This document provides an overview of a presentation by Jonas Söderlund on the future of project management. Söderlund is a professor who has researched project management. He discusses trends affecting project management, including globalization, specialization, and emerging economies. He identifies three main challenges: the international challenge of more international projects, the organizational challenge of more cross-company collaboration, and the technological challenge of more complex systems requiring cross-disciplinary knowledge integration. Söderlund analyzes how project management must adapt to address these challenges.

1. The Future of Project
Management
Jonas Söderlund

2. • Professor, BI Norwegian Business School
• Professor, KITE, Linköping University
• Educated: Harvard Business School, MIT, and LiU
• Visiting professor/scholar: Cranfield School of
Management, Ecole Polytechnique, MIT
• Core faculty/director: Advanced Project Management,
PMEX Executive MBA, Master of Management
• Research on:
I: P-form organizations and capabilities
II: Human Resource Management in Project-based
Organizations
III: Project management, knowledge integration and time
• Research with: Astra Zeneca, Saab, Volvo Cars, Volvo
Aero, Tetra Pak, ABB, Skanska, Scania, and Ericsson.
Jonas Söderlund

3. Trends and tendencies
3

4. Disintegrating forces
– necessary integration
Science and technology
Speed
Specialization
Location
Globalization
Emerging economies
Market influences
Rethinking
Project
Management?
Market
transformation
Deregulation
Complex solutions
4

5. • Cross-national. How is project management
affected by the increasing number of
international projects? How is project
management affected by the increasing
requirements on cross-national cooperation
and coordination?
• Cross-company. How is project management
affected by the increasing need for cooperation
and coordination across firms?
• Cross-disciplinary. How is project management
affected by the increasing requirements on
knowledge integration, coordination across
disciplinary boundaries and knowledge bases?

6. Three challenges
6

7. Challenges
• The international challenge:
 International mergers, international R&D,
international projects
• The organizational challenge:
 Outsourcing, offshoring, networks, cooperation
across organizational boundaries
• The technological challenge:
 Complex systems and technologies, coordination
across disciplinary boundaries, knowledge
integration requirements
7

8. The international
challenge

9. The international challenge
• International mergers
• International R&D
• International projects
• International mega projects
9

10. Case: Scandinavia
• The export of Scandinavian countries has continued to
increase. Today export accounts for more than 50
percent of GDP.
• The share of foreign owned R&D is more than 40
percent, equally the share of foreign R&D by
Scandinavian firms is steadily increasing.
• The number of people employed by foreign companies
is on the rise. In some sectors the rate of change has
been 300 percent during the last two decades.
• Number and importance of international mega projects
are increasing. More local large-scale projects are
carried out by international companies.
10

11. 11

12. 12

13. 13

14. The organizational
challenge

15. The organizational challenge
• Outsourcing and offshoring
• Open innovation and open projects
• Network-based organizations
15

16. Organizational fragmentation
• R&D carried out by Indian companies for
Western companies have increased by 300
percent in the last 10 years.
• Co-developed projects in the pharmaceutical
industry are more than 25 percent faster than
in-house projects.
• Infrastructure projects in 2010 involved five
times as many sub-contractors as in 1990.
• Project alliances and innovative contracting are
used to reduce cost and lead-times.

17. The technological
challenge

18. The technological challenge
• Technological complexification
• Knowledge specialization
• Clockspeed competition
18

20. Historical requirements
Contemporary requirements
Low technical complexity of
vessels
High technical complexity of
vessels
Low interdependence
(subcontractors only supplying
components)
High interdependence
(subcontractors installing
components on board)
Few partners involved in a project Many partners involved in a
project
Low time pressure, long product
development lead-times
High time pressure, short product
development lead-times
High profit margin
Low profit margin
20

21. 21

22. 22

23. Supporting observations
• The increasing clockspeeds in our economy are forcing firms to
launch products more frequently.
• As a result, a larger fraction of the total work in the firm is
project work. In effect, then, the business manager becomes a
project manager or an overseer of project managers. The
premium paid for project management skills and tools is thus
likely to increase.
• Those faster clockspeeds are also forcing companies to
compress their product development cycles.
• A research study at Stanford University found that industry
sectors where the product clockspeed was higher tend also to
have faster organizational clockspeeds.
(Fine, 1998, Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control
in the Age of Temporary Advantage, MIT Press)
23

24. The nature and design of
project structures

25. Approach
Traditional project management
Adaptive project management
Project goal
Getting the job done on time, on
budget, and within requirements
Getting business results, meeting multiple
criteria
Project plan
A collection of activities that are
executed as planned to meet the triple
constraint
An organization and a process to achieve
the expected goals and business results
Planning
Plan once at project initiation
Plan at outset and re-plan when needed
Managerial
approach
Rigid, focused on initial plan
Flexible, changing, adaptive
Project work
Predictable, certain, linear, simple
Unpredictable, uncertain, nonlinear,
complex
Environment
effect
Minimal, detached after the project is
launched
Affects the project throughout its execution
Project control
Identify deviations from plan, and put
things back on track
Identify changes in the environment, and
adjust the plans accordingly
Distinction
All projects are the same
Projects differ
Management
style
One size fits all
Adaptive approach: one size does not fit
all
25

26. Two key variables
Interdependence
Project Structure
Line Structure
Knowledge Development
26

27. Development process
1. Complete modules,
Phased, Hand-over, PM as
partitioning and planning,
“Separated project organization”
n phases, across
b-systems, Integrated
b-system teams, IT
ctrical/Mechanical, PM as
nd-over control and WBS,
hased project organization”
Separated/
Sequential
Iterative/
Overlapping
Separated/
Partitioned
3. Across phases, Complete
Sub-systems
modules, Overlapping/iterative
Manufacturing-Product design
PM as partitioning, managing
Integrated teams,
Integrated
“Modularized project organization”
Across phases, across systems
anufacturing-product design/
ectrical-mechanical engineering
M as integration,
oupled project organization”
27
(cf. Söderlund, 2005)

28. The nature and dynamics of
project processes

30. The Logic of Value
Creation in Projects
Use of project outcomes
Client organization
Deliveries
Project
Start
Stop

32. A process model
Magnitude
Contextual uncertainty
Operational uncertainty
Time
32

33. Pacing – out-of-phase

34. A real process model
Magnitude
Time
34

35. The nature and range of
project success

36. Project Success
Efficiency
•Meeting
schedule
•Meeting
budget
•Meeting
requirements
and
specifications
•Other
efficiencies
Impact on
customer
•Customer
satisfaction
and loyalty
•Benefit to
customer
•Extent of use
•Brand name
recognition
Impact on
team
•Team
satisfaction
•Skill
development
•Team
member
growth
•Team
member
retention
•No burnout
Business and
direct success
•ROI, ROE
•Sales
•Profits
•Market share
•Cash flow
•Service
quality
Preparation
for future
•New
technology
•New market
•New product
line
•New core
competency
•New
organizational
capability

37. Success
dimensions
Project Success
Preparation
for future
Business and
direct success
Impact on
team
Impact on
customer
Efficiency
Short
Medium
Long
Time frame

38. PSO
38
38
38

39. Objectives
Control
Evaluation
People
System
Organization
39

40. Readings and references

41. •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Berggren, C., L. Bengtsson, A. Bergek, M. Hobday & J. Söderlund (2011) (Eds.): Knowledge
integration and innovation: critical challenges facing technology-based firms, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Berggren, C., J. Söderlund & C. Anderson (2001): Clients, contractors, and consultants: the
consequences of organizational fragmentation in contemporary project environments, Project
Management Journal. Vol. 32, No. 3:39-48.
Bredin, K. & J. Söderlund (2011): Human Resource Management in Project-based Organizations:
The HR Quadriad Framework, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Dahlgren, J. & J. Söderlund (2001): Managing inter-firm projects: on pacing and matching
hierarchies, International Business Review, Vol. 10: 305-322.
Morris, P., J. Pinto & J. Söderlund (2011) (Eds.): Oxford Handbook of Project Management, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Söderlund, J. & N. Andersson (1998): A framework for analyzing project dyads: the case of
discontinuity, uncertainty and trust, in R. A. Lundin & C. Midler (Eds.), Projects as arenas for
renewal and learning processes, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Söderlund, J. & F. Tell (2009): The P-Form organization and the dynamics of project competence:
Project epochs in Asea/ABB, 1950-2000, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 27:
101-112.
Söderlund, J., A. Vaagaasaar & E. S. Andersen (2008): Relating, reflecting and routinizing:
developing project competence in cooperation with others, International Journal of Project
Management. Vol. 26, No. 5: 517-526.
Söderlund, J. (2010): Knowledge entrainment and project management: the case of large-scale
transformation projects, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 28, No. 2: 130-141.
Söderlund, J. (2005): Projektledning och projektkompetens: perspektiv på konkurrenskraft, Malmö:
Liber. (“Project management and project competence: Perspectives on competitiveness”). (351 p)