A Situational Approach to Project Management: Methodologies and Behaviours Based on a Project Typology. The Case in Germany

A Situational Approach to Project Management: The research undertaken challenges the popular notion of "Best practices" in project management. It is instead based on the everyday experience that a practice - an approach, behavior, method, technique or tool - that has been successful in one situation, may fail in another, seemingly similar one. The work presented here gives an introduction to the concepts of Situational Project Management and implements it by developing an open typology for projects to help identify promising approaches and behaviors and avoid detrimental ones. These are then presented in form of a continuum between agile and predictive approaches, and linked with the Lipman-Blumen set of nine Achieving styles. Some findings contradicted normal expectations, for instance that a project of a rather derivative type may entail more risk than one that is a complete breakthrough.

Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc, PMP has been in project management for over 13 years when he decided to become a professional trainer in 1995. Since that time, he has introduced novices to project management and helped experienced project managers to obtain the PMP credential by the Project Management Institute (PMI). He is in addition volunteering at PMI