Managing Context: Lessons from a Large-Scale Science Project

Stephen Little ()
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Stephen Little: University of Bolton

Chapter 7 in Problem Structuring Approaches for the Management of Projects, 2019, pp 215-229 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Recent decades have seen repeatedly the high-profile abandonment of ambitious and expensive projects. Sauer (Why Information Systems Fail. Alfred Waller, Henley-on-Thames, 1993) and Flyvbjerg et al. (Megaprojects and Risk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) argue that the management of large-scale and long-term projects involves the definition and redefinition of success and failure, and the maintenance of financial and political support. To be successful, projects and policies must address both task and institutional orientations. Even if clear criteria are available for identifiable sub-systems, the issue of the effectiveness of any significantly complex system will impinge on a range of potentially conflicting values and interests. To manage these requires the development of narratives convincing to a range of stakeholders. The high energy physics experiments developed at CERN over decades offer insight into the successful long-term management of complex projects.

Keywords: Organizational culture; Organizational narratives; CERN; Project management; Project success (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-93263-7_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93263-7_7

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