ABSTRACT
Projects often hold hopes for a better future: a new stream of revenue, more cost-effective operations, employees who have a better grasp of the organization and can contribute more effectively from the start. Most projects involve an array of stakeholders: people from different departments and disciplines within the project owner's organization and people from consulting firms and other contractors. Drawing on the idea of management as a design science, the chapter offers some organization design principles to help those managing projects to work more effectively. It can also be a way of life, for IT and other consultants, for those delivering construction and infrastructure developments and to respond to shifting public policy agendas. The challenge for project managers is to attend to the rational management of a project life cycle while recognizing these tensions and hopes and working with them. Organizational hierarchies, professional politics and work place cultures affect whether, when and how participants are heard.
