Taming the ‘trolls’ : major public projects in the making

Klakegg, Ole Jonny; Williams, Terry; Shiferaw, Asmamaw Tadege

Abstract

Major projects are not yet sufficiently understood, and practices in project governance and project management do not yet reflect the current state of knowledge of large, complex projects. In an attempt to understand the reasons, the authors therefore investigated the latest relevant findings documented in three countries: the UK, Norway, and the Netherlands. Their examination of the effect of implementing governance frameworks for public projects in these countries indicates that efforts to improve major projects are giving rewards: Even if complex public projects, the ‘trolls’, become more challenging, efforts to ‘tame’ them are improving. The results of the study show that project planning has improved and cost overruns are reduced. However, recent observations indicate that the effect may wear off remarkably quickly. Hence, the need for continuous improvement and change is prominent. There are fundamental limitations in the use of formal systems as they cannot detect all problems and there are limitations to humans' ability in terms of optimism bias that cannot be eliminated.

Citation

Klakegg, O. J., Williams, T., & Shiferaw, A. T. (2016). Taming the ‘trolls’ : major public projects in the making. International journal of project management, 34(2), 282-296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2015.03.008

• Acceptance Date: Mar 23, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Apr 8, 2018
• Publication Date: 2016-02
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 10, 2018
• Journal: International journal of project management
• Print ISSN: 0263-7863
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-4634
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 282-296
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2015.03.008
• Keywords: Project governance; Governance frameworks; Project success; Complexity
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/373238
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263786315000629
• Additional Information: This is the accepted manuscript of an article published in International journal of project management, 2016. The version of record is available at the DOI link in this record.