1. Introduction
The growing diversity of projects is being reflected in a growing diversity of ways to manage them. The dominant approach to project management remains the ‘‘plandriven” model, as exemplified by the Bodies of Knowledge
(BOKs) of the various PM professional associations (e.g.
Project Management Institute, 2004). However alternative or complementary approaches such as lean, agile, and soft systems methods have gained acceptance in some fields, and are beginning to spread beyond their areas of origin
(e.g. Poppendieck and Poppendieck, 2003; Yeo, 1993).
Even within the plan-driven model, increasingly diverse methods are being advocated.
Despite this increasing range of available management choices, project managers frequently fail to seriously consider their alternatives (Brown et al., 2000; Shenhar,
2001). This may be partly because they do not consider this to be within the scope of ‘‘project management”, (although it is clearly part of the wider concept of ‘‘management of projects” (Morris et al., 2006)). But the lack of decision support tools also discourages such consideration.
Although project categorisation systems are common within organisations, these are generally narrowly tailored and categorisation criteria often are not logically linked with objectives (Crawford et al., 2005). Hence there is a need for enhanced methods for relating PM approaches to projects.
One path to such methods is via project contingency theory (PCT). PCT argues that the best approach to managing a project depends on context: different conditions require different project organisational characteristics, and the effectiveness of the project is related to how well organisation and conditions fit each other. PCT has developed from general organisational contingency theory, building upon innovation (e.g. Shenhar and Dvir, 2007)
and