projects (practice)
rather than on the confirmation of best
practice models for project manage-
ment. Whereas traditional project
research starts with overall models and
concepts from which action is derived,
we argue for a practice perspective
(Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, & von Savigny,
2001) that begins with individual
actions and asks what overall models
and concepts result from those actions.
Our aim in this article is to outline
elements for project-as-practice research
and to discuss major issues that need to
be addressed within this approach. It
bears pointing out that we are not dis-
carding the present knowledge about
projects. Rather, we are suggesting a
complementary approach. The article
has a multifold contribution. We add to
the growing understanding of projects
by identifying challenges and patterns
that need to be considered by academia.
Moreover, we outline a practice per-
spective for temporary organizations,
which have features different from per-
manent organizations (Lundin &
Söderholm, 1995). In the following, tem-
porary organizations are primarily
referred to as projects.
The Practice Turn in Project
Management
Traditionally, a major divider exists
between engineering-focused tradition-
al system-based research on the one
hand (hard systems theory, optimization
theory) and the social science–based,
process-oriented tradition of research of
project management on the other hand
(Blomquist & Packendorff, 1998; Engwall,
2003; Söderlund, 2002). The divider is
one example of the “battle” between
espoused theories (“what should be
done”) and theories in use (“what is
actually done”) (cf. Argyris, 1976) or
between “being” and “becoming” (see
discussion in Winter et al., 2006). By tra-
ditional project management we refer to
structured, mechanistic, top-down, sys-
tem-model-based approaches to project
management that rely on systems
design, tools, methods, and procedures.
Traditional system research thus strives
for best practice, guidelines, and fore-
casting of relevant behavior for practi-
tioners. Some of its results are trans-
ferred into textbooks, guidelines, for-
malized norms, and expectations, such
as the various bodies of knowledge cur-
rently on the market (see also Smyth &
Morris, 2007). See also Turner and
Keegan (2000) for an elaborate discus-
sion on the mechanistic system
approach.
The process-oriented approach
(cf. Söderlund, 2004) highlights “theo-
ries in use.” Its focus is primarily on the
relationship between past, present, and
future when analyzing a project’s
processes. Projects within this tradition
are seen as a social and organized set-
ting on which numerous conceptual
organizational theories and organiza-
tional behavior frameworks can be
applied and developed. Over time, the
process perspective has also come to
include processes connecting projects
to a wider context, thus emphasizing
project contingencies and contextual
dependencies (Engwall, 2003).
As the tension between the mecha-
nistic structural top-down and the
“past-present-future” perspectives has
been quite thoroughly investigated
(e.g., Blomquist & Packendorff, 1998;
Bresnen et al., 2005; Engwall, 2003;
Lindkvist, Söderlund, & Tell, 1998;
Morris & Jamieson, 2005; see also the
special issue of International Journal of
Project Management, 2006, Vol. 24, Issue
8, on rethinking project management),
we will not delve into this any further

March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
7
here. The legacy of the process perspec-
tive is, however, extensive. Above all, it
has contributed to an understanding of
projects as social processes, which take
into account the complexities of human
life (Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006, p. 10). An
example of a project process study is
Lundin and Söderholm (1995), who
identified four phases of projects, which
they label and give certain attributes
while focusing on human behavior
and actions. Another example is the
Sutterfield, Friday-Stroud, and Shivers-
Blackwell (2006) study of a case study
method that identified some lessons to
be learned regarding stakeholders. From
our point of view, process studies do not
go far enough in at least two ways:
1. Process studies are mostly concerned
with processes defined by the struc-
ture, which results in a focus on proj-
ects as defined by these organiza-
tional structures. As a consequence,
a more fine-grained analysis of
the microactivities upon which the
processes are built is sacrificed.
2. Following the first point, process
studies focus on people in charge,
thus sacrificing a bottom-up analysis
of what individual actors actually do
when they work on projects.
The tendency to generalize, which is
inherent in the general version of the
process perspective, has consequences
on which mechanisms are found and
how well grounded and relevant an
analysis is. This approach to process
studies runs the risk of being caught up
in the trap it typically criticizes—namely,
to provide general best practice models
(see also Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006).
The critical perspective questions
common project knowledge and
explores more details of human behav-
ior and patterns of behavior (Cicmil,
2006; Hodgson, 2004). The perspective
thus comes close to what we claim is
significant for the practice approach.
The practice approach, however, differs
in that the approach is not necessarily
critical in the same sense. We observe a
development toward studies of projects
where both process and traditional
hard systems approaches are under
scrutiny. One way of doing this, from a
critical standpoint, is to explore the
microactivities, the real “action” within
projects. Following the words of Geertz
(1973, p. 6), transferred to our area of
research, it is necessary to first look into
what project managers do before we
can understand what project manage-
ment is. Geertz’s advice can also be read
the other way around: theories built
without drawing upon the foundation
of actual work of project managers may
be irrelevant or, in the worst case,
erroneous. Thus, in order to build an
understanding that is more strongly
underpinned, research has recently
taken a more practice-oriented turn
where the focus is on the actors and
their activities rather than on models
and their application. This is not to say
that the effort so far is not important.
The traditional approach has con-
tributed to the development tools,
methods, and generalizations used by
practitioners in different industries all
over the world. The process-oriented
approach has, on the other hand, con-
tributed to a more human element on
projects. We therefore modestly claim
that the everyday actions of the
practitioners make a more significant
contribution to the understanding of
projects.
The turn toward practice has been
observed in various fields of research
(see Schatzki et al., 2001, for a compre-
hensive review on the practice approach
in social science) and it has had a great
impact on the innovative research in the
area of strategy and, more specifically,
on the development of strategizing as a
core concept for studies on strategic
processes (Jarzabkowski, 2003, 2004,
2005; Whittington, 1996, 2002a). A focus
on practice is indeed, as Bourdieu (1990)
argued “to take seriously the work and
the talk of the practitioners themselves.”
Practice-oriented research has its
roots in the much broader field of sociol-
ogy and social sciences, with one notable
contribution coming from Bourdieu and
his concepts of “habitus” and “social
praxeology.” Bourdieu argued that
practice generated by habitus follows a
“practical logic,” contrasting it to the
Levi-Straussian model’s of “logical logic,”
which “reduces action directly to struc-
ture” (Lau, 2004, p. 378). Nevertheless,
Bourdieu’s (1984) development of habi-
tus, encompassing an individual’s social
context, education, experiences, and his-
tory, is subject to a double reading. The
first reading relates to “the distribution of
materials, resources, determinant rela-
tions, and the species of capital in a field”
(Everett, 2002, p. 70). This first reading
says little about agency, which makes the
second reading necessary. The second
reading tries to come to terms with more
tacit properties of human actions—that
is, practical activities, mundane knowl-
edge, subjective meaning, and practical
competency (Bourdieu & Wacquant,
1992, pp. 7–9). According to Everett
(2002, p. 70), the two readings are what is
referred to as Bourdieu’s “social praxeol-
ogy.” It is suggested that habitus can be
investigated by its structural compo-
nents—for example, by examining the
use of language, which has become quite
popular in critical studies of organizing
(e.g., Hodgson, 2004).
In regard to projects, Bredillet
(2004) expressed his concern when he
argued that the praxeology (the study of
human action) of projects has been for-
gotten. Even though some time has
passed since the practice research of
organizing was introduced as a com-
prehensive approach, only recently has
the discussion been utilized for project
management research. An important
plea for research to focus on the actual-
ity of projects was published in 2006
(Cicmil, Williams, Thomas, & Hodgson,
2006) where theoretical and method-
ological considerations for a research
agenda with an emphasis on the actual-
ities of projects were outlined. In the
context of this article, research on actu-
alities and practice share many of the
same basic assumptions, arguments,
and concerns. We thus build our
thoughts on the following in both the

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practice turn in social science and
management research, as well as in
the recent “rethinking project manage-
ment” discussions referred to earlier.
Only recently have studies that take
a practice perspective at the outset
appeared in the field of project manage-
ment. Examples include the management
of deviations in an engineering project
(Hällgren & Maaninen-Olsson, 2005;
Hällgren & Wilson, 2007); the day-to-day
work of a project manager in a software
development project (Nilsson, 2008;
Nilsson & Söderholm, 2005); the use of
tools in project management (Besner &
Hobbs, 2006); the roles in temporary
organizations (Bechky, 2006); the work
of project managers and how they talk
and understand what they do
(Blackburn, 2002); projects as a tool for
rebureaucratization (Hodgson, 2004);
and Simon (2006), who studied the
“actual work” of the project managers
for creative projects.
We have so far distinguished bet-
ween three main approaches: traditional
system, process, and practice (although
we recognize that, depending how one
counts, there are more approaches to
project management [Anbari, 1985;
Bredillet, 2007; Söderlund, 2002]). A
fourth perspective, the critical approach,
has been briefly referred to. However, it
operates primarily parallel to the others
and is applicable as a critical assessment
of research and practice in general, as
well as a perspective that guides the way
research questions are formulated and
researched within process- or practice-
oriented research approaches.
Each one of the three approaches—
traditional system, process, and practice—
has its own prerequisites and theoretical
and empirical focus. Our discussion on
different approaches is summarized in
Table 1.
Having acknowledged the differ-
ences of the three perspectives and
their relative position, we will continue
discussing the practice perspective for
project research.
Project-as-Practice: Praxis,
Practitioner, and Practices
There are three concepts that the ap-
proach in practice, as it is known,
builds upon. They are:
1. Praxis—the situated actions taken;
2. Practitioner—the men and women
conducting the praxis; and
3. Practices—the norms, routines, tra-
ditions, and rules guiding the behav-
ior of the practitioner (Jarzabkowski,
2003; Whittington, 2002a).
The praxis in our case refers to the
actions of a project manager or project
worker—what he or she does in a given
situation. The praxis of a project manag-
er includes more than just the classic
tasks of a project such as budgeting,
scheduling, and control. It also includes
Ontological Dominating Examples of
Empirical Status of Methodological Research
Focus Approach Human Action Epistemology Commitment Question
Traditional Focuses on Top-down Determined Objectivist Above all quantitative What are the
System rational structures methods, to enable success factors
and how they can Erklaren (explaining) of planning?
be best managed
Andersen (2006); Dvir and Lechler (2004); Pinto and Slevin (1989)
Process Focuses on Past, Intersubjective Objectivist/ Above all qualitative How could the
describing the Present, subjectivist methods such as process of
process and how Future interviews, documents, planning be
the process relates etc., to enable Verstehen understood?
to the structure (understanding)
Legris and Collerette (2006); Lindkvist et al. (1998); Lundin and Söderholm (1995); Sutterfield et al. (2006)
Practice Focuses on Bottom-up Intersubjectively Subjectivist Above all qualitative What are the
describing the situated methods such as actions that are
process through ethnography, to enable building the
the identification Konstruieren (con- activity of
of local situated struction) planning?
actions
Hällgren and Wilson (2007); Hodgson (2004); Simon (2006)
Table 1: Three approaches to project management research.

March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
9
all the actions of a project manager in
relation to the different tasks in the proj-
ect. The project manager’s actions, or
praxis, are believed to depend not only
on the situation or context (what
Schatzki, 2005, called the Site) where
they are acted but also on the project
manager’s “habitus,” (i.e., his or her his-
tory, previous experience, education,
and even the present and previous fam-
ily situation; cf. Bourdieu, 1984). Studies
of praxis therefore include both what is
done by the project manager and
how that praxis influences and is influ-
enced by what happens around the
practitioner.
The practitioner refers to the person
who does the actions (e.g., the project
manager). Studies of the practitioners
often start with the question of who the
project managers are in order to under-
stand why or how they act the way they
do (cf. Whittington, 2002b). Not only are
the project managers’ actions believed
to rely on the habitus of the practitioner,
but they also depend on the practices of
the organization or industry.
Practices, which are common in all
organizations or industries, are the vari-
ous traditions, norms, and rules or bod-
ies of knowledge that state, explicitly or
implicitly, how the practitioner should
act in a certain situation. These practices
can be written in documents stating best
or preferred practice in the company or
told in stories exemplifying “how we do
things” at the company. Those practices
are the rules of action that are largely
taken for granted (cf. Jarzabkowski,
2004). Departing from these rules can
sometimes be very difficult, as the tradi-
tions are often firmly entrenched within
an organization. Practitioners’ praxis
builds not only on the practices but also
on the habitus and information from the
specific situation and context that might
demand actions other than what is “nor-
mal.” There could be different reasons
for departing from accepted or tradi-
tional practice. In project management,
the main goal is to take the project from
point (or stage) A to point B, and in order
to do so, it is important to follow the
project plan. Nevertheless, when the
reality does not conform to the plan, it is
up to the project manager to improvise
(cf. Leybourne, 2006) using his or her
habitus—which includes skills, experi-
ences, and education—to make deci-
sions that allow the project to move
toward point B. Because every project is
unique, the decisions might not be the
ones traditionally taken, but they may
nevertheless be beneficial for the proj-
ect. Such nontraditional decisions often
evolve into best practice, or “how we do
things,” in the long run as the merits of
these decisions are recognized and
embraced. For example, when word
spreads through an organization how a
project manager solved a particularly
difficult case, the practitioner’s practice
might eventually become part of accept-
ed practices.
The concepts praxis, practitioner,
and practices are not independent but
rather entangled, as they co-evolve in
what Hendry and Seidl (2003) called
episodes. Episodes are limited events
occurring in the organization at any
given point in time (i.e., meetings, plan-
ning sessions, or deviation manage-
ment). While practices represent the
present thinking and interpretation in a
given situation, they are then converted
into praxis by practitioners through
repeated episodes. Praxis therefore
builds on the practitioner’s earlier expe-
rience and on other contextual or situa-
tion-specific information as well as on
the practices used in the company. As
long as the situation remains the same,
practices and praxis can be expected to
continue more or less unchanged. The
practitioner might, however, reinterpret
appropriate praxis and choose another
path to presumed goal fulfillment if
externally influenced. If the practition-
er or other practitioners then repeat the
new praxis, the practices can be consid-
ered changed. Hence, when a practi-
tioner departs from standard practices,
new experiences contribute to change
as they add to previous experiences and
create new traditions, which in turn
become accepted practices.
Project-as-Practice Research
According to Whittington (2002a), there
is a need for a better understanding of
practitioners, praxis, and practices.
Understanding the practitioner’s devel-
opment will be helpful in developing
research as well as project management
education, which today is largely
focused on teaching project manage-
ment practices. We are not in any way
arguing that the development of the
bodies of knowledge is in vain, but
rather that it must be complemented by
more research on practice. We argue
that an understanding of the practice
will reveal hidden mechanisms explain-
ing the behavior in projects, which in
turn will contribute to a more reflexive,
mature, and contextualized under-
standing of project management.
The practice turn is not new. It has
existed for several years, above all within
organizational studies. However, we
assert that the temporality of projects
has implications on how the practice is
shaped, conceived, and put into action.
The temporality also has implications on
which structures are relevant and how
praxis is conceived. This idea is of course
not new either, but the combination of
these ideas has implications on how we
understand project management.
A practice approach on project man-
agement requires the study of action,
activities, and actors within projects.
Although it is a starting point, studying
everyday life is not enough, and it is
also not the limit for practice studies.
Gherardi (2006, p. xviii) proposed that
“the concept of ‘practice’ is fruitful pre-
cisely because it enables analysis of the
social connections among individuals,
collectives, organizations, institutions,
the situated contexts in which these
connections take specific form, and all
the intermediaries utilized by them—
intermediaries that may be physical
objects or artifacts, discourses or texts.”
The project studies could therefore
have a much broader aim, as Gherardi
continues to suggest that the practice-
based studies of organizations should
build all the way from the individual to

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PAPERS
the institutional level. Nevertheless,
when doing this, the research should
focus on the individuals’ actions in
context in order to manage, in our
case, the project and also build a
temporal and spatial site where
the organization can be analyzed
(Gherardi, 2006).
When doing practice research,
there are two challenges that need to
be dealt with. The first is the relevance
challenge—doing practice research in
a context relevant for society, for
the practitioners studied, and for the
understanding of projects. The focus of
the research should be to present it so
that it not only helps academics under-
stand project management, but that the
research also adds to the practitioners’
understanding of their jobs and of the
conditions under which they spend
most of their time at work. The second
challenge is to avoid an approach that
only produces trivial and random
observations, lacking insights, coher-
ence, and implications. Thus, even
though a practice perspective indicates
our interest in microprocesses, the
micro level on its own is an insufficient
level of interest from an analytical
viewpoint. It might not be the most
interesting one either. Whittington
(2004) highlighted the trap of focusing
too narrowly on microprocesses. We
label this the pattern challenge, which
is concerned with lifting the analysis of
the praxis to a higher level so that not
only the individual actions are ana-
lyzed but also that the pattern resulting
from the various actions can be ana-
lyzed. Smyth and Morris (2007) dis-
cussed the tension between general
observations, which may marginalize
the particular, and observations of the
particular, which may oversee the gen-
eral pattern. Addressing the relevance
and pattern challenges is thus one way
to avoid being trapped in either one of
the end points reviewed by Smyth and
Morris.
The sections that follow will further
develop the understanding of those two
challenges.
The Relevance Challenge
The first challenge has to do with what
the observations are about. Schatzki
(2005) described “the sites of organiza-
tions” and he argues that praxis occurs
in a setting, or “the site,” thereby plac-
ing praxis in a broader context. His
claim is that the actions of one person
also make up the context of another
person’s actions or of the physical and
social context where the actions are
taking place. Consequently, practice is a
part of a greater social interplay where
one person’s praxis can be understood
only in relation to the social and physi-
cal context where it was carried out.
Now, for project management research,
the challenge is to define and describe
relevant contexts for practice-based
studies; to define where to go for obser-
vations and how far to go once within
the context. This is the relevance chal-
lenge. Fundamentally, what we are say-
ing is that not all observations are
equally relevant for the understanding
of projects.
In failing to meet the relevance
challenge, we will end up doing “rele-
vance lost” research that Johnson and
Kaplan (1987) claimed occurred within
management accounting. Here, for
project-as-practice, there is a need to
search for those sites where relevant
things are happening. And this is where
we need to make informed decisions in
order to conduct research relevant for
project management and not on “coffee
table discussions” per se. Coffee table
discussions may be of interest if they
contribute to our understanding within
a wider project context, but certainly
not as an end in itself.
There are two different angles to the
relevance challenge: (1) in terms of
implications on choice of empirical set-
ting and (2) in terms of questions to
address. Relevance, however, cannot be
based on what has been done in tradi-
tional model-based project manage-
ment research only, since the limited
understanding provided through such
models is the starting point for the turn
to practice in the first place. Thus, we
need to look elsewhere for advice.
Wenger (1998) discussed communities
of practice, also building on the prac-
tice turn argument, and how localized
communities are to be understood. A
(relevant) community of practice is
formed around three different con-
cepts: First, there is a need for mutual
engagement of participants. This means
that individuals are engaged and know
that they are part of a mutual undertak-
ing. Second, there is a joint enterprise,
in which specific content is negotiated
and where there are accountability
norms in place. And, finally, Wenger
discussed a shared repertoire of con-
cepts, models, roles, and rules used to
perform specific activities. It is impor-
tant to note that all three of these com-
ponents include negotiation and may
be characterized by conflict, diversity,
and heterogeneity. It is, in other words,
not necessarily a search for harmony
that underlies the forming of a commu-
nity of practice.
For a practice-based research
endeavor, it is necessary to address the
community-building issue, parallel to
other more precise research issues. A
project team may form a community of
practice, in the terms put forward by
Wenger (1998), or, depending on the
situation, they may not. One question
of relevance is to what extent are com-
munities of practice formed in align-
ment with project definitions or to
what extent are communities formed
based on principles other than those of
the project, as, for example, suggested
by Lindkvist (2005) for groups not as
tightly and continuously interacting
as suggested by Wenger.
A single action or task has no mean-
ing without the social context in which it
is enacted. Instead, communities are the
first layer of embeddedness—that is,
the lowest level of context in which prac-
tice is situated. Beyond the community,
other layers may be found, such as his-
torical, social, cultural, and institutional
layers (Schatzki, 2005; Wenger, 1998).
Brown and Duguid (1991) even suggested
that organizations may be viewed as

March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
11
“communities of communities.” Schatzki
(2005) talked about organizations as bun-
dles of practices and material arrange-
ments, arriving at a similar conclusion.
From a project point of view, this has to
do with the need for contextualization of
projects (Winter et al., 2006) and the
broadening of our understanding of
project scope (Atkinson, Crawford, &
Ward, 2006).
Our point is that a practice perspec-
tive calls for a different approach, and a
different definition, of relevant sites for
inquiry. Even though questions
addressed may be typical project issues
such as planning, execution, termina-
tion, knowledge transfer, contracting,
or procurement, it is necessary to start
the inquiry without assuming that
organizational units, narrowly defined
project organizations, or other “top-
down” definitions of the relevant
organization are good entry points into
the empirical context. It is a plea to
make a critical assessment of the
research site and to clearly assert that
projects, project management, and
project organizations are not “found”
but “invented” (Smyth & Morris, 2007,
p. 426).
The second issue—which questions
to address—is a bit tricky. At first, it may
seem that a practice approach is only
suitable for some specified sets of
research questions—focusing on “prac-
tice issues” (whatever they may be).
However, this is not necessarily the
case. It is correct that a practice
approach requires the research design
to allow for data collection on everyday
activities, within the frame of a com-
munity of communities, to look for how
meaning is created and how the inter-
action between practices (models and
other “shared repertoires”) and action
are carried out (see Schatzki, 2005, for a
discussion on a social ontology for
studying organizations from a practice
perspective). It is not correct, however,
that only certain and limited sets of
questions can be phrased accordingly.
Let us take an example to clarify this
point by referring to a classic quote by
former U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower: “In preparing for battle I
have always found that plans are use-
less, but planning is indispensable.”
Plans are a cornerstone of any project;
consequently, planning is a dominant
activity within a project context.
Applying project-as-practice would
mean that plans and planning are
researched through questions like (for
example) how the content of the plans
is used as a basis for everyday action,
how the procedure for changes in the
plans is actually carried out, or how
planning procedures are really done
and how deviations from plans are
responded to (for the last example, see
Hällgren & Maaninen-Olsson, 2005,
2009). These are just examples. All of
these questions would be answered in
terms of how a shared repertoire is
applied, what learning and power
mechanisms are at hand, and how the
interaction is organized and coordinat-
ed across organizational units.
In the same way, any traditional
project management topic can be
made suitable for a project-as-practice
research approach. The main thing to
keep in mind is to retain the focus on
how things are being worked out in real
life, how actions are designed, per-
formed, and related to other actions,
communities, institutions, and the like.
This may call for a renewed definition
of the empirical object of study—for
example, by more clearly investigating
sequences of related activities in which
people are engaged rather than defin-
ing organizational entities to research
(see discussion in Bengtsson, Müllern,
Söderholm, & Wåhlin, 2007). Cicmil
et al. (2006) provided an excellent discus-
sion on the need for studies on project
management actualities that supports
the argument made here.
Unwittingly, Simon (2006) provided
an example of the importance of setting
and how the first angle of the relevance
challenge can be achieved. Simon stud-
ied the actions of a project manager in a
creative industry—the computer game
industry. He found that the project
manager had four roles: sense-maker,
web-weaver, game-master, and flow-
balancer. Although it was still tentative,
Simon provided an example of how the
empirical setting shapes the actions of
the practitioner—the project manager.
Another example of the impact on
the choice of setting is provided by
Pitsis, Clegg, Marossezeky, and Rura-
Polley (2003), who studied project man-
agement meetings during the Sydney
2000 Olympic infrastructure project.
Among other insights, the researchers
found that various tactics were used to
achieve the “future perfect,” including
“strange conversations,” “playing end
games,” “workshopping,” and “project-
ing feelings, concerns and issues.”
Pitsis et al. provided an example of how
the notion of “future perfect” is trans-
formed from vision to action and final-
ly to implementation. In the meetings,
the tactics previously mentioned devel-
oped and ended up challenging the
common assumptions and behavior in
the construction industry.
Like the first goal, the second goal
of the relevance challenge is not always
an easy task to achieve, as is evidenced
by the contemporary development
of project management. The issue of
which questions to address with what
methods is closed because it all begins
with the actions of the practitioner.
Blomquist and Müller (2006) provided
an example of how quantitative
research methods are not only applied
to a project-as-practice approach but
also achieve a practice-inspired analysis.
They studied the roles and responsibili-
ties of program and portfolio managers.
Through the use of a few interviews and
an extensive survey, they found that the
responsibilities of the program manag-
er were planning, keeping track of time
and budget, managing stakeholder
relations, and being responsible for the
end result. The portfolio manager in
turn was responsible for various kinds
of reports as well as the profit and loss
of the portfolio. The roles of the man-
agers were determined to be those of
integrator, coordinator, escalation point,

12
March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Project-as-Practice
PAPERS
and consultant. Noticeably lacking,
however, is how the program managers
act in their roles.
Another example of which question
to address and how is the study by Raz,
Shenhar, and Dvir (2002) on the use of
risk management practice. Once again,
the main research method used was a
survey among more than 100 projects in
various industries. The study found that
the proposed methods were used in only
a fraction of the projects and that the
application of risk management proce-
dures (actions) was more likely in high-
risk projects. On the other hand, the
study did not show how the tools were
actually used in a specific situation.
The Pattern Challenge
The second challenge of a practice
approach is to link data of everyday
actions to integrated and synthesized
observations that carry value beyond
independent observations of micro-
processes. In other words, it is neces-
sary to see the patterns resulting from
everyday actions and activities, and to
be able to move from the particular
to the general (Smyth & Morris, 2007).
Thus, we would like to label this the
pattern challenge. Explicitly, observa-
tions need to contribute to a greater
meaning than the single observation on
its own. Project activities have to be
placed into context in order to enable
conclusions on a more aggregate level
(Bengtsson et al., 2007; Engwall, 2003).
The first part of the challenge is that
practice is situated in a rich cultural
and social context (Schatzki, 2005). This
means that actions are influenced and
colored by the culture and the social
expectations in projects or the organi-
zation as a whole. Also, the actions
themselves will most probably influ-
ence the context too. “Situatedness”
internalizes behaviors of persons in
their situation and affects the behaviors
in and around the project. For example, in
project meetings, people normally
know from the way they interpret the
situation or from their expectations
what is the appropriate and acceptable
way of acting. To study the patterns, it is
consequently important to do so in the
context of how actions are situated.
The second part of the challenge is
one of commonality, implying that pat-
terns are discovered while acting that
will construct and mediate the meaning
of the episode (Hendry & Seidl, 2003;
Whittington, 2006). This means that
individuals in a meeting try to under-
stand what it is all about and therefore
they act before, during, and after the
meeting in ways that allow them to fig-
ure out what is going on. For example,
they might be found in the corridor dis-
cussing some of the pending issues in
the forthcoming meeting or asking
questions for clarification during the
meeting to make sure of the agenda. In
this way, all of those involved in the meet-
ing share and create a common under-
standing of the situation. In all cases,
commonalities develop for those
involved and working practices spread
around the organization. It may not be
enough to create a solid community of
practice in terms of Wenger (1998) but it
may be a way to create a common base
for action (Lindkvist, 2005).
The third part of the challenge is for
patterns to be identified in the interde-
pendencies between actions of people
(cf. Hendry & Seidl, 2003). Their engage-
ment in action creates other project
meetings via a series of phone calls,
e-mails, and other coordinating activities.
Interests, skills, and knowledge from
single participants are not enough to
resolve issues in the project. But by call-
ing for and utilizing other sources, the
community can respond and solve
problems far more complex than possi-
ble on an individual level. By participat-
ing in these situations, individuals learn
both by their own actions and by wit-
nessing others acting. Both actions
strengthen the community. This is,
again, not immediately obvious when
only investigating microprocesses, but
becomes clear as part of the search for
patterns.
The last pattern challenge is that
actions are driven by mechanisms and
that accountability is built into the way
projects are organized (Whittington,
2006). By investigating projects in
action, the structure of a project will be
expressed in the mechanisms of man-
agement tools, techniques, and proce-
dures, but also in outputs of accounta-
bility for the persons involved. For
example, the incentive structures in
place or the career options opening up
for participants may be elements of the
infrastructure that have a major impact
on the practice.
The point we would like to make is
that relevant research is achieved when
these pattern challenges are met in the
research agenda. Nevertheless, pat-
terns also include a critical element of
some significance. Hodgson (2004)
studied how project management as a
method was sold within an organiza-
tion with discursive tactics as a “de-
bureaucratization” rather than the “re-
bureaucratization” initiative it was, and
how the employees responded to that.
Hodgson’s article carries the notion of
“situatedness.” Situatedness assumes
that patterns of action are internalized
among the practitioners as they feel
that their behavior is accepted in the
group to which they belong. The find-
ings from Hodgson’s study show the
employees responding with, for exam-
ple, barbed humor and occasionally
openly resisting the initiative. The
search for patterns can thus include crit-
ically examining issues that are behind
the official interaction or unfolding
hidden agendas (Cicmil & Hodgson,
2006).
Framing actions on an individual
level rather than an institutional or
project level, Nilsson (2005) studied a
project manager in the software busi-
ness. He found that the job of project
managers, who are forced to spend a lot
of their time in meetings with people
from various levels of the organization,
is highly fragmented. This fragmenta-
tion is an example of “interdependen-
cy”; that is, the actions are dependent
on the practitioner, another person,
and/or their environment.

March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
13
Although Hodgson (2004) and
Nilsson (2005) do not explicitly state
that they have a “project-as-practice”
approach, the common denominator is
that they focus upon actions and how
these actions on the microlevel influ-
ence conditions in and around the
project. Furthermore, the previously
mentioned articles demonstrate the
need for aligning the actions with rele-
vant findings and explanations at other
levels in order to create substance and
derive meaning from the findings.
Toward a Project-as-Practice
Approach
We started this article arguing that
there is a need for practice-based
research on project management and
have discussed some basic challenges
that have to be met in doing so. A prac-
tice approach requires research to look
more closely on what is actually being
done as people do project management—
rather than focusing on models and
implementation from a top-down per-
spective only. A practice approach will
add to our knowledge of projects by
delving into practice, and it will expand
our area of attention as we do so. Chia
and Holt (2006, p. 250) stated that “. . .
much of what takes place within an
organization or between organizations
[. . .] is [. . .] consequently ignored
because it does not occupy any obser-
vational space in the researcher’s world
view.”
Following their line of argument,
practice-based research will open up
new areas for observation. Praxis is
what practitioners do, but it is also the
tools they use, their interaction and
intentions, and their joint episodes of
activities. Taken together, a dynamic set-
ting for action is created on the local
arena where knowledge and action
come together in practice. The main
underlying notions guiding research
into these dynamics, also to some extent
discussed earlier, are the following:
1. Research is organized bottom-up,
rather than top-down (Chia & Holt,
2006; Whittington, 2006). This means
that we look primarily at what is done
and build the understanding of larger
contexts (and communities) based on
these observations. The interplay
between practitioners, the episodes
they create, and the tools they use are
the basic building blocks that need to
be understood and explained. Broader
explanations must be based only on
such observations. We need to be able
to understand and conceptually
explain how work is organized, how
tools are used, and how results are
achieved (cf. Flyvbjerg, 2001). The proj-
ect-as-practice approach acknowl-
edges this by focusing on praxis, prac-
tices, and practitioners and the
episodes where they meet. Following
this approach is different from the use
of a specific data-collection method,
such as observations or interviews.
Practice research does not presuppose
a specific method (although ethnogra-
phy tends to be popular); meanwhile, it
is an epistemology and an ontology of
how projects function and are viewed.
2. Research is based on practice, rather
than on (organizing or management)
principles (Czarniawska, 1993).
Praxis, as often described, is what
people do. We seek their reasons for
doing what they do, instead of seeing
how well they perform according to
corporate or model-based principles
for action (Cicmil et al., 2006). Being
able to understand how real people
solve real problems is, consequently,
of paramount interest, whereas to
evaluate or research how well project
plans are implemented is of less sig-
nificance.
3. Research will look for communities,
rather than organizational units, and
look for what underlying processes or
areas of commitment that support
communities. Communities of prac-
tice (Wenger, 1998) are shared among
a number of people and are based
on a simultaneous application of
action and knowledge for a specific
area of practice. Even if a group lacks
the continuous interaction pattern
and common history defined by the
communities of practice concept, it
can still build common understand-
ing and an action-oriented commu-
nity (Bengtsson et al., 2007; Lindkvist,
2005). Understanding the creation
and upholding of communities will,
eventually, also guide us to a better
understanding of how projects (as
organizationally defined units) over-
lap or diverge from communities (as
defined by action and knowledge) in
a particular organization.
4. Research will account for interorga-
nizational and extraorganizational
issues in terms of how people make
such issues present in their praxis
and how they translate them into
practice, rather than looking at the
diffusion or implementation of tools
(Czarniawska & Sevon, 1996). A prac-
tice perspective will thus combine
the “local” with the “global,” not as a
hierarchical relation where the global,
or extraorganizational, level impacts
the praxis level, but as an integrated
interplay between tools in fashion and
the translation of such tools into prac-
tice (Gherardi, 2006, pp. 230–232).
5. Research will build an understand-
ing of the management problem-
based organization seen as a bundle
of communities and intertwined
practice, rather than as organiza-
tional units, levels, and layers
(Brown & Duguid, 1991; Schatzki,
2005). This follows, to some extent,
from the first and third issues
brought up in this section, the “bot-
tom-up” perspective and the focus
on communities.
Finally, one may ask what the man-
agement applications are. Practice-
based research, as with traditional
research on project management princi-
ples, cannot solve all problems that a
project manager or a general manager
may have. Nevertheless, it will add con-
siderably to understanding the pro-
found project management challenges
in contemporary organizations. A deep-
er and insightful understanding of how
people actually use their tools, how they

14
March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Project-as-Practice
PAPERS
react and respond to various changes in
circumstances, and how they jointly cre-
ate a mutual or divergent understanding
of the task at hand will be valuable
knowledge for every manager. Project
managers we praise as being the heroes
of projects are often those who master
the various and seemingly unrelated bits
and pieces of project life, those who can
manage the unforeseen, those who
can apply principles and tools creatively,
and those who are around to promote and
offer support when needed. In short, the
art and skills of project management is
illustrated through a practice approach
that captures, conceptualizes, and high-
lights issues for further discussion and
reflection, thereby once again making
project research matter. ■
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March 2010 ■Project Management Journal ■DOI: 10.1002/pmj
Project-as-Practice
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Tomas Blomquist, PhD,is an associate professor
at the Umeå School of Business at Umeå University
in Sweden. He is the head of the management sec-
tion at the business school and the director of the
Erasmus Mundus master’s program in strategic
project management, a joint program with Heriot-
Watt University and Politecnico di Milano. His
research has been on how firms organize, manage,
and control their projects in programs and in port-
folios. One of his drivers has always been on what
managers and project managers do in practice. He
had been involved in work to coordinate and active-
ly support project ma nagement research activ ities
and he is one of the founding members of the
research network IRNOP. His previous participation
experience includes product development and
renewal projects in both industry and the public
sector. This also includes activities to access and
improve project management and portfolio man-
agement systems. He holds an MS in engineer ing
and a BA in business administration.
Markus Hällgren has a background in software
development and is an assistant professor at the
Umeå School of Business. His research concerns
(1) the relevance of project management (or
how project management, taught and practiced,
may lose relevance if one is not careful); (2)
innovations in open distributed systems (mean-
ing, observed challenges to innovation collabora-
tions in major project undertakings); (3) climb-
ing expeditions as temporary organizations
(specifically, what can be learned for the tempo-
rary organization from extreme context); (4)
managing the unexpected in projects (specifi-
cally, how deviations in projects are managed in
practice). The common denominator between
the areas is projects and the effect on and
from practice. He has communicated results
from his studies in the Project Management
Journal,International Journal of Project
Management,International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business, and Journal of
Workplace Learning, as well as various book
chapters and presentations at numerous con-
ferences. He serves as a reviewer for several
journals. He can be reached at his website,
www.markushaellgren.com.
Andreas Nilsson has been teaching leadership,
project management, strategy, and organiza-
tional theory for 8 years. He earned his PhD
from the Umeå School of Business in 2008, with
a thesis on the everyday work of project man-
agers where he uses a project-as-practice
approach.
Anders Söderholm is a professor in business
administration and management at Mid Sweden
University and is also currently serving as the
vice chancellor of the university. Research areas
include project management, temporary organi-
zations, and general organizational and man-
agement issues related to the use of projects.
Recent publications include the coauthored
book A Grammar of Organizing (Edward Elgar).