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The ProjectCraft Site |
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ProjectCraft is a concept that reflects the need for those who work in a project environment to recognise and learn the craft skills demanded by the practice of projects.
While mainstream project management emphasises the mechanistic tools and techniques (the things you can read in a manual) ProjectCraft is about capabilities in action - how expert experienced people go about their actual work.
ProjectCraft concerns everyone whose life is touched by the world of projects: investors, strategists, project managers, trainers - all of you!
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The Book:
published by Gower in May 2007
You will find further information and a sample chapter on the publisher's online catalogue
What people say - commendations
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What is ProjectCraft ? It is about:
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recognising the complexity of projects and their social and political context - mainstream management techniques cannot address the challenging problems faced daily by professionals working on real projects
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shaping projects that are sound and make sense: recognising diverse agenda and practices, stakeholder relations, politics and power - projects with drumbeat
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treating value creation as the prime focus of
all projects, programmes and portfolios
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taking on board a broader conceptualisation of projects: multidisciplinary, having multiple purposes, not always pre-defined, fluid and permeable, and open to renegotiation
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and above all, developing reflective practitioners who can learn, operate and adapt effectively in complex project environments
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What's going on? |
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Project Shaping
A paper by Charles Smith and Mark Winter, 'The Craft of Project Shaping' has been published in the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, volume 3, issue 1, Jan 2010.
The purpose of this paper is to look closely at the actuality of project formation to investigate the performance of project shaping - those acts performed by individuals to make that form of ‘sense’ that constitutes a new project - and to propose a framework (see diagram) for mapping the skills of those individuals who are directly involved in shaping projects.
The elements of this framework are also explained in a Blog Article 'Shaping Sound Projects' on the Wellingtone Project Management web site.
Links: Journal or Blog Article
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Understanding Project Identities - UPI initiative
Purpose. UPI is my private research initiative to generate a better understanding of the possibilities for project identities. I will be investigating the performance of identity construction by individuals dealing with real project situations. My concern is that mainstream project management thinking acknowledges only one form of identity: the mainstream Project Manager applying the tools of the trade in a supposedly ‘objective’ manner to the single end of meeting project requirements.
Identity Framework. My conceptual framework has three components:
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Practitioners under challenge. The existential challenges faced by practitioners in the world of projects: the demands placed on them by virtue of their existence within a project role.
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Identity construction. Project people respond to their existential concerns by acting to make sense of the chaotic life of projects. That construction of project sense also formulates the identity of the self as the person handling the concerns.
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Project narratives. Evidence of challenges, and the construction of meaning and identity can be read from the project stories of practitioners.
Research Plan:
Analysis of small sample and and test of framework - complete
Methodology paper - background, framework, exemplified by small sample results
Request for stories - context (project management story in situ), first-person reports from individuals dealing with challenges, actions and explanations. Confidentiality options.
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Bleaklow Moor - a typical project terrain?
Can you find your way? |
More information:
Visit the craft page for ideas and discussion
... for example project fraud
Support services:
how proficient
is your organisation at ProjectCraft?
Further resources: web sites, papers, journals, books
ProjectCraft origins:
the reflective practitioner, sensemaking in organisations, the rethinking project management network
About the people: Charles Smith, associates, and those he has worked with to develop the concepts presented on these pages
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Contact me at: charles@projectcraft.org.uk
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