Klitgaard, A; Beck, F and Buhl, H (2018) Facilitation of interorganizational teams: An exploratory literature review. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
A rational approach to project management implies the possibility of planning, managing and controlling the construction project phenomena and project actors' roles. The concept of facilitation addresses the need to move the project forward, it doesn’t focus on planning, managing and controlling the project phenomena. The reasoning for performing project management and facilitation is therefore fundamentally dissimilar although both may be beneficial for the project. This study is part of a larger project, which aims to address the skills and competencies needed for professionals in the industry to encourage collaboration and co-configuration between the actors in order to minimize the effect of the fragmentation within the industry.An earlier study in a Danish school setting suggests that the rational approach towards project management contradicts with the need for disruptive breaks from routines, which encourages co-configuration as seen in knotworking. The rational approach demands a certain mindset among the actors, when delivering a known product in a known production process with a known division of labor, while the mindset of co-configuration entails upsetting these relationships. It is possible to organize the breaks from the rational approach and it has previously been demonstrated, how a facilitator can help making the switch between the two mindsets.A literature study is carried out to investigate which possibilities and perspectives facilitation theory and methods can bring to the construction project process and the impact facilitation may have on the rational project management approach.As a result, it is suggested that awareness of facilitation within the industry will minimize the challenge of switching between the two very different mindsets. This may, in turn, be a way to cultivate and harvest the advantages of diversity in the multi-disciplinary project team, rather than focusing on eliminating the effect of this potentially problematic property of the construction project team.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | facilitation,literature review; project management |
| Index terms: | routine, construction project team, interorganizational, division of labour, reasoning, production process, facilitator, harvest, mindset, literature review, fragmentation, configuration, construction project, collaboration, project team, project management |
| Subjects: | project delivery, data analysis and analytics, health behaviours and lifestyles, practitioner, business, systems engineering, cognitive psychology, sociology, business economics, project management theory and practice, land management, production management, manufacturing engineering, management |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Project Management, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Roles and Professions, Sustainability, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here