From the Editor
Authors: C. Bredillet
Year: 2010

In this issue of Project Management Journal, the reader will explore different perspectives, exemplifying the dynamic and creativity at stake within the project, program, and portfolio management field. These papers provide good illustrations of the various schools of project management research I introduced in the From the Editor letters between June 2007 and September 2008. Furthermore, the papers in this issue cover several core areas within the field: society, the practice-of-project, public sector, gender, and project portfolio. In doing so, the papers illustrate the kind of impact that project/ program/portfolio management can have on current business and/or society-related problematic issues. They use different research approaches—literature review and borrowing through analogy to other scientific fields (natural and social sciences), literature review and conceptual model development, empirical study, and exploratory studies—showing the diversity of application of possible research perspectives. Manfred Saynisch (“Mastering Complexity and Changes in Projects, Economy, and Society via Project Management Second Order (PM-2)”) introduces Project Management Second Order (PM-2), a concept based on new insights in modern natural and social sciences. The concept is grounded on a new paradigm. The paper provides an in-depth explanation of the development of PM-2 as well as the principles, methods, and processes. Practical implications are discussed with the support of examples of use in various types of projects. Possible integration aspects with CPMCS (ICCPM), ICB3 (IPMA), and PMBOK® Guide/OPM3® (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2008a, 2008b), leading to future perspective, are explained. Pierre-Luc Lalonde, Mario Bourgault, and Alain Findeli (“Building Pragmatist Theories of PM Practice: Theorizing the Act of Project Management”) raise the question: “Is the scientific field of project management a knowledge field like any other?” Drawing on the literature, they develop a typological model that brings together four distinct theoretical types of project management practice. Critically discussing each type, they demonstrate that the type grounded in a pragmatist conception of the theory-practice link offers the potential to build strong theories of project management practice. Moving from pragmatism to folklore, Vanessa Darrell, David Baccarini, and Peter E.D. Love lead us to “Demystifying the Folklore of the Accidental Project Manager in the Public Sector.” Their paper examines the experiences of 46 accidental project managers within the Western Australian public sector. Their findings reveal that most project managers were selected based on their technical or managerial expertise and thus lacked the required competencies to deliver a project. Furthermore, they indicate that there was a greater tendency for accidental project managers to act in a parttime mode, undertake nontechnical projects, and receive limited training and education. “Women are taking on more roles in project management, yet the field is still considered to be male-dominated.” On the basis of this assessment, Linda S. Henderson and Richard W. Stackman present the results of “An Exploratory Study of Gender in Project Management: Interrelationships With Role, Location, Technology, and Project Cost.” They explore whether gender differences in project managers are related to gender differences in their team members. On the basis of the analyses conducted of 563 project team members’ responses, several significant and rich findings are reported. They conclude the paper emphasizing some key implications for organizational and project management researchers and decision makers. “From a project-portfolio perspective, it is not enough to track the performance of projects in an isolated way.” Addressing this problem, Hynuk Sanchez and Benoît Robert state that it is difficult to find indicators for measuring the achievement of objectives during the progress of project portfolios. In their paper (“Measuring Portfolio Strategic Performance Using Key Performance Indicators”) they present an approach for developing key strategic performance indicators considering this limitation. On the basis of both broad and in-depth literature review, they propose indicators enabling to measure the achievement of a portfolio’s strategic objectives taking into account the From the Editor Christophe N. Bredillet, PhD, DSc, CASR 3PM, Dakar, Senegal