Rethinking capabilities

New Project X research, published by APM, gives valuable lessons for policy, scholarship and practice. Project provides an extract here.

Traditionally, major projects perform poorly, with the majority experiencing cost overruns, delays and shortfalls in intended benefits. However, in recent years, the UK has also witnessed several high‑performing projects, such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and the 2012 London Olympics.

Why do some projects perform poorly, while others perform well? Motivated by this question, Project X set out to examine how capabilities are developed to improve project performance. Project X is an ESRC‑funded research collaboration between government, academia and industry representatives, aiming to generate unique insights into the performance of major projects and programmes in government.

A suite of cases was developed investigating leadership capabilities, front‑end strategic capabilities, supply chain engagement and the dynamics of collaborative delivery (see box, overleaf). These cases also consider knowledge transfer and learning, the challenge of sustaining gender equality and control capabilities to mitigate failure and learn from emergent risks. Three central findings emerged from this investigation:

1. In complex projects, plurality, temporality and shifting ground affect project performance.
2. Rather than simplifying capability development into a standardised set of competencies, multiple lenses, reflexive learning techniques and engaged scholarship can help to navigate these three facets of project complexity.
3. Diverse thought and reflexive practice require an operational culture and core strategic values that embrace reflexive thinking, collective problem‑solving and experimentation.

This leads to a different model for capability development where resources, knowledge structures and routines are organised around a core set of values that meet the strategic expectations of a project. This value‑driven capability model has significant implications for professional practitioners in government and industry. First, there is a need to develop reflexive learning skills that move beyond individualised learning from the past to a more proactive form of learning where experience is used to challenge and question assumptions. Second, structures and routines are required that make space for inquisitive inquiry and collective deliberation. This requires an organisational culture that recognises the benefits of joint problem‑solving, strategic envisionment and experimentation.

For practitioners, the challenge is to become aware of taken‑for‑granted blind spots and simplified frameworks and toolboxes. This suggests a need for the project profession to move beyond a preoccupation with the development of individuals based on standardised competency frameworks that may stifle innovative thinking. Engaged scholars can play an important role here by acting as a bridge between pragmatic solutions and the latest grand challenge thinking that underpins important debates.

A multi‑level understanding of capabilities

Standardised project management techniques tend to oversimplify the plurality of projects, the difficulty in managing shifting ground and the challenges of temporality. The case studies in the report recommend developing capabilities that are informed by different perspectives and bodies of knowledge that transcend disciplinary and professional boundaries. However, making connections between different lenses and levels is hard and takes time. Nevertheless, societal grand challenges, such as climate change, social inequalities and recovery from the severe social and economic effects of the pandemic, justify this extra effort.

From prescription to engaged scholarship

A further key finding of our research was that the research process facilitated learning between practitioners in the field and academic researchers. Traditionally, project management research takes a prescriptive stance, viewing management issues as problems that need to be solved by generalising from a particular case. This research certainly has value, but it does not engage with the day‑to‑day management of projects.

Another approach to project scholarship is more interpretive, considering major projects as unique manifestations of organisational phenomena. This type of research seeks to understand a specific aspect of projects, while acknowledging that explanations are inherently incomplete but part of a larger complex picture.

Our cases use a ‘third type’ of project scholarship – an engaged scholarship approach that works closely with practitioners to reflect on their practice and offer pragmatic ways forward. This creates a bridge between practitioner knowledge and the latest evidence from project studies and neighbouring disciplines. This approach can produce a deeper understanding of ‘what works’ because the researcher is not fully immersed in practice. Instead, they can take a critical view of the taken‑for‑granted assumptions that guide situated practice and help consider the settings to which this learning can be transferred.

Reflective to reflexive learning

The case studies demonstrate how engaged scholarship can play an important role in examining a breadth of evidence to develop insights for future action. The Project X case studies describe:

1. Moving beyond considering the past and present to also envision alternative futures.
2. Shifting attention from individual reflection to collective reflection.

These two steps enable a more reflexive form of learning, one that moves beyond reflecting on past events to challenging and questioning core assumptions. Rather than reacting to circumstances, it involves shaping situations and thinking more broadly about complexity and shifting ground. Reflexive learning is only possible if structures and routines support this form of inquisitive inquiry.

However, if project structures create a silo mentality, collective deliberation becomes difficult. If daily routines crowd out opportunities to search for alternatives, reflexive learning may be stifled. Fundamentally, reflexive learning requires a culture that recognises the benefit of collective problem‑solving and experimentation when faced with project complexity. We recommend that reflexive learning and engaged scholarship can play a dynamic role in shaping strategic capabilities, project structures and routines.

Developing capabilities from values

Capability development takes place at an operational and strategic level when knowledge structures and routine processes are organised to enhance project performance. Traditionally, studies of capability assume a multi‑level design that cascades down from strategic expectations and ends with project processes and routines. This model suggests that capability development requires an alignment of strategic capabilities, structures and routines to achieve expected outcomes. In contrast, our research examines how capabilities are successfully developed in practice.

Our findings augment the traditional cascading view of capabilities with a more holistic model made up of multiple layers where core values sit at the centre. This ‘onion’ model has implications for how organisations seek to develop, build and distribute capabilities. Fundamentally, it recommends placing values at the heart of capability development activities. This means that, for complex projects, once strategic expectations are understood, the focus would move to establishing a baseline of values. Project organisation, routines and knowledge structures are then used as mechanisms to foster both stakeholder expectations and strategic values.

Within complex projects, the existence of multiple and sometimes conflicting stakeholder values means that this is not a straightforward task. However, in the current environment there is a need to refocus strategic values away from short‑term aspirations of delivering projects on time and to budget towards developing sustainable solutions based on social, economic and environmental values.

Engaged scholarship can offer significant benefits in terms of integrating sustainable thinking into reflexive practice. This would involve extending our current understanding of reflective practice to a new reflexive thinking model focused on the past and present, but also envisionment of the future. This would involve collective inquiry and ongoing cross‑functional and inter‑disciplinary interaction.

Beyond standardised frameworks

Developing a more holistic view of capabilities has important implications for advancing the project profession. In particular, it suggests a need to move beyond a preoccupation with the selection and development of individuals based on standardised competency frameworks. Instead, reflexive thinking skills are needed to envision alternative futures and navigate the challenges of post‑pandemic recovery and sustainable growth.

Project X case studies

The restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster
Dr Siavash Alimadadi, University of Sussex Business School, has investigated the strategic decision-making and governance capabilities of the programme, the biggest and most complex renovation of a heritage building in UK history. Drawing on a real-time, longitudinal case study of the inception of the restoration and renewal programme, the research has been investigating how organisational actors develop a strategy for an uncertain and highly contested future, while safeguarding operations in the present and preserving the heritage of the past.

Maximising gender equality in UK major infrastructure projects
Phillippa Groome, University of Sussex Business School, has investigated governance and leadership capabilities through her research, which explores how major projects can improve the delivery of equality, diversity and inclusion interventions across the UK infrastructure sector. Gender problems are used to unravel the sensitive issues underlying interventions, as well as the complex challenges practitioners face when delivering them. The case findings are based on a study commissioned by the Department for Transport.

A comparative study of strategic change projects in the UK government and financial services industry
Interdisciplinary research by the University of Brighton’s Dr Dicle Kortantamer brings together studies of leadership and projects to identify different understandings of project leadership and how they shape how we respond to challenges facing individuals, organisations and societies. To do this, it follows what the academic literature refers to as social theories of practice and draws on in-depth case studies of strategic change projects within a UK government department and a UK-based financial services institution.

Riskwork in the construction of Heathrow Terminal 2
Research by the University of Sussex Business School’s Dr Rebecca Vine examined the link between accountability management, everyday risk management and project-based learning. It develops a longitudinal case study of the construction of Heathrow Terminal 2, a £2.5bn megaproject on the Eastern Campus of Heathrow Airport that successfully opened on time and to budget, despite an initial risk management ethos that emphasised boundary preservation.

Integrating local SMEs in the Hinkley Point C supply chain and building their capabilities
Dr Jas Kalra of Newcastle University Business School looks at supply chain capabilities. His study examines how a large, inter-organisational project integrated small and medium-sized enterprises in its complex supply network and developed their capabilities. Furthermore, it focused on the site supporting operations, which are an under-researched facet of large inter‑organisational projects and examined how they could provide a unique opportunity to drive social value.

 

This is an edited extract from APM and Project X’s new report Rethinking capabilities: Lessons for policy, scholarship and practice, co-authored by Dr Dicle Kortantamer of the University of Brighton, Dr Jas Kalra of Newcastle University Business School and Dr Rebecca Vine of the University of Sussex Business School. The report is available at apm.org.uk. Listen to the authors explain their research in more detail on APM’s From the Frontline podcast series at apm.org.uk/resources

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE WINTER 2021 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.