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In 2006, the “Rethinking Project Management” network called for a paradigm shift in project research, and proposed five research directions. The directions inspired research and marked a milestone in the development of the field. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the past decade and to rejuvenate these research directions.

The authors propose the umbrella term: “project studies” to denote the research related to projects and temporary organizing. Project studies is conceived not only as a body of research, but also as a social process embedded in research communities, and contemporary Zeitgeist. Based on Sandberg’s interpretative approach to the fit between work and works (in this case research-researcher) and Habermas’ three types of human interests: technical, practical, and emancipatory, the authors develop a conceptual framework circumscribing three types of research in project studies.

The conceptual framework is used to craft future research directions, in the lines proposed by Winter et al. (2006b).

The authors conclude by proposing for a sixth theme on the practice of theorizing, and call for engaged, ambidextrous scholars, who’s “job” goes beyond the writing of articles and research applications, and includes shaping discourses of project research, nurturing new project scholars, contributing to project practice and carefully considering the legacy of projects and project studies in society.

This paper positions research as a social process, and the role of researchers as actors shaping research in project studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a classic tool in project management, which for some has become almost synonymous with project management: the Gantt chart. The Gantt chart was developed in the early twentieth century, at the heart of Scientific Management; yet, the chart is used with very little adaptation across a wide range of types of projects. In this conceptual paper, the authors question its universal and unreflective use.

The authors analyse the conceptual roots of the Gantt chart, its historical development and use, derive its engrained principles, and analyse its implications to the management of projects.

While a Gantt chart can be useful to cope with some of the “complicatedness” of projects, and embraces the importance of time and timing, it is based on principles that are not valid to all projects. The consequence is a propagation of a management approach that does not explicitly cope with complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and change. In that respect, the Gantt chart fails to acknowledge insights from years of organization theory research and project management research with a firm grounding in contingency theory.

While the majority of contemporary project management thinking already accepted that a normative use can be inappropriate, the practice is still pretty much embracing this approach. By showing the conceptual roots of the Gantt chart, the authors hope to make some of its limitations more evident to practitioners and academics, and encourage its use to be more reflective and contextualised.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need of continuously revisiting and reformulating the contributions of past research. In particular the focus is on project management writings. In addition, the purpose of the paper is to introduce the reader to the special issue on Classics in project management and give an overview of the different contributions.

The paper is based on literature in related fields and the approach is paradigmatic, illustrating the value of common literature and common language to develop a knowledge domain.

The authors provide an introductory framework and arguments for the need to revisit the contributions of the past. Since “the past” and readings of it will continuously change and develop, exploring it is not a “one‐off” job, but part of the dialogue within the academic community. From an evolutionary perspective, the authors make the point that an important role for scholars is to “store” knowledge from the past to tell the stories found in prior research, the influential ideas and their development within the knowledge domain/discipline. In a critical realm, the authors also see the role of critical engagement with the past to question what we take for granted to be able to improve our collective ability to think and from that end develop project management thinking and research. In that sense, revisiting the past might provide avenues to future research and adventurous explorations.

The authors introduce the idea of classics in project management as an ongoing and important debate among scholars within the field. This discussion has so far received only limited attention among scholars in the field of project management.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to operations management (OM) practice contingency research by describing the complexity of projects. Complexity is recognised as a key independent (contingent) variable that impacts on many subsequent decisions in the practice of managing projects.

This paper presents a systematic review of relevant literature and synthesises an integrated framework for assessing the complexities of managing projects.

This framework comprises five dimensions of complexity – structural, uncertainty, dynamics, pace and socio‐political complexity. These five dimensions present individuals and organisations with choices about how they respond to each type of complexity, in terms of business case, strategic choice, process choice, managerial capacity and competencies.

The contribution of this paper is to provide a clarification to the epistemology of complexity, to demonstrate complexity as a lived experience for project managers, and offer a common language for both practitioners and future empirical studies considering the individual or organisational response to project complexities. The work also demonstrates an application of systematic review in OM research.

The purpose of this paper is to present the key findings of a doctoral thesis aimed at exploring how multi‐project companies reconcile order (efficiency, control, clarity) and chaos (creativity, trust, uncertainty, ambiguity).

The research was focused on multi‐project firms in general and CoPS (Complex Products and Systems) producers in particular (companies involved usually as main contractors in construction and engineering projects). It followed three phases: Exploratory phase (literature review and interviews), Conceptualisation phase (abductive elaboration of the model based on field and longitudinal studies in a multi‐project firm), and Validation phase (deductive validation of the model through multi‐case study).

The thesis proposes a model to map order and chaos of companies, departments, projects or people based on the complexity faced by the tasks and the flexibility of the organizational structure to deal with it. The analysis of how departments moved in this map led to several findings, such as in the case of mis‐balance, higher flexibility is preferable to excessive control.

The model provides project practitioners with a tool to evaluate and make sense of the degree of necessary project flexibility, and how this can and should change across the project and disciplines.

This paper assists practitioners and academics to reflect on organisational structures of multi‐project companies, how these vary over time and how to avoid the bureaucratisation or the chaotification of structures.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the influence of the highly cited Organization Theory and Project Management on consequent project research and to highlight the key contributions of the book, how it has affected consequent project research and to identify areas that could be further explored in future research.

The paper takes the form of a book review and literature analysis.

It is found that the book offers insights to elaborating the salient characteristics of large, complex and uncertain projects. It identifies the underlying theories and concepts to improve our understanding of the three main issues: the sources of uncertainty in large engineering intensive projects; management and governance approaches utilized to tackle uncertainty; and project routines and innovation. Some of these insights have later been acknowledged by project scholars focusing topics such as project governance and the management of uncertainty in projects.

The book offers several insights and lessons to scholars and practitioners working with large engineering intensive projects.

The contribution of the book is not used to its full potential in project research. The paper's identification of the book's key insights should be useful for both scholars and practitioners.

Kristian Kreiner is one of the co‐authors of Projektledning i en ofulständig värld. The purpose of this paper (commentary) is to reiterate and update a few of the fundamental tenets on which the original text was based. The purpose is also to argue that the need to challenge conventional project management thinking is still pressing today.

This commentary highlights two ideas and makes one plea for future research.

Project managers must bridge two notions of a project: one focussing on some desired future state which can guide current, contingent action, and the other one focussing on the conscious design and planning of social action to enable efficient, collaborative achievements. In practice, project managers face a dilemma in having to encourage both behavioural flexibility (adaptability) and behavioural rigidity (discipline). Secondly, project managers face conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Conventionally, such conditions are made to signal poor project management, but they are often managerial premises rather than problematic outcomes.

We need to theorize project management under imperfect, but realistic circumstances in which complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity are central. One way to start may be to reject the notion that good project management is equivalent to good planning of processes and responsibilities. Rather, we should search for intelligent ways of using plans which necessarily will be rendered inadequate and imperfect by change and turbulence.

The plea delivered in the paper is to change our academic focus from devising optimal ways of planning and organizing projects to a search for more intelligent ways of exploiting plans and organizational forms that are, by definition, inadequate and imperfect.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a thesis on global careers; a topic relevant to many project managers working internationally. The main purpose of the thesis was to contribute to the understanding of global careers through applying an identity construction perspective on narratives of global careerists' working lives.

Through a narrative approach, 20 interviews with Swedish global careerists were analyzed and comparison of two types of global careerists was made – repeat expatriates and international itinerants.

The repeat expatriates and international itinerants are shown to have different patterns in their identity construction and there are differences in their career orientations, in their identifications with the organizations they work for, with their careers and with what they do. They also differ in how they identify with their home country and culture and the countries and cultures in which they live. Circumstances such as the type of location, the time abroad, and if the work abroad is perceived as temporary, are significant in their identity construction.

Both organizations and individuals benefit from understanding the implications of such careers. The results of this study can lead to the development of HRM practices to attract and maintain the relationship with these individuals and draw on their skills.

By considering individuals' subjective experiences of global careers through an identity construction perspective, new understanding can be reached on individuals undergoing multiple transitions over the course of their careers.