Project Management for Strategic Change and Innovation

The discipline seems to have lost its roots of enabling “push the envelope” initiatives, de facto focusing on controllable run-of-the-mill projects instead.

 

In this article, we explain how the discipline “lost its roots.” We argue that this matters a great deal: it has prevented the project management discipline from taking center stage in the increasingly important efforts of organizations to carry out strategic change and innovation. By excavating the roots of the management of innovative projects, we attempt to connect PM to a growing body of work that emphasizes the need for flexible search in innovation and organizational change. PM has an opportunity 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.