Supply Chain Risk Management

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Project Management Journal, Vol. 47, No. 6, 111–125

© 2016 by the Project Management Institute

Published online at www.pmi.org/PMJ

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Leadership for Projects in Dynamic Environments Simon Collyer, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

INTRODUCTION

T he pace of change is accelerating, driven by globalization, technology, and deregulation (Graetz, Rimmer, Lawrence, & Smith, 2006). Our unfolding reality is increasingly uncertain, ever changing, and unpredictable. As the world moves to an ever faster clock cycle,

so must our management techniques change to keep pace (Boyd, 1996; Hodgson & White, 2003). Rapid change is established as an increasing threat to projects across all industries and remains a key unresolved project management issue (CSIRO, 2007; Dodgson, 2004; Gray & Larson, 2003; Jones, 2004a; Perrino & Tipping, 1991; Petit & Hobbs, 2012; Rothwell & Zegveld, 1985; Sugden, 2001). Traditional approaches, orientated around tight process control, require augmentation to meet this threat (Ashton, Johnson, & Cook, 1990; Collyer, Warren, Hemsley, & Stevens, 2013; Koskela & Howell, 2002; Sachs & Meditz, 1979, p. 1081; Sugden, 2001; Williams, 2004). The fundamental problem in dynamic environments is that events can arise at a higher rate than is practical to re-plan (Ashton et al., 1990; Sachs & Meditz, 1979; Sugden, 2001; Williams, 2004). New unknowns arise rapidly during the execution of the project. In Brown and Eisenhardt’s (1997) study of organizations challenged by continuous change, the authors noted how strategies considered reasonable and effective in incrementally changing environments actually caused failures in fast moving environments. In the words of Lenfle and Loch:

Project management has an opportunity to regain the central place it should never have lost in the management of strategic initiatives, innovation, and change, but this will require adding more flexible methods to the available toolkit (Lenfle & Loch, 2010, p. 33).

The study presented here sought to identify practitioner approaches for managing culture, communication, and leadership in environments particu- larly challenged by rapid change and to generate propositions for later testing. The major results from the study were practical and theoretical insights into how practitioners optimize culture, communication, and leadership to better deal with the increasing challenge of dynamism.

Literature Review In this project management context, dynamism is taken to be a dimension of a project that represents the extent to which the project is influenced by rapid changes in the environment in which it is conducted. Changes can occur within the project, within the organization, and outside the organization, and may include technology, goals, regulations, and many other influences in a rapidly changing business environment. A more complete definition of dynamism is provided by Collyer and Warren (2009). Dynamism is clearly

Rapid change is an accelerating problem for

projects in most industries. This article pres-

ents findings from a grounded theory study

identifying project management approaches

for mitigating rapid change in the course of

a project. These results relate to culture, com-

munication, and leadership and are com-

plimentary to results previously presented

on planning and control for dynamic envi-

ronments. The study employed 37 in-depth

interviews and three focus groups held with

practitioners across ten industries (defense,

community development, construction, tech-

nology, pharmaceutical, film production, sci-

entific startups, venture capital, space, and

research). Themes emerged relating to: a

vision led, egalitarian, goal-orientated cul-

ture supporting experimentation; timely and

efficient communication; and flexible leader-

ship with rapid decision making. The findings

address a gap in the project management

literature and may be useful to practitioners.

KEYWORDS: uncertainty; ambiguity; change; dynamism

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ABSTRACT ■

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a linear dimension, not binary, and one of many project dimensions that may be taken into account when select- ing a project management approach. The term environment is taken to mean the project environment, including such things as the industry, resources, processes, techniques, and so forth. The term approach is taken to mean the mix of project management tech- niques applied. The term culture is taken to mean the set of shared values and norms that control organizational members’ interactions with each other and people outside the organization (George & Jones, 2002).

The key challenge of dynamism is the rapid generation of new unknowns that require exploration and resolu- tion. A culture that is risk-averse can punish experimentation, which in turn inhibits the discovery of solutions to new unknowns (Argyris, 1999; Senge, Kleiner, Ross, Roth, & Smith, 1999). Pre- vious research suggests that dynamic environments may therefore benefit from a level of controlled experimen- tation and the elimination of “dead ends,” a tolerance for failure, and the sharing of rewards (De Meyer, Loch, & Pich, 2002; Harvard Business School Press Books, 2001; Mayer, 2007b). A culture that supports the learning approach to project management may help the project team explore uncer- tain environments (Pich, Loch, & De Meyer, 2002). Walker and Shen (2002, p. 35), for example, found new prod- uct development projects benefit from a culture that “supports flexibility by valuing and encouraging opinion diver- sity,” and encourages risk, “provided that lessons are learned from mistakes and near misses as well as from suc- cess.” Organizations are increasingly adopting iterative approaches employ- ing collaborative leadership inside a more flexible organic culture (Salameh, 2014; Serrador & Pinto, 2015). Indica- tions from a number of studies suggest dynamic environments may benefit from an egalitarian culture with a flat management hierarchy (Donaldson &

Hilmer, 1998; Hauck, Walker, Hampson, & Peters, 2004; Jones, 2004b; Marschan, Welch, & Welch, 1996b; Mayer, 2007a; Mills, 2007; Porter & Siegel, 1965). Inno- vation management, for instance, has benefited from organic and informal approaches, supplementing formal management (Burns & Stalker, 1961; George & Jones, 2002, pp. 552, 563; Maidique & Hayes, 1985, p. 48; Shen- har, 2001). In fact, Serrador and Pinto (2015) reported that for high technol- ogy, healthcare, and professional ser- vices industries, the greater the agile/ iterative approach reported, the higher the reported project success. Green- berg and Baron (2003) found that many technology organizations have a com- munal culture with high sociability and solidarity and that they share and com- municate well.

Regarding communication in a dynamic environment, “the value of information is directly related to timeli- ness” (Laufer, 1997, p. 476). Godé and Lebraty (2015) highlighted the impor- tance of rapid feedback in environ- ments characterized by high levels of change and uncertainty. Some projects will simply fail with slow decision- making processes. Decision lag can result in a product that is out of date with a changed environment. Hauck et al. (2004) argued, “traditional, hier- archical organizational structures do not promote the type of communica- tion among equals necessary to suc- ceed in a collaborative environment” (p. 147). Some studies have confirmed the importance of face-to-face com- munication in uncertain environments, as a fast and effective way to clarify ambiguous issues and reach agreement (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Jones, Saunders, & McLeod, 1994). Brown and Eisenhardt’s (1997) study of multi-product innova- tion in six organizations challenged by continuous change suggested value in: extensive communication; design free- dom; a structure that allows change without chaos; and low cost probes and experimentation (as more effective than planning or reacting).

Leaders in dynamic environments need to manage ambiguity and uncer- tainty (Hodgson & White, 2003). Studies indicate leaders might benefit from being flexible and able to trade off, after identi- fying problems that are not readily appar- ent (Shenhar, 2001; Shenhar & Wideman, 2000). Snowden and Boone (2007) gave an excellent account of leadership tech- niques for complicated, complex, and chaotic environments, based on their Cynefin model. For complicated environ- ments, Snowden (2005) recommended a “sense-analyze-respond” decision model, based on an oligarchic–consensual man- agement approach. For complex environ- ments, probing, experiments, and higher levels of communication were found to be helpful (Snowden & Boone, 2007). Increasing rates of change are transform- ing the role of senior management from purely operational to a combination of project and change management, with change management growing in impor- tance as organizations are being trans- formed by the rapid pace of technology (Hornstein, 2015).

Turner (1999) recognized how prob- lems with traditional project management gave rise to more emergent manage- ment methodologies, often identified by words such as “lean” or “agile,” and these approaches would seem to be the most obvious contenders for use in a dynamic environment. While there is evi- dence that agile techniques are useful in industries other than software develop- ment (Conforto, Salum, Amaral, da Silva, & de Almeida, 2014; Serrador & Pinto, 2015), agile is defined by the needs of the software industry (Fowler & Highsmith, 2001) as opposed to the challenges of a specific management dimension, mak- ing it more difficult to know when to apply agile to other situations. There isn’t a one-to-one relationship between agile and dynamism. The software develop- ment industry is challenged by more than the dimension of rapid change, and a study of dynamism uncovers more tech- niques than can be offered by the software industry alone. Although agile is useful for informing a study on dynamism, it is not

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sufficient. This study begins with a single clear dimension that causes a problem and then looks for empirical evidence of different solutions to this problem applied in practice.

While some studies reveal results related to the problem of rapid change, relatively few address it directly. The strategies for dealing with planning and control in dynamic environments have been explored by Collyer et al. (2013). This study, therefore, sought to fill a gap in the project management literature, specifically regarding the challenge of dynamism for culture, communica- tion, and leadership. Project managers across a range of industries encoun- tering dynamism were examined to identify: (1) how they adjust culture, communication, and leadership style; (2) whether certain cultures, commu- nication styles, or leadership styles are perceived to be advantageous when dealing with dynamic projects; and (3) new practical coping strategies to achieve management optimization in those environments.

Method Research Design

Grounded theory was the methodology selected as most suitable for address- ing the aims of this research. Grounded theory using in-depth interviews and focus groups was selected for three pri- mary reasons: (1) dynamism’s relation- ship with culture communication and leadership in project management is an area about which little is known; (2) the researchers were seeking an in- depth understanding of the perspectives of project managers in actual environ- ments, and qualitative research methods are most suited to understanding the complexity of human behavior and per- ceptions in naturalistic environments (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994); and (3) it was important that the findings contributed to an emerging theory that was built from within the data rather than reflect previously held positions or theories that historically have not considered the

impact of change. The main premise of the grounded theory methodology is that new theories should be developed from research grounded in data, rather than deduced from existing theories and then tested (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). As Charmaz (2006) describes, grounded theory is a method focused on:

creating conceptual frameworks or theo- ries through building inductive analysis from the data. Hence, the analytic cat- egories are directly ‘grounded’ in the data. This method favors analysis over descrip- tion, fresh categories over preconceived ideas and extant theories, and system- atically focused sequential data collection over large initial samples (Charmaz, 2006, p. 187)

Grounded theory can uncover broader and sometimes new realities, starting with a narrow set of cases, before moving to testing what oth- erwise may be a narrow theoretical reality, across a broad set of cases. As pointed out by Charmaz (2006), all researchers have a history, and a lit- erature review is necessary to locate the study within the relevant literatures, justify the study, and, most impor- tantly, to build on emerging theory. As argued by Glaser and Holton, the literature review can be used as another source of data to be integrated into the constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Holton, 2004). In this study, a lit- erature review was included and the stance of “theoretical agnosticism” adopted as a means to reduce contami- nation (Henwood & Pidgeon, 2003). Focus groups were employed to extend on the results of the interviews and use them to generate new ideas and more accurate insights (Flick, 2006; Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1996) and to provide a level of triangulation. The study was designed based on traditional focus group research methods as defined by Patton (2005). Patton defined a focus group interview as being one with a small group (of six to eight people) on a specific topic lasting for one-half to two hours (2005).

Participants

Interview participant sampling was aimed at theory construction, not popula- tion representativeness (Charmaz, 2006). Starting with a combination of stratified sampling (across industries) and con- venience sampling, the study employed snowballing theoretical sampling to explore particular ideas in more depth. The stratified spread of participants across diverse industries sought to collect a wide range of approaches to managing dynamic environments, along with com- monalities. In total, 31 project managers were recruited from 10 different indus- tries, resulting in 37 interviews and three focus groups. Three focus groups with 16 project managers followed the interviews in order to verify and expand upon the findings from the interviews. Purposeful sampling was employed to target senior practitioners or process designers who were challenged by dynamism and had reasonable experience in long-lasting companies. Only participants who per- ceived they were significantly challenged by the dimension of dynamism were included in the study. Each participant’s label, description, and role are presented in Table 1.

For the focus groups, purposeful sam- pling was employed to identify partici- pants who were experienced practitioners or process designers with at least 10 years of experience from organizations in oper- ation for at least 10 years. For selection, they needed to be able to provide exam- ples of how they were being challenged by a strong dimension of dynamism in projects. Three focus groups were con- ducted using a total of 16 practitioners, as described in Tables 2 and 3. Three focus groups were run to allow triangulation of results and to mitigate the effects of face- to-face versus online. The three groups were undertaken in this way:

• One international face-to-face focus group in Washington, D.C., United States.

• One local face-to-face focus group in Brisbane, Australia

• One international online focus group using a web conferencing application.

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Table 3 lists the roles and industries of the focus group participants. Quotes from focus group participants will be identified by their industry or by the label “FG.”

Data Collection Procedure

In keeping with grounded theory meth- odology, information was gathered from a variety of sources to triangulate findings and to inform the developing theory on management for dynamic environments

Label Industry Example Project and Role Const1-2 Construction 1. Planning engineer for joint venture road tunnel construction.

2. Project office manager for green power generation.

Space1 Aerospace 1. Project management leader for government space agency.

Aid1-3 International Community Development

1. Post conflict reconstruction project manager for international aid agency.

2. Community development project manager for aid agency in Middle East

3. International post disaster recovery aid project manager.

Pharm1-2 Pharmaceutical 1-2. Managing programs for drug development.

DefSvc1-3 Defense 1. Military commander of regional assistance project (Solomon Islands).

2. Military commander of post conflict regional assistance project (Timor).

3. Military procurement program management—including fighter jets, and warships.

Film1-3 Film Production 1. Feature film direction.

2. Documentary film production.

3. Feature film production and direction

Startup1-2 Startup in Science/Technology 1. New power storage technology development.

2. New power generation technology development.

VentCap1 Venture Capital 1. Managing a program or venture capital projects.

Research1-2 Research 1. Managing research projects.

ITSvc1-12 Information Technology 1-12. Information technology projects including software, data centers, and infrastructure.

Participants n531; Interviews n537; Face to Face n522; Via Email n514; Via Telephone n51; Second Interviews n56

Table 1: Interview participant profiles.

Code Focus Group Type Technique #Participants Date and Location FG1 International Face-to-face 4 June 2010

Washington, D.C., United States

FG2 National Face-to-face 7 June 2011 Brisbane, Australia

FG3 International Online 5 July 2011 Online convened from Brisbane, Australia

TOTAL 16

Table 2: Focus group type, technique, number of participants, and location.

(Singleton & Straights, 2005). In-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups were employed to explore, clar- ify, and confirm participants’ views on challenges and strategies to form new ideas (Creswell, 2003; Flick, 2006). As Boyce and Neale explained (2006) in- depth interviews: (1) provide more detailed information than, for example, a survey; (2) provide a more relaxed, frank, and open atmosphere; (3) are

time intensive; (4) require awareness of bias when the participant is selling an agenda; and (5) are not generalizable due to small sample sizes. Participants were asked to illustrate their responses with examples and discuss their experi- ences and identify new approaches they use or believe could be useful when dealing with dynamism in their project environments. Field notes were used to inform the findings and the developing theory on project dynamism (Singleton & Straights, 2005).

Three focus groups were conducted to triangulate results. The beneficial effects of the focus groups included group interaction; widened range of responses; idea snowballing; new interpretations; deeper insights; cross verification of plausibility; and improving the qual- ity theory (Catterall & Maclaran, 1997; Morgan, 1998). The results of the previ- ously held in-depth interviews were also used to guide discussion and gain more accurate insights and as examples to

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documents. Participants were sent writ- ten summaries of their interviews with an invitation to amend or add to the information. The unit of analysis was the project management approach used by organizations conducting project management in dynamic environments. Transcripts were read and reread, and the researchers discussed the data to identify themes and explore alternative interpretations before a consensus was achieved (Alvesson & Karreman, 2007; Flick, 2006). The author coded according to the themes, which were then orga- nized into broader categories of meaning as they emerged (Creswell, 2003). An example is provided in Figure 1, with initial descriptive codes identified. Par- ticipants were sent written summaries with an invitation to make amendments or additions. This procedure enabled the researchers to verify that their identifica- tion of themes was an accurate repre- sentation of the participants’ intended meaning (Creswell, 2003).

Results

After open coding, behaviors were grouped into a reduced set of themes categorized under culture, communication, and lead- ership as shown in Tables 4, 5, and 6.

The purpose of the next section is to provide illustrations of themes using raw data extracts from the tran- scripts. Extracts are presented under the headings: Cultural Styles for Dynamic Environments, Communication Styles for Dynamic Environments, Leader- ship and Decision Making for Dynamic Environments.

Label Industry Example Project and Role Focus Group

PartA-FG1 Aerospace Product development for a space launch company

FG1

PartB-FG1 R&D R&D project to develop new ways of doing air-conditioning

FG1

PartC-FG1 Generic Author of project management guide for international aid projects

FG1

PartD-FG1 Healthcare Software development of new healthcare system

FG1

PartG-FG2 IT - Generic Software development in IT FG2

PartH-FG2 IT - Software Software development in IT FG2

PartI-FG2 IT - Networks Adoption of new type of email service FG2

PartJ-FG2 IT - Generic Software development in IT FG2

PartK-FG2 Software Development iPhone and Android app development FG2

PartL-FG2 IT Networks Rapid large-scale wireless network rollout FG2

PartM-FG2 ICT Rapid HR system deployment FG2

PartO-FG3 Engineering New traffic control system deployment FG3

PartP-FG3 Humanitarian Aid Post-conflict reconciliation project FG3

PartQ-FG3 Post Conflict Reconstruction

Post-conflict reconstruction project FG3

PartR-FG3 Humanitarian Aid Disaster aid project FG3

PartS-FG3 Aerospace New space vehicle development FG3

Table 3: Focus group participant descriptions.

prompt new ideas. All focus groups were digitally audio-recorded; throughout the discussions, the researcher checked and clarified meanings with the participants in order to achieve a shared understand- ing of the issues (Riessman, 1993).

Data Analysis

Using the constant comparative method, the data were analyzed as they were being

collected, allowing the researcher to draw interpretations and refine concepts from one participant to the next (Alvesson & Karreman, 2007; Creswell, 2003; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998; Yin, 2003). All digitally recorded face-to-face interviews and focus groups were transcribed verbatim, with identifying information deleted or changed, and all written email responses were de-identified and inserted into text

Figure 1: Example of focus group thematic analysis.

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relatively flat project team structure, link- ing the hands-on staff to decision makers, reinforced with comments like “tall hier- archies are a big problem . . . hoarding decisions at the top” (PartC-FG). FG1 is illustrated as follows:

A tall hierarchy that over controls things prevents you from adapting to change in time. If you work in an environment that is totally hierarchical and it doesn’t allow for that [adapting to change] then you can’t work in a dynamic environment, and I have worked in organizations like that and I have left (PartC-FG1).

FG2 settled on the concept that an “enabling factor [for dynamic environ- ments] doesn’t have a huge amount of middle management” (PartH-FG2). They suggested lots of multi-skilled teams at the hands-on level. A collabor- ative culture was reinforced with com- ments like: “we see people going above and beyond because they are in that collaborative situation” (PartH-FG2).

The benefits of flexibility in a dynamic environment emerged as a common theme, as explained by one participant:

We give flexibility for people to explore and determine where and when they explore, as long as there is justification it is contributing to the overall objective. We put a lot of effort into a culture of flexibility and taking responsibility (Startup1).

To give another example, Pharm2 reported: “we promote initiative on the ground; allow flexibility to take advan- tage of fleeting moments; allow flex- ibility with key higher level objectives in mind. [We] pushed the line constantly that staff had to embrace change.”

Another interesting illustration was of the importance of a culture with the correct levels of experimentation:

Many of the people in drug development companies are scientists and so they real- ize that an unsuccessful experiment can teach as many lessons as a successful one. However . . . shareholders do not always take a similar view. So there is a certain tension within the drug develop- ment industry between the reality of what

Theme Sub Themes Egalitarian, goal-orientated culture that supports experimentation

Having the smallest possible team with a flat hierarchy;

Customized for requirements;

Organic, flexible, adaptive, and collaborative;

Experimentation valued for its ability to eliminate dead ends;

Focused on goals, not process;

Culture supported by stakeholders.

Table 4: Themes for effective culture in dynamic environments.

Theme Sub Themes More timely and efficient communication

Increased emphasis on fast, timely, and succinct communication over slow, thorough communication;

Adjust communication rates according to needs;

Use rapid communication during periods of rapid change;

Timeliness over thoroughness;

Formalize direct communication channels that bypass organizational levels, if required;

Co-locate staff where they collaborate significantly to aid more rapid communication.

Table 5: Themes for effective communication in dynamic environments.

Theme Sub Themes Flexible leadership with rapid decision making

Leader collaborates with smallest possible team;

Team is provided with a good understanding of the intent;

Highly adaptable;

Leader enables rapid decision making by: (1) delegating decisions and (2) making quick reasonable decisions;

Decision delegation is achieved by communicating the vision (intent);

Decision making is made with a focus on speed and reasonableness considering the consequences of a delay;

Quick, reasonable decisions are facilitated by: (1) high levels of situational awareness (rapid constant data collection) and (2) pre-planned responses;

Cancelled experiments are rewarded as useful input;

Need for three key skills: (1) organizing, (2) understanding the problem, and (3) understanding the solution.

Table 6: Themes for effective leadership in dynamic environments.

Cultural Styles for Dynamic Environments The cultural style themes emanating from the interviews were reinforced and refined in the focus groups. The benefit of a flat hierarchy was a theme illustrated by Startup1: “Our organization is flat . . . we

only have 10 staff” and Startup2: “Deci- sions do not have to go up through com- mittees . . . not a tall structure.” FG2 concluded that “a tall hierarchy would not adapt quickly enough to achieve the objectives. The opportunity gets missed.” (PartG-FG2) The consensus was to use a

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is ultimately an exploratory, scientific pro- cess, and the business need for certainty around commercial returns (Pharm2)

Communication Styles for Dynamic Environments While none of the interview participants reported abandoning formal communi- cation approaches, participants reported facilitating greater numbers of informal interactions while maintaining a formal communication core of meetings and reports. Themes emerging around com- munication styles centered on the impor- tance of timeliness. Pharm2 reported how they “did not wait for meetings.” Ventcap1 gave a good illustration of the theme with:

Most of our communication internally within the fund management team is fast and informal and included email, drop- ins in offices and round the ‘water cooler’ discussions, face-to-face meetings called at short notice. Also, most communica- tion with our portfolio companies and investees is fast and informal, exchanged between the various team members to adjust to the myriad of rapid changes.

Regular informal communications were thought to increase the collective consciousness of issues. Participants also reported adjusting communica- tion styles to meet needs. One illus- tration was how a defense participant described their mix of formal and infor- mal communication:

Usually, communication is only at criti- cal milestones, but when there is con- tact with the enemy, the radio operator immediately gets on the radio and starts describing every detail of battle. This gets the information out quickly to those who might need to add assistance (DefSvc1).

So, at the points of most rapid change or risk they significantly increase the rate and quantity of communication in order to facilitate timely responses. For instance, in this case the increased communication is used by the com- manders at the rear to assess the situ- ation and send support in time for it to be useful, otherwise communication is at critical milestones.

The communication themes emerg- ing from the interviews were also sup- ported in the focus groups. An illustration of rapid communication during Space Shuttle launches was provided as follows:

You’re automatically going to trip over each other unless there’s a lot of commu- nication between the teams. So what we do is we put a senior kind of swat member and all they do is run around and talk to you. I am two phone calls from an expert on anything (PartA-FG1).

FG2 reached a similar consensus with the following example: “we just stand up in our cubicles or go to the coffee shop . . . whatever works. We work hard to network and matrix across all possible dimensions to build awareness, and we are very pro- active about breaking down boundaries” and “I would say 60/40 or 70/30 [informal to formal]” (PartG-FG2).

A new communication theme emerg- ing from the focus groups was the concept of co-locating staff to aid more rapid com- munication (FG2) with comments like: “Co-location is a factor here and may send it up to 80/20 [informal to formal]” (PartH-FG2) and “team space works best if collocated in generic space to allow much faster adaptation and communica- tion. Fixed walls suck. Break out rooms are essential” (PartK-FG2).

Leadership and Decision Making for Dynamic Environments The delegated-control approach with rapid decision making and a collaborative flexible style were common themes emerg- ing from both the interviews and the focus groups. The delegated control approach pushed decisions to lower level experts so they could respond more quickly: “You need key decision makers to devolve responsibility” (PartJ-FG2). ITSVC3, who specialized in building large international data centers, illustrated as follows:

In large teams or areas where diverse knowledge is required . . . there is no way the project manager can be a technical specialist in all areas . . . mechanical and

electrical, architecture, etc. The real skill is forming all of the different groups into a cohesive team. (ITSVC3)

Pharm2 reported pushing “deci- sion making to the lowest practical level [so that] people are empowered to make vital decisions, to take advan- tage of fleeting opportunities.” DefSvc1 explained that “empowering people, allows rapid reaction.”

Various participants described how leaders needed to be “flexible and adap- tive” (PartH-FG2): “you need to think on your feet” (PartI-FG2) and “you have to adapt to situations” (PartC-FG1), “you need to adjust your leadership style for the team to some extent . . . set more parameters at the start and then let them loose” (PartL-FG2), and “I try to adapt my leadership style to the team, whatever works. Adaptability is critical—horses for courses. I intuitively adapt to the team.” (PartM-FG2)

Across all of the focus groups there was agreement that there was a need to balance decision quality against deci- sion speed. This represented an addi- tional finding beyond the in-depth interviews. The new decision-making theme was clarified by FG1 as requiring timely decisions, based on rapidly col- lected and sometimes incomplete data. PartB-FG1 illustrated this point with the following narrative:

Know when you have ‘good enough.’ I worked with a guy who was a very good scientist, and he wanted to know down to about the fifth decimal place what the capacity of a particular unit needed to be. What’s going to be the optimum number? In the end we missed the deadline and in hindsight we realized the bottom line was there were only three choices . . . it was a blower—we can get small, medium, large. You know small is too small, large is too big, medium works . . . and that’s all we needed to know. We didn’t need to know that its 1827 . . . all we needed to know is it’s more than 1000 and less than 5000. (PartB-FG1)

FG1 described the concept as follows:

You have to be comfortable making a deci- sion when you have to, not when you have

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all the information you would like to have to make it. You have to be able to make decisions with less information than you are comfortable with, or than you would prefer to have. (PartB-FG1)

FG3 provided another illustration:

Explain the time factor. Explain how you could analyze for a year and come up with a 4% or maybe 20% better decision but actually that would be a 100% worse outcome because we will miss the oppor- tunity. That will be another year without the project outcome. (PartS-FG3)

FG1 participants discussed this point and concluded that in “rapidly changing projects, those (project managers) that have hard times making decisions don’t survive very well. We push out respon- sibility to the lowest level” (PartC-FG1) followed by the ant-colony analogy:

I just let, as I called it, the ‘ant colony’ take care of it. Their ant colony got destroyed and they did a marvelous job of putting it back together. So I took a hands-off approach and I didn’t need to put my hands into the ant colony (PartC-FG1).

Here is another example of why dele- gated control was considered important:

I’m working on a project right now with waste energy conversion using [removed]. We have a problem where we have to take 20KW of power away from a very small space and I threw out to the team: ‘Here’s the goal. We have a constrained space. We have unconstrained power to work with and we have a huge energy load that has to be dissipated. How should we make that happen?’ and the goal motivation was ‘we’ve got a contract to do this.’ If we can’t make this part happen, the entire multimil- lion dollar project goes away and that’s what we started with and if I’d had said: ‘We need to build a heat exchanger,’ we would never come up with a process that said we can use the waste load to dissipate 80% of that heat that we are trying to remove, and make the entire system more efficient. (PartB-FG1)

The point in the above example is that, by completely delegating the deci- sion, by setting the objective and allowing

the experts to work out options, the out- come was optimized.

Discussion In reviewing the results in the context of prior literature and industry examples, it is reassuring to note that some of the themes emanating from this study are evi- dent. For example, Mills (2007) reported how Google has a chief culture officer who aims to build a culture with “a flat organization, a lack of hierarchy, a collab- orative environment.” Another example is Intel’s culture, described as follows:

There are no executive perks at Intel; no executive dining rooms; no executive washrooms; no special places to park; we all work in a company where Andy Grove’s cubicle—which I think is about 8 3 9—is just like everybody else’s. It is the essence of that open environment that allows peo- ple to communicate directly and solve problems in a collaborative fashion (Grove & Ellis, 2001)

One advantage of a flat structure in a dynamic environment is the abil- ity of team members with situational awareness and specialist knowledge to make more timely and relevant deci- sions. Processing a decision through multiple levels of a tall hierarchy can be a slow process, which can reduce the impact or relevance once made. In this study, team size was also a theme. Proj- ect managers sought agility by restrict- ing the team to the smallest possible size able to achieve the goal, and by selecting highly motivated multi-skilled staff members. This theme has many industry examples. Burt Rutan designed and built Space Ship One with an aver- age team size of 20 members, com- pared with the tens of thousands of staff members at NASA (Rutan, 2006). His advice was to keep the team small and to “choose them for the fire in their eyes, not their grades” (Rutan, 2006). Warman (2010) described how Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg managed initiatives with the smallest possible teams, providing an example of how only one single person developed and

supported the Facebook iPhone appli- cation, used by hundreds of millions of people. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s Vice President of Engineering, spoke about how “at large organizations, there’s a lot of people that say no, and a lot of policies, and the window you can do something in is tiny” (Warman, 2010). Even the behemoth corporation, IBM, resorted to a small team of just 12 people to design the personal com- puter (PC) in its efforts to catch up with the newly evolving microcomputer market (Lambert, 2009). The PC team was separated from the main organiza- tion geographically and culturally to free them from the usual bureaucratic processes that had prevented them from catching up in the past (Lambert, 2009). They developed the PC in approxi- mately one year, and the rest is history. Tall organizations may therefore gain benefit from creating a separate team with a sub culture to move more quickly in dynamic environments.

For predictable environments, pro- cess control (detailed procedures and plans) is considered to be the best con- trol mechanism, but in dynamic envi- ronments, where tasks are more often unique or uncertain, culture can have a much higher impact on performance (Ouchi, 1979). Culture can be nurtured through staff selection, training, cer- emonies, reward systems, mentoring, and leadership visions. Even the way an organization deals with or talks about its successes and failures can have a strong impact on culture. It was interesting to note how comfortable and in control participant organiza- tions managed to get with their cultural focus on flexibility, pragmatism, expe- dience, egalitarianism, clear goals, and experimentation.

The leadership themes found in this study seem to match Shenhar and Wideman’s (2000) description of the “explorer” style of leadership, suited to the concept and development phases of what they call “high technology” or “super high” technology projects. Such projects might involve new or emerging

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technologies with unknowns at com- mencement. The qualities of a man- ager with an “explorer” style include: being vision orientated, solution seek- ing, inspiring, determined, focused on the long range, and leads by example (Shenhar & Wideman, 2000). According to Deaux, Dane, and Wrightman (1993, p. 347) “highly authoritarian people are often uncomfortable in ambigu- ous situations.” The results of this study correlate with the findings of Müller and Turner (2010) that project manag- ers of high complexity projects have higher leadership competencies in vision, influence, and motivation. More recently, Feger and Thomas (2012) the- orized that leaders with a vision can make better use of a transformational style of leadership, which Dean and Bowen (1994) proposed to be a more successful style of leadership in quality. Transformational leadership motivates employees through desire to achieve a worthy vision more than through per- sonal reward for blindly following a plan (Bass, 1990; Bass, 1999).

The “film director” style was one analogy the participants offered as a leadership approach for dynamic envi- ronments, where the leader has a clear vision, collaboration skills, and a willing- ness to share that vision and delegate some of the leadership to specialists. This style contrasts with the one proposed for static projects using established technol- ogies, which according to Shenhar and Wideman (2000), benefits from leaders who are driver-administrators, with an emphasis on high levels of structure and stability.

Leadership and decision-making themes emerging from the interviews and focus groups centered around dele- gation, feedback loops, and pre-planned responses. A challenge already identi- fied for decision making for leaders in dynamic environments is decision lag, in which decisions are not made in time to keep pace. This study suggests three approaches that may mitigate decision lag: decision delegation, rapid feedback loops, and pre-planned responses.

Decision Delegation

A recognized challenge in dynamic environments is the difficulty bal- ancing decision quality against deci- sion speed (Collyer & Warren, 2009). Because dynamic environments change so rapidly, the participants regarded it to be challenging for higher level managers to maintain awareness of change and complexity at lower levels, where specialized professionals oper- ate. Higher management decisions based on tight control were perceived to be too slow and ill-informed to be of practical use in these environments. Devolved responsibility, whereby deci- sion making is delegated to the lowest level possible, was advocated by five interview participants, and confirmed in the focus groups. Participants viewed this approach as empowering those who have the greatest levels of expertise to use their superior specialized knowl- edge and awareness to make decisions best suited to the goals provided by higher levels of management. For exam- ple, Start-up1 reported how “we try to give people responsibility and push it down as far as possible” and Pharm2 said “we push decision making to the lowest practical level. We empower people to make vital decisions, to take advantage of fleeting opportunities.”

DefSvc1 described how they “pushed the decision making to the lowest level. Empowering people, allows rapid reac- tion . . . requires trust, which comes from training and exercises,” and DefDevc2 reported: “we promote initiative on the ground. Allow flexibility to take advan- tage of fleeting moments. Allow flex- ibility with the key higher level objective in mind.” DefSvc1 summarized this approach with a description of how a lower level commander might be given a mission to secure a hill but also pro- vided the “intent,” which might be to protect the left flank of a battalion advance. The commander is then free to adjust the mission according to circum- stances to best achieve the intent. For instance, they may discover the enemy in the forest below the hill. Occasionally

commanders may make the wrong decision and fail, but this approach is regarded as being better at adapting to a changing environment and more often result in mission success. The military term for this is directive control, where orders are reasonably detailed, but have built-in flexibility.

These views align with advice from Graetz et al. (2006) who argued that more fluid business environments benefited from more distributed leadership. They also argued that the days when manage- ment could provide all the answers are gone and that managers need to be able to rely on capable and trusted personnel distributed across the entire organiza- tion (Graetz et al., 2006). Following the same theme and supporting the views of the participants is Turner and Craw- ford’s study of 243 cases of corporate change, which found that empowerment had a strong relationship with change effectiveness (Turner & Crawford, 1998), but only when the empowered had suf- ficient skill and experience. In a static environment it is more feasible for high level management to be aware of lower level issues, so delegated decision mak- ing may not provide the same advan- tage. The concept of shared leadership in R&D management is now increas- ingly explored in studies (Clarke, 2012; Crevani, Lindgren, & Packendorff, 2007; Lindgren & Packendorff, 2011; Loufrani- Fedida & Missonier, 2015).

Decisions traditionally consume much time to gather information, make the decision, disseminate, and then implement. Through faster decision- making cycles an organization can take action more quickly than the environ- ment changes. Directive control is a fast and flexible method of command to facilitate rapid decision making. Instructions are given in the form of intent, not detail. The method of exe- cution is decided by the project team members using superior local situa- tional or specialist knowledge to find an approach that best achieves the intent. Management burden is reduced at the top and spread to team members more

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knowledgeable about their own situa- tions, and initiative is encouraged at all levels. As a result, significant decisions can be implemented in-time for maxi- mum effect. General Gordon R. Sulli- van, as reported by David Ulrich (1996), described the process as follows: “Once the commander’s intent is understood, decisions must be devolved to the low- est possible level to allow these front- line soldiers to exploit the opportunities that develop”(Ulrich, 1996, p. 178).

Rapid Feedback Loops Linked to Heightened Decision Window Awareness

In some environments high level man- agement may have higher levels of expertise, experience, or vision that needs to be applied to the decision- making process. In these cases del- egation may not provide the same advantage. For example, a film director has a vision and needs to be hands-on to the point of micromanaging. The alternative to delegation in these cases appears to be rapid situational report- ing, with the ability to make on-demand decisions. DefSvc1 related the example of the OODA loop. A U.S. Air Force military strategist analyzed why the U.S. F-86 in Korea was able to defeat the better performing MIG-15. He coined a term the OODA loop, which stands for Orient, Observe, Decide, Act (J. Boyd, 1986). Because the U.S. aircraft had a bubble cockpit it gave them better situa- tional awareness, which in turn, allowed them to observe the results of their actions, make decisions more quickly, and work themselves into better posi- tions. This principle can be applied to project management in rapidly chang- ing environments. If the project man- ager can accelerate the decision cycle by accelerating the reporting cycle, hence observing and reacting to the changing project environment quickly, the project can be optimized.

David Ullman (2007) related how businesses can be paralyzed by rapid change rates, incapable of making a decision, somewhat like a rabbit caught

in headlights. The timeliness of an implementation appears to be more important than achieving perfect qual- ity in a rapidly changing environment. DefScv2 described this as follows:

The speed of decision is more important in a rapidly changing environment than a perfect one. If you wait for enough infor- mation, your window of opportunity will pass. Sometimes commanders make the wrong decision and fail, but it’s better to have that approach in place else you will not be responsive enough to changing situations.

The danger of over analyzing is col- loquially known in business as paraly- sis by analysis and summed up by the military maxim: “the greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a per- fect one” often attributed to the Prus- sian general Clausewitz (1873). In these environments leaders must be accus- tomed to making decisions without all the information they might otherwise like to have or face being overrun by events. Simply making decisions at a faster rate than the enemy and using delegated control, was a central ele- ment of the successful German World War II Blitzkrieg tactic (Frieser & Green- wood, 2005). In the dynamic project management context, the environment is the enemy. DefSvc1 summed up the theme here with the advice that the “speed of decision is more important in a rapidly changing environment than a perfect one.”

Pre-Planned Responses

DefSvc1 described how command- ers have battle charts, which tell them what action to take under different cir- cumstances: “if this happens—do that.” Startup2 described a similar approach: “Drilling is expensive . . . you need to plan for the downside, not just the upside . . . cater for the range of outcomes so you can respond quickly.” This technique is also used in the information technology industry, where disaster scenarios are often well pre-planned to allow for rapid response. This is a relatively standard

part of risk management that can be customized in these environments. The main components of the approach used appeared to be: (1) setting clear goals; (2) empowering an experienced team to achieve those goals; and (3) providing as much flexibility as possible to change from a plan as long as it achieves the goal. These components allowed teams to adapt more quickly to the dynamics of the environment.

Propositions The results of this study suggest the fol- lowing propositions regarding culture and communication and leadership in dynamic environments.

Proposition 1: Projects in dynamic environ- ments might benefit from a culture that: (1) encourages and values flexibility and adaptability; (2) encourages and values pragmatism and expedience, which may require geographical or other separation from a larger organization; (3) aims for the smallest possible team of multi-skilled and highly motivated staff members organized in the flattest possible hierarchy, that is egalitarian; (4) focuses more on goals and experience, and less on process; and (5) val- ues experimentation for its ability to elimi- nate dead ends and identify new solutions.

Proposition 2: Projects in dynamic envi- ronments might benefit from communica- tion styles that: (1) increase emphasis on fast, timely, and succinct communication; (2) increase the proportion of informal communications; (3) emphasize timeli- ness over thoroughness; and (4) adjust communication rates in proportion with change rates and risk.

Proposition 3: Projects in dynamic envi- ronments might benefit from leadership and decision-making approaches that: (1) employ a vision combined with a collaborative egalitarian approach with delegation to achieve the vision; (2) are ‘hands-on’ where required but respect and trust the expertise and advice of the team; is (3) are flexible and adapt and change course quickly in reaction to a changing environment; (4) use direc- tive control, delegating decision mak- ing to the lowest possible, leading with

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the vision, and communicating through intent; (5) maintain high levels of aware- ness of the limited decision window; (6) employ rapid and pragmatic reporting (feedback) to inform rapid and pragmatic decision making; (7) constantly update pre-planned responses to allow rapid reactions; and (8) prioritize timely prag- matic decisions over perfect decisions.

Contrasting Models Illustration Table 7 attempts to highlight the key dif- ferences of culture communication and leadership in mostly static and mostly dynamic project environments. While it is not argued that either extreme exists as described, the contrast serves to

illustrate the differentiators and man- agement approaches used by the partic- ipant managers. The reality is that most projects have an element of dynamism that exists somewhere between these extremes, thus a compromise between these two extremes would usually be required.

Static Environments Dynamic Environments

Stability is the Norm Rapid Change is the Norm The environment is largely predictable The environment is difficult to predict Targets are stationary Targets are moving Environment is relatively static—changes yearly or over decades Dynamic environment—changes daily or weekly Change brings more harm than good Change brings more good than harm Allowing change is mostly damaging Resisting change is mostly damaging Work is directable like a bullet—like a factory production line Work is guidable like a missile—like cars guided by drivers, rules, and signs Business cases stay valid Business cases change constantly Strategic input is required at the start Strategic input is required throughout

Culture Flexible, Collaborative, Organic, Adaptive Rigid Flexible Formal Formal framework, informal core Authoritarian, tall hierarchy Collaborative, flat hierarchy Planned, strict, structured Organic, experimental, adaptive Stakeholders expect and understand static environments Stakeholders expect and understand dynamic environments

Communication Rapid Informal Complimenting Less Regular Formal Focus on formal communication Larger mix of informal with formal Slow, formal, thorough Includes rapid, informal, and practical Tall hierarchy Flat hierarchy Formal informs informal Informal and formal inform each other

Leadership Exploratory Vision Driven Using Collaboration and Delegation Drives down path Explores through the jungle Clear view of path Clear view of environment and goals Highly structured Highly adaptable Knows the path Knows the jungle Leads a hierarchy Collaborates with a team Plans dictated centrally Actions decided by team Manages with plan Guides with goals Workers follow plan Specialists deliver vision Team driven from above Team pursues goals

Decision Making Rapid–Adequate–in Time Decisions focused on accuracy Decisions focused on pragmatic expedience Accuracy achieves lasting perfection Speed capitalizes on fleeting opportunity Intent and objectives set at top Intent and objectives set at top Decisions made at the top based on information passed up the hierarchy Decisions made in the middle by people with situational/subject matter knowledge Action taken when confident of right decision Action taken in time to capitalize on fleeting opportunities Decisions are made after all data are collected Decisions prepared in advance and executed when data are collected.

Table 7: Contrasting models of static and dynamic environments.

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Conclusions The goal of this study was to explore the problem of rapid change during the planning and execution of projects from the perspectives of successful practitio- ners. This study identified project man- agement approaches related to culture communication and leadership that can be used to manage the problems caused by rapid change, and contributes to the evolving theory on how to manage projects in dynamic environments. This study answered the call for more empiri- cal research on the actuality of project management practice (Cicmil & Hodg- son, 2006; Cicmil, Williams, Thomas, & Hodgson, 2006; Ramadan & Tu, 2012), including the call for more theory devel- opment on decision making in flexible situations (Lenfle & Loch, 2010). The study also addresses a significant gap in the literature, faced by projects con- ducted in uncertain environments (Gray & Larson, 2003), which is an accelerat- ing challenge (Perrino & Tipping, 1991; Rothwell & Zegveld, 1985). The deci- sion-making themes emanating from this study address Piperca and Floricel’s (2012) call for more research on how to respond to unexpected events. The major results suggest that managers faced with rapid change may benefit from a vision- led, egalitarian, goal-orientated culture supporting experimentation with more timely and efficient communication and flexible leadership with rapid decision making. To be clear, none of the par- ticipants reported abandoning tradi- tional project management approaches but rather augmented them with an emphasis on techniques they believed mitigated the challenge of rapid change. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Fifth Edition (Project Management Insti- tute [PMI], 2013) acknowledges how an organization’s culture, communication styles, leadership, and decision-making techniques can have a strong impact on a project’s ability to meet its objectives This study expands on and compliments the PMBOK® Guide by elaborating on the specific elements of those dimensions or

describing approaches that might be rel- evant to rapidly changing environments. Furthermore, the results confirm the likely relevance of the findings of related studies, including: Godé and Lebraty’s (2015) ideas on the importance of rapid feedback in environments characterized by high levels of change and uncertainty; Brown and Eisenhardt’s (1997) ideas on extensive communication in organiza- tions challenged by continuous change; Turner and Crawford’s (1998) findings on empowerment’s relationship with change effectiveness; and many stud- ies on environments that benefit from vision-led egalitarian cultures with flat management hierarchies (Donaldson & Hilmer, 1998; Hauck et al., 2004; Jones, 2004b; Marschan, Welch, & Welch, 1996a; Mayer, 2007b; Mills, 2007; Porter & Siegel, 1965).

For practitioners, the full set or themes resulting from this study provide examples of how fellow practitioners in dynamic environments have cus- tomized culture, communication, and leadership to optimize outcomes. Prac- titioners can use their professional judg- ment to decide whether the approaches in this study might be useful in mitigat- ing the challenges in their own environ- ments, experimenting with approaches from different industries. The most widespread benefit is expected to be for business, technology, and innova- tion projects, grappling with dynamism. Organizations encountering dynamism can adjust methodology, training, and policies, considering these approaches. Because dynamism is just one of many project dimensions that need to be considered when embarking on a proj- ect, practitioners still need to consider the relative strength of each dimension, and whether the level of dynamism jus- tifies an adjustment in the approach.

The findings will also inform future research through propositions that can be tested. While the results may not be generalizable across all industries, they provide a starting point for fur- ther investigations into this increasingly important dimension.

This study formed part of the explor- atory and descriptive stages of research into a phenomenon, deliberately using maximum variation sampling to obtain views from diverse industries to identify uncommon practices that might be use- ful across multiple industries (Single- ton & Straights, 2005). The flip side of this early stage of research is that approaches used in one industry can- not be demonstrated to apply to all others, and of course this study did not attempt to measure the benefits of the results or the negative side effects of using the approaches. An explanatory stage is therefore required, where rela- tionships between variables are tested. It would be useful to know more about adoption rates for the approaches rec- ommended by the participants in this study. It would be helpful to understand these adoption rates across industries, cultures, communities, and minority populations. Attempts to quantify the merits and side effects of the dynamic theory approaches would also be help- ful. Depending on the results of the adoption rate and benefit studies, it would be helpful to understand how well the approaches are represented in the various bodies of knowledge and by the various training and education systems available for project managers, to determine whether there was some justification for adjustment in this area.

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Dr. Simon Collyer is a project management practitioner and researcher interested in challenges and solutions for dynamic environments across all industries, which he is believes are increasing problems for all projects. He can be contacted at [email protected]

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