Project Management Learning: A Contingent Approach

Abstract

A convergent stream of research insists on the importance of adopting a contingent approach to project management, due to project characteristics and to specificities of social contexts. This chapter will focus on how such a result can be utilised in designing a project management learning program within a firm.

We first supply a characterisation of the “competence” notion when speaking about project management according to our contingent approach. That leads to six pedagogical principles to design a project management learning program. Then, we describe how they were implemented and tested on the case of a major French pharmaceutical and chemical firm, where the authors have conducted action research since 1992.

At this period, a major strategic move transformed the nature and the stakes of the firm’s project portfolio, putting in question the former project management practices. We analyse the transition in the project management systems of the firm that took place until now, and how the learning program contributed to such a collective creation and implementation of a more adapted project management approach. Such learning programs can offer good opportunity for collaboration between management research and practitioners, when taken as creative open-ended processes aimed at defining contextualized management models.