HUMAN INTERACTION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Mano Nugapitiya, PhD in Project Management Thesis, 2008
Usin g a qua li ta tive me th od ol ogy, con cep ts we re tes ted in a ma j or case s tudy inv olvin g an
iden tif ia ble an d comp lex p roject in Aus tra li a. The thes is h igh ligh ts the ma ny s oci al p roces s es
tha t take pl ace con cu rrently wi th the te chni ca l p rocess, and h ow these s oci al p roces ses c ome to
influen ce the p roje ct, an d iden tif ies the i mp ortan ce of an d comp lex ity of hu man in tera cti on.
Human Interaction in Project Management explores
the project management practice by the examination
of the lived experience of the project manager.
Drawing ideas from the Chicago School of Sociology
and the Continental Philosophers in phenomenology,
this examination develops several concepts, which
were tested against a major project management
case study, the rebuilding of the Alpine Way after the
Thredbo (NSW) landslide disaster in 1997.
The thesis also introduces autoethnography to
project management (PM) research, and finds that
such an approach can significantly enhance the
insights drawn from research into the lived
experience.
By examining PM through the lived experience of the
project manager, the research moves outside the
current PM base to identify a set of concepts that can
provide an alternative view and analysis that is based
on people’s views, interpretations, feelings and those
things that are subtle and not readily identifiable.
In sharp contrast to traditional research, the
autoethnographic approach – where the researcher
is also the subject – provides validity to recognise the
researcher’s own ‘self’ as an entity, to tell his or her
story, including their thoughts, experience and views
and to make the researcher’s own experience a topic
of investigation in its own right, thus reducing the
distance between the researcher, the researched and
the reader. The source of data at least in part, is
their thoughts, feelings and memory. Such an
approach offers an alternative way of talking about
the practice of PM, beyond discussing project failures
or successes, and the tools and techniques available
to project managers. In short, this thesis examines
why project managers choose the tools and
techniques at their disposal, not what they have
chosen, or how they have succeeded or failed.
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The case study examined could be viewed in a
traditional PM framework as a failure – it was
completed significantly over budget and many
months behind schedule. However, peers and
external stakeholders hailed the Alpine Way
reconstruction as a success, and it received an
engineering excellence award for its contribution to
the local community.
Conce pts to un derstan d the lived ex perien ce
of P roje ct M ana ge ment
This thesis results in the development of an
intellectual apparatus to examine the lived
experience of the project manager. The application
of seven key concepts can provide project managers
with insights into what they should be looking for
when confronted by specific situations and context,
and the instruments they can use to interpret and
deal with these situations:
1. Recognition of the PM practitioner’s ‘self’ as
a complex, heterogenous and structured
entity, including an awareness of the
complex thoughts that project managers
have during their daily lives.
2. The ‘conversation of gestures’, that is an
awareness and understanding of non-verbal
communication such as facial expressions,
hand gestures and bodily expressions.
Project managers need to be alert to how
non-verbal gestures can indicate certain
meanings or show how a person is feeling.
3. An awareness of the various meanings that
stem from the various social interactions and
events.
4. Taking on the ‘role of the other’, that is, being
able to see things from different perspectives
and to engage in different roles during the
project sequence.
HUMAN INTERACTION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
5. Intersubjectivity, that is, a consciousness of
the community and external stakeholders as
subjects, not objects, and how they relate to
each other. Such a consciousness allows
trust to build between the project team and
the local community, enabling the project to
proceed smoothly.
6. Seeing social interaction as ‘stage play’, or
being aware that access to a wide range of
insights into what goes on in a project is
possible if the project is seen as ‘centre
stage’ and ‘performance’ to the community at
large. Since the breakdown and/or
construction of meanings in social interaction
can happen very quickly, it is important that
the project manager always remains vigilant
to the various dynamic and intersecting
‘stage plays’ that might take place during
projects.
7. Impression management. People have a
natural tendency to control the impression
others have of them in line with their desired
goals or agenda. Project managers should
not only be aware of their own natural
tendencies for impression management, but
also others’ tendency for the same, as this
can provide valuable insights into
understanding others and the construction of
meanings.
Thus, this apparatus stresses the importance of
positioning the project manager’s ‘self’ as an entity
and the other participants, subjectively. Such a
positioning provides significant insights into the role
of self-concept, the generalized other, gestures,
meanings and intersubjectivity in project
management.
Imp li ca ti on f or p oli cy and p racti ce
Through these social concepts, Human Interaction in
Project Management has identified six important
implications for policy and the practice of PM:
1. The introduction of autoethnography as a PM
research tool.
2. The significant insights available to the roles
of the researcher and PM practitioner,
including the importance of understanding
the concept of ‘self’ and the evolving nature
of meanings through human interaction.
3. A recognition of the implications on future
training and tertiary education for PM
practitioners. It emphasises the significance
of better preparing project managers for
dealing with real life situations.
4. A recognition of the capacity and strength of
‘face-to-face’ interactions, such as project
start-up meeting, community briefings, and
informal meetings and get-togethers. PM
emphasis should return to ‘face-to-face’
encounters as written documentation alone
(such as memos and instructions) does not
provide the means to solve issues. Rather,
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‘face-to-face’ interaction and documentation
should compliment each other.
5. Project start-up workshops and agreed aims
and objectives can set the meanings of how
the project participants will conduct
themselves and the project, and how the
project will be eventually judged.
6. The concepts together with the
autoethnographic approach also provide rich
insights to the reflective processes that take
place in project managers, and how they
experience events and come to develop
judgement skills. This in turn provides a
means for describing the professional growth
of PM practitioners.
Imp li ca ti on s f or the ory
This research recognises the growing concerns that
the conceptual framework of PM inadequately
represents PM practice. It provides further depth and
direction towards understanding the PM practice and
the lived experience of the project manager, which
occurs through the PM practitioner’s perspective and
‘eyes’ looking at the project whilst interacting with
other project participants and stakeholders.
The research also demonstrates the need for going
beyond documentation, language and specific
knowledge, as it illuminates the limitations of an
approach based on a paradigm of objective reality –
the creation and usage of explicit technical
knowledge, such as plans and documents.
The research presents new insights supporting the
view that project managers should also pay attention
to the human interaction in projects focusing on, and
providing analyses of, social constructs that are
based on people’s views, interpretations, feelings,
meanings and those things which are subtle and not
readily identifiable. It also alerts project managers to
the importance of their capacity to hear, feel,
understand and respond to what other people are
thinking, meaning and feeling (beyond spoken or
written words) about the project.
Considering these issues, Human Interaction in
Project Management provides the grounds for an
alternative approach to viewing the PM theoretical
framework, hence setting a new standard in PM.
For more inf ormati on:
> Dr Mano Nugapitiya, manon@endstate.com.au
> UTS: School of the Built Environment:
Prof Spike Boydell,
spike.boydell@uts.edu.au
or + 61 2 9514 8675
Mr Patrick Healy, patrick.healy@uts.edu.au
or +61 2 9614 8722
> www.dab.uts.edu.au
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