ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how individuals experience and deal with projects. When we discuss identity construction, we are concerned with how people wish to be seen, and how they go about 'creating' themselves so that they may be perceived by others in this desired form. In a project environment, all people will strive to ensure that projects take a form that supports the construction of their preferred identity. There are also more specific issues concerning the merits of particular personal strategies. In larger organizations there is usually a loosely structured oligarchy – the group of people who concern themselves with the organization's strategic direction. The oligarchy constitutes, in effect, a practice group whose subject of interest is the organization and its welfare. The hazards of personal decisions are exacerbated by the inherent uncertainty of all projects.
