Using vision as a critical success element in project management
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The thesis reported upon in this paper addressed the research question “How does the effective development and communication of a ‘project vision’ impact project outcomes?” It outlines the approach, summarizes results and explains the protocols that have been developed from the thesis so that others researching this area may: gain better insights and understanding into how project vision may impact upon project success; and have access to a model and protocols to effectively develop a project vision and effectively communicate it to project stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research design was selected with multiple case studies. These were conducted within a public service organization using interviews and action learning through testing a developed protocol for team members to develop a coherent and well understood vision for project outcomes. Results were then used to develop a tool for teams to develop a project vision statement in a structured workshop. This approach was then tested through gathering and analyzing participant feedback from the workshop. Subsequent to this initial workshop and the publication of the thesis, the vision development tool has been further validated in both academic class room settings (Masters of Public Administration students) and with senior public servants as part of a project sponsor course offerings. Participants in both groups have commented on the relevance and effectiveness of the tool in creating a value add project artifact: the project vision. Findings First, the study established that a clear, well‐articulated and convincing project outcomes vision that was effectively communicated made a strong and positive impact upon perceived project success. Second, a protocol was developed and thoroughly tested to develop a project vision. This protocol was found to be successful for the projects it was trialed on and reasons for its acknowledged success were explicated. Third, the study highlighted four emergent issues that require further investigation but for the moment may be risks that need to be managed or opportunities to be exploited. These are: the benefits of an incremental or phased approach; the need for sustainment; the necessity of addressing horizontality; and the imperative of vision champions. Practical implications Project practitioners should find the approach outlined by the protocol model as being valuable to replicate and adapt to their own project context. Originality/value While the concept of a clear and well‐communicated project vision is now well‐accepted there are few examples of rigorous thesis that examine how a vision may be best developed and communicated.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.161 | 0.171 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.010 | 0.044 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.026 | 0.023 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.020 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".