Abstract
This paper introduces a matrix that can assist in determining the level of creative activity that is appropriate, and indeed, effective in a given project domain. Given that in some domains and organizational sectors project-based management is currently undergoing a shift away from formalized process, toward an evolving model that relies significantly more on the skills, creativity, and experience of the talented project manager, it can be argued that such a matrix can benefit the project manager.
This paper will therefore offer a brief introduction to creativity from an academic standpoint, and then use that academic perspective to consider project-based management from two different creative perspectives: looking at process creativity and at architectural creativity, and how they are applied to project-based work.
From this application of creativity to the project domain, a series of matrices will be developed, with the intention of assisting practitioners to decide on the level and type of creativity that may be beneficial in the delivery of projects of differing types in differing organizational and project domains. The first matrix considers process and architectural creativity, and creates a “two-by-two” matrix that can assist in determining the level and type of creative input that can assist in the delivery of specific project types. The second part of the matrix offers types of projects that may benefit from the differentiated approaches in the first part of the matrix. Finally, we start to identify the project approaches that may best suit each of the differentiated approaches.
Introduction
Times are changing in the management of projects. Although project-based work as a contribution to the lexicon of working styles has been around for many decades, it has now made the shift from being a technique based on the use of specific “tools” to assist in the planning and execution of major infrastructure and technical projects (with NASA taking the lead, and construction organizations adopting the principles to manage significant construction projects), to a set of knowledge areas that can, and do, assist in the execution of change in many organizational areas.
The evolution of project management is accelerating (Cooke-Davies, Cicmil, Crawford, & Richardson, 2007; Leybourne, 2007a), and managers and academics are attempting to develop and formalize this advancing and maturing knowledge base. It is now generally accepted that project management is transitioning from the tools and techniques-based paradigm (Kuhn, 1962) of “plan, then execute that plan with the minimum of deviation,” to a model with greater reliance on managing the behaviors of project personnel (Bredillet, 2004; Crawford, Pollack, & England, 2006; Pollack, 2007; Kolltveit, Karlsen, & Grønhaug, 2007), together with an acceptance that projects are complex (Cooke-Davies et al., 2007; Lewin, 1993), interlinked (Stacey, 2001), and, given the turbulence of current organizational environments, increasingly ambiguous and uncertain (Pich, Loch, & Meyer, 2002).
As a result of this need to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty (Cooke-Davies et al., 2007; Leybourne, 2010), and the organizational turbulence that is inherent in business today, the skillset of the project manager is also transitioning, from the ability to execute based on planning and process, to operating in a landscape where decisions are made based on incomplete data, and where creative action is valued. However, project domains are not homogeneous, and different projects in different domains and sectors have markedly different characteristics (Cicmil & Hodgson, 2006), ensuring that the application of creativity in project-based management is a far from consistent exercise.
This paper seeks to develop a framework that can assist in identifying those domains that can benefit from a more creative approach, by identifying two types of creativity that occur, and mapping them onto project types and organizational domains. The intention is to develop this framework over time, in order to deliver to practitioners something that can assist in assessing the level of creative input that will benefit a particular project, and equally importantly, indicate those project domains that are unlikely to benefit significantly from a creative approach.
Creativity
Described by Amabile (1983) as intentional deviation from standard practice, creativity comprises three major components or constructs: expertise (technical, procedural, and intellectual knowledge), creative thinking skills (how flexibly and imaginatively people approach problems), and motivation (Amabile, 1998). Creativity has been a subject of serious interest since the 1920s, when Wallas (1926) developed the first multi-stage model of the creative process in Art of Thought. Creativity has challenged academics in many fields, including psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy, and more recently, economics and business and management studies.
If we take Amabile's (1983) components, it is evident that expertise is an essential part of modern project-based work, and there is also an emerging concept surrounding the linking of expertise and artistry, with experienced and talented project managers being described as project “artists,” while more prosaic project skills are delivered as project “mechanics” (Kennedy & Leybourne, 2012). Creative thinking skills are usually divided into two types, conceptual fluency, which is about producing many ideas quickly, and cognitive flexibility, which recognizes the ability to come up with original and unusual solutions to issues and problems (we often call this “lateral” thinking, or “thinking outside the box”). Motivation is likened to the need to achieve, and there is a huge academic literature, linked to both intrinsic and extrinsic theories of motivation.
Creativity is also a major component of improvisation, and there is a significant emerging literature that identifies improvised work as a useful addition to the lexicon of project management skills (Leybourne, 2002, 2006a, 2006b, 2007b, 2010; Leybourne & Sadler-Smith, 2006). It is of course possible to be creative without improvising, in that planned work can be creative. Miner, Moorman, and Bassoff did however suggest that “creativity may … represent an unusually valuable competence for improvising organizations” (2001, p. 315), and it is also accepted that creativity is linked to mental agility, providing at least a linguistic connection to the emergence of the agile approach to project management.
Within the project domain, creativity is supposedly harnessed to develop new and better ways of executing project-based work, although there is evidence to suggest that it is also applied to the constant demands of the so-called “iron triangle” of project constraints that have determined project success for many years. Atkinson (1999), while talking of this triangle, also offered three other sets of success criteria for projects, based on the information they produce, the organizational benefits, and the benefits to the stakeholder community. The delivery of such benefits, which are all based around the delivery of value in some way or other, is a challenge to those project managers locked into the traditional measures of time, cost, and quality, and the application of creative thought may assist in resolving the tensions surrounding differing conceptions of value across diverse stakeholder groups.
Highsmith (2004), looking at the use of creativity within the agile approach to project management, identified a tension between structure and creativity, and that too much structure can stifle creativity. He also (p. 21) suggested that “creativity and innovation are the emergent results of well-functioning agile teams.” This would seem to confirm that creativity is important within projects generally.
Types of Creativity within the Project Domain
We could talk of individual versus organizational creativity here, as this is one of the key distinctions within the literature. Indeed, there are many ways to consider creativity, although not all are appropriate to the concept of creativity as it is addressed in this paper. However, from the perspective of project-based management, in order to create a framework, or matrix, that can assist the practitioner in managing projects more effectively, it is important to consider creativity in a more challenging way, and in a way that links more explicitly with the way projects evolve, and the way that project managers operate.
So, for the purposes of this exercise, creativity within the project environment is divided into two dimensions: architectural creativity and process creativity. Architectural creativity is about how much creativity can be applied (or is required in the production of) the structure of the project. Architectural creativity is linked to what the project will deliver, and how rigorously that set of deliverables is defined, and inflexible. Examples include, in a building, the arrangement of the internal design. For example, the Mayo Clinic is arranged to give patients a sense of well-being. The very creative use of hospital space at this facility includes an element of “theater” or performance in the lobby, in order that patients are stimulated and motivated by aural and visual experience. Such “experiences” have included the use of the lobby as a wedding chapel.
Other examples would include software projects where the architecture is as yet unknown or undecided, resulting in a methodology that includes both design and prototyping happening simultaneously. The “spiral” methodology (Boehm, 1986) is an example of this approach, and the agile approach to project management is also developing to assist in this area. Similarly, military contracts typically are awarded in a competitive design-off, with limited description of the requirements. The best design to meet the perceived requirements is selected. Drug development often follows a similar principle, with the end use being ill-defined, or indeed, sometimes unknown. As example of this is Viagra, which was first tested as a blood pressure-lowering medicine, and its recognized use was only found in later testing.
Process creativity is about how much creativity can be applied to the way in which the project is managed and executed. Essentially, the key determinant here is the amount of structure and process that is applied to the management of the execution phase of the project. Examples would (again) include use of Boehm's spiral model, which is essentially a project management approach, rather than a systems development approach, the use of “scrum” methods, in which the process and the deliverables of a project are continually re-evaluated, and other frameworks where the process allows flexibility in producing deliverables.
Arguably this would also include projects or project phases where there is extensive use of improvisational activity, and there is significant evidence of such activity being used and effective in the delivery of project-based work (Gallo & Gardiner, 2007; Kanter, 2002; Leybourne, 2002, 2006a, 2006b, 2007b; Leybourne & Sadler-Smith, 2006). However, organizing and assessing the level of creative input that is both reasonable and effective is a more problematical issue.
The Creativity Matrix
It may be useful at this point to create a matrix that can act as a guide to the inherent creativity that is required and allowed within a particular project domain, and that can assist in determining how the project manager and project team can approach delivery and execution, and ultimately, success.
We have suggested that creativity within projects can be identified and labeled as either architectural creativity, which is the level of creativity that is exercisable in determining the structure of the project, or process creativity, which can be considered as the level of creativity that can be applied to the way in which the project is managed and executed. Within this matrix, simple measures of high and low are used for each type of creativity, and these creativity types are applied to horizontal and vertical axes, to form a matrix with four boxes.
Exhibit 1 indicates how this matrix is visualized.
Exhibit 1. Process versus Architectural Creativity
This framework for visualizing the level and opportunity for creative application of both process and architecture within the project allows an opportunity to suggest some organizational sectors that may be more or less suited to different project management approaches, based on our matrix organized by process and architectural creativity.
This work is still in progress, and is the subject to continuous review and updating. However, there are some sectors and project types that fit fairly neatly into one of the quadrants of the matrix, although given the ambiguous and changing nature of projects generally, this is a far-from-robust matrix at present. It is also inevitable that as this research matures, the various sectors and project types may be redefined, leading to changes in the matrix over time.
At this point is useful to describe each quadrant, and to give examples of those project types that appear from our data and experience to be a reasonable “fit,” although it must be accepted that we are dealing in broad generalizations here, and there will always be projects that do not fit the suggested quadrant of the matrix.
Exhibit 2 assists in the location of these archetypes.
Exhibit 2. Examples
Quadrant 1 – High Process Creativity, Low Architectural Creativity
Advertising and public relations organizations tend to fall into this category. Some smaller nonprofits also fit here, and this quadrant will often also encompass creative arts organizations conducting fundraising projects or putting on performances. They typically require considerable creative energy in the process area, but the activity often resembles previous efforts, fundraising exercises, or performances. Therefore, while such activity requires considerable process creativity, the architectural aspect may often be similar to previous efforts and would therefore be low on the architectural creativity scale.
Web page development for new markets would also fall into this quadrant, as it would tend to use existing and recognized web design tools, while requiring significant process-based creative input on the part of the web designer.
Quadrant 2 – Low Process Creativity, Low Architectural Creativity
Here we have work such as incremental software maintenance and basic information technology (IT) activity, such as system upgrades, which require relatively low architectural and process creativity. Maintenance work typically inherits characteristics from the already existing parent system, which presumably has existed for a while. Therefore, relatively low creativity overall is required, since maintenance changes are broadly routine and unlikely to require a redesign of the underlying system. Maintenance activity typically exists in a regime where the processes and tools are already rigorously defined, and the team is expected to follow existing protocols.
Additionally, straightforward building additions and extensions would fall into this area, as they are essentially “repeatable” exercises with the minimum of innovation or radical design.
Quadrant 3 – High Process Creativity, High Architectural Creativity
The development of strategic IT systems would fall within this quadrant. This is especially the case where requirements are loosely defined, and elements of uncertainty and ambiguity are apparent within the project. In this case, as in projects where behavioral change in required, there is considerable freedom and flexibility to choose methods and execution options, and this is an area where experienced and creative project managers should excel.
The pharmaceutical and drug industries may also characterize activity with both very high process creativity and highly adaptable architectural requirements. New drugs require research and development, which is unpredictable, and calls for high degrees of creativity. Drug development is both highly regulated and expensive, so there is a huge desire to develop credible and marketable new products, meaning that the managers of these projects are given considerable leeway to choose the tools and the process that will lead to successful delivery.
Quadrant 4 – Low Process Creativity, High Architectural Creativity
Here we have activity with a high level of ability to choose “how” to structure the project, but low process creativity, in that the ability of the project manager to choose “how” to execute is limited. Many types of Department of Defense and other large public sector projects fall in this category. The government imposes many and varied standards and procedures. While data reporting and analysis requirements in this category of activity are significant, the work is developed to a very specific and pre-existing scope statement, on which compromise and the use of immature process is rarely possible. Backroom accounting systems, and regulatory and environmental compliance projects, which tend to have very precise required outcomes, would also fall within this quadrant.
It may also be useful to locate project management styles within these quadrants. Exhibit 3 is the starting point for this section of the matrix. This is the area of the model that is currently the least developed empirically, and there is room for a significant amount of nuanced elaboration in the building of this section of the matrix. However, certain conclusions can be documented, drawing significantly on the literature surrounding improvised work within the project domain (Gallo & Gardiner, 2007; Kanter, 2002; Leybourne, 2002, 2006a, 2006b, 2007b; Leybourne & Sadler-Smith, 2006), and other work that has been carried out recently about the nature and characteristics of modern project-based work in a maturing organizational landscape.
The most logical way to consider this area of the study is by again considering process creativity, and the flexibility that it brings in terms of the freedom to choose how to execute projects, and to then move to architectural creativity, which is essentially about how much freedom we have to choose the frameworks and tools that assist in project execution. This is also an area where we can get “locked into” pre-determined actions based on an accepted way that an organization or contractor enforces, either implicitly or explicitly, the way projects are perceived, controlled, or executed by project sponsors, clients, or other stakeholders.
Exhibit 3. Project Management Tools and Techniques
Let us consider process creativity first. We have already discussed the fact that process creativity is linked with the level of freedom that the project manager and the project team have to influence the way that the project is delivered. It is therefore reasonable to assume that in projects where there is a high level of process creativity, the execution is liable to be less formalized, and to lean toward a more improvisational style of execution. Additionally, in domains where architectural creativity is also high, there is likely to be a greater incidence of ambiguity and uncertainty, which improvisational working styles can assist with.
When architectural creativity is considered, projects that have been assessed as having a low level here would tend to be limited to following a recognized and accepted project framework; the PMBOK® Guide and PRINCE2 are probably the leading methodologies that are generally acceptable globally, although there are others that could be equally acceptable. For projects where there is a high assessed level of architectural creativity, the choice of frameworks is more fluid, and it could be argued that in projects with high process creativity and high architectural creativity, the challenges of dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty would require levels of creativity that necessitate significant flexibility in project delivery options.
Discussion and Conclusion
There is little doubt that project-based management is going through significant change, and that this apparent maturing of project management as a discipline is creating challenges for the modern project manager. We have already suggested that this shift away from the traditional project paradigm based on the PMBOK® Guide toward a more nuanced and behaviorally driven means of leading and managing project based work is more akin to the work of “mechanics,” who follow process and repetition, being replaced by “artists,” who use flair, creativity, and expertise to move beyond traditional models of achieving (Kennedy & Leybourne, 2012).
Given that such a shift is occurring, the project manager needs to develop and employ a different set of skills, leaning much more toward the management of project team behaviors, and the ability to harness creativity and intuition in the execution of ambiguous and changing project deliverables. This shift away from project mechanics toward project “artistry” requires that the project manager be more responsive and receptive to new and less structured ways of achieving, driven by the need for modern successful organizations to deliver innovative change in turbulent and uncertain organizational environments.
It follows that there is a need for guidance, and indeed frameworks, which can assist the modern project manager to demonstrate his or her “artistry” in the delivery of increasingly complex projects, where issues of uncertainty and ambiguity need to be resolved. This requires a modification in the way that projects are planned, executed, and delivered, away from prescriptive management, with its dependence on process and control, and toward a more nuanced and ambidextrous way of considering project-based activity.
Ambidextrous activity in an organizational sense considers the benefits of using routine, process, and structure, and more emergent, improvisational working styles, and leveraging the benefits of both simultaneously to improve performance (Tushman & O'Reilly, 1996; Tushman & Anderson, 1997, 2004; Tushman, Anderson, & O'Reilly, 1997). This new way of thinking about the organization in ambidextrous terms offers the opportunity to look at the evolution of project management through a different and appropriate lens, which considers both the exploitation of existing and accepted ways of achieving, and the exploration of new and innovative additions to the lexicon of working styles that can be embraced by the project manager.
Given that these ambidextrous styles of working are becoming not only more popular, but also more necessary to the successful delivery of modern projects, frameworks and guidance tools that can assist the less experienced project manager in navigating and balancing the complexities and uncertainties that occur in the contemporary project domain become more desirable.
In this paper we are offering a three-part framework or matrix that assists with the levels of creativity that can usefully and effectively be applied to projects of different types in different project domains or sectors. This matrix has been developed based on many years of empirical research, experience, and exposure to a range of projects of differing sizes, levels of complexity, and organizational locations. The first part of the matrix looks at creativity, and assists in assessing the levels of process and architectural creativity that can be present in projects. The second part of the matrix appends different project types to the four quadrants of the matrix, and assesses the levels of creative input that are likely to yield results in each of these project types and domains. The third part of the matrix is a starting point to looking at the styles of project management that are appropriate in each quadrant.
Creativity and the application of creative thought is a large part of the evolving role of the “new” project manager. It is a principal component of the improvisational styles of working that are essential in determining and resolving issues of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty brought about by changing requirements and deliverables driven by turbulent organizational environments. Additionally, innovation is seen as one way for organizations to move forward and engage with new and more effective ways of operating and of delivering value both generally and within projects, and creative thought and the application of creative ideas is the starting point for that innovation process. Finally, there is strong empirical evidence (Kennedy & Leybourne, 2012; Leybourne, 2002, 2006a, 2006b, 2007b, 2010; Leybourne & Sadler-Smith, 2006) that creativity and innovation within projects, encapsulated in effective improvised activity, leads to “emerging best practice,” which can deliver superior future project performance.
This offers a compelling argument for creative activity in the project domain, and the creativity matrix offered in this paper will assist in the effective application of creative action, and will assist the project manager in the effective delivery of complex and changing project deliverables, and the delivery of project value.