A structured reading of IS project management practices

Abstract

In the field of project management, norms are generally considered as being extraneousto project actors. However, norms only become a reality when they are put into practice. Atthe same time, due to human agency, projects actors have the ability to act on the normsthey use. In order to understand how project management norms are enacted and howthey contribute to structuring projects practices, we conducted a case study within a largescale IT program. Data were analyzed with a structurationist approach, which provides aview on projects practices as simultaneously structured by enacted norms and contributingto produce and reproduce these norms. Sociomaterial practices have also been identifiedin our results. From an empirical point of view, this research contributes to increasing thesmall number of descriptions of IS project management practices in a standardized setting.It provides a new perspective and a methodological approach for understanding howprojects practices confront with norms. Our main contribution is to bring an original viewof projects as social systems, which are recursively constructed due to actors’ reflexivity andagency.