An Unidentified Project Risk

  Governance   Lessons Learned   Knowledge Shelf  

A premise of project management practice standards is the assurance of project success through the collaboration of project stakeholders. Historically project-as-planned failures have outweighed actual project successes. Given project-as-planned failures on a sustained basis across countries and industries, is there a missing thread of discussion? Is a range of human behavior necessary to succeed in participating in a project environment, to be successful in a project process, and to perform in a project role? The specific human behavior identified in disciplines such as Finance, Engineering, or Sales may clash in a project environment, in a project process, or in a particular project role.

Human nature may be depicted along a continuum with aptitude (i.e., capacity) on the left extreme and attitude (i.e., mindset) on the right extreme.

Myers-Briggs and the related fields of psychometric questionnaires (e.g., Keirsey Temperaments to Big Five) suggest that there are personality traits that lend themselves to sixteen personality types (and to basic personality domains, respectively). The above question in the context of psychometric questionnaires is: “Is a range of personality types required to succeed in a project management environment, in a project process, or in a particular project role?” Responses to these questions are “no” in the …

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