Using Activity Theory in Developing Instructional Tools for Project Management Studies

Competence and skills of the project manager are significant to project success. The skills needed in project managers’ work cannot be learned only by reading the books or a lecture hall; one learns them by practice. Therefore, an important challenge for educational institutions is to develop pedagogical practices that allow students to participate in working life projects and to confront real-life problems. Project-based learning (PBL) offers a model that enables students to practice the skills and competences needed in working life projects by utilizing real-world work assignments in time-limited projects. Using PBL method alone does not necessarily guarantee learning result. In order to …

How is Project Success Affected by Replacing the Project Manager?

Coping with Uncertainty in an Agile Systems Development Course

Uncertain and ambiguous environments are commonplace in information systems development (ISD) projects, and while different Agile frameworks welcome changes in organizational, technical, and business environments, the incurred uncertainty is known to negatively affect the development process and the quality of the final product. The effects of uncertainty on ISD projects have been studied in the past in real organizational contexts, but the effects of uncertainty on students in Agile systems development have received less attention from scholars. In this study, we measured the effects of experienced uncertainty on students’ performance in an Agile systems development course and how uncertai…

Using Activity Theory in Developing Instructial Tools for Project Management Studies

Competence and skills of the project manager are significant to project success. The skills needed in project managers’ work cannot be learned only by reading the books or a lecture hall; one learns them by practice. Therefore, an important challenge for educational institutions is to develop pedagogical practices that allow students to participate in working life projects and to confront real-life problems. Project-based learning (PBL) offers a model that enables students to practice the skills and competences needed in working life projects by utilizing real-world work assignments in time-limited projects. Using PBL method alone does not necessarily guarantee learning result. In order t…

Supporting the success of an information systems project : viewpoints on education and replacement of the project manager

Replacement of the Project Manager Reflected Through Activity Theory and Work–System Theory

Replacement of the project manager (RPM) is a known phenomenon in information systems (IS) projects, but scant attention is given to it in the project management or IS literature. Given its critical effects on the project business, the organization, the project team, and the project manager, it should be studied in more depth. We identified factors which make RPM occurrences inherently different and we show that work-system theory and activity theory give comprehensive lenses to advance research on RPM. For the future research on RPM we identified three objectives: experiences on RPM, process model for RPM, and organizational culture’s influence on RPM occurrences.

Activity Theory as a Lens to Identify Challenges in Surgical Skills Training at Hospital Work Environment

In this paper the concepts from activity theory (AT) are applied for identifying the challenges and contradictions emerging in surgical resident’s curriculum based training at hospital. AT is utilised as a lens to identify contradictions that cause disturbances, problems, ruptures, breakdowns, and clashes which emerge while surgical skills training is implemented in a new way at hospital. We especially aim at finding solutions for contradictions which emerge while the new and old working culture are confronted and the workers are required to balance themselves between the patient care demands and workplace learning requirements. We are using the conceptual theoretical approach to describe…

Uncertainty in information system development: Causes, effects, and coping mechanisms

Information system development (ISD) projects are an ever-growing field of project management (PM) with their unique features, and project failures in ISD are relatively common. In the broader context of PM, uncertainty is a studied, yet mercurial phenomenon. By contrast, uncertainty in ISD projects has received relatively little attention from scholars, and PM literature has not systematically focused on uncertainty in ISD from a viewpoint other than that of project managers. In order to understand uncertainties in ISD projects, we need to first understand the causes behind them, their effects on everyday ISD work, and share coping mechanisms utilized among industry professionals. In the c…

Replacing Project Managers in Information Technology Projects

According to anecdotal evidence, project managers working on information technology (IT) projects are occasionally replaced, although the literature on information systems (IS) and project management (PM) makes little mention of it. With a view to narrowing this knowledge gap the authors examined the reasons behind the practice. The authors took an interpretive approach to the data gathering and analysis, and collected descriptions about replacing project managers (RPM) from interviews and questionnaires (n=43). The concept of contradiction served as a lens through which to identify the underlying reasons. Contradiction refers to statements asserting or expressing the opposite of another st…