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sions of project lessons learned. Likewise, the PMO leader can exercise
power by intervening with project teams to facilitate learning. The learn-
ing that results in either case will necessarily be negotiated based on the
interests of those involved and may give certain interests priority over oth-
ers. For example, if the PMO leader is involved and has garnered su cient
legitimacy, the learning outcomes may be shaped by the PMO leader’s
interest in the project team’s conformance to existing standards and pro-
cesses. Did they follow established routines? Why or why not? In situations
where the PMO leader is not present or has not attained a su cient level
of legitimacy, emphasis may be placed elsewhere, as the project team may
not have a vested interest in improving the organization’s project stan-
dards and processes.
Social Capital. A strong network and support from senior management
are closely aligned with the concept of social capital, which J. Nahapiet
and S. Ghoshal (1998) de ne as “the sum of the actual and potential re-
sources embedded within, available through, and derived from, the net-
work of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit”(p. 243).
It appears that the social capital of the PMO leader is an important fac-
tor in her ability to gain the legitimacy required to facilitate cross- project
learning, particularly when she lacks a direct line of authority over project
participants.
Defensive Routines. Insu cient authority was not the only challenge re-
ported by PMO leaders. As shown earlier in the chapter, 45 percent of
interviewees also reported time pressures as a barrier to learning from
past project experiences. One might simply surmise that if organizational
members do not have the time to engage in learning practices, then pro-
cesses associated with replicating success and avoiding past failures may
simply require increased visibility and attention in order to be e ectively
deployed. Yet this conclusion may not tell the whole story, especially given
that, as reported earlier, 50 percent of the PMO leaders indicate that upper
management expects them to continuously improve project delivery.
Researchers in previous project- based learning studies have also noted
time pressures as a barrier to learning from past project experiences (Dis-
terer, 2002; Keegan & Turner, 2001; Schindler & Eppler, 2003; Zedtwitz,
2003). In A. Keegan and J. R. Turner’s study of 19 project- based rms, for
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example, the authors found that it was “common throughout the study for
respondents to list impressive practices in place to facilitate organizational
learning, and then at the very end to state they do not work, or are not
used, because of the time pressures on those people whose learning is the
focus of these systems” (p. 91).
It may not be simply a lack of time that limits the use of re ective prac-
tices, but rather defensive routines that conspire to make conscious re ec-
tion and learning much less appealing to organizational members than,
say, launching the next project and generating more activity. As described
in earlier chapters, Chris Argyris (1995) describes organizational defensive
routines as “any action, policy, or practice that prevents organizational
participants from experiencing embarrassment or threat and, at the same
time, prevents them from discovering the causes of the embarrassment or
threat” (pp. 20–22). “Face- saving” is one such defensive routine, the rules
of which Argyris describes as follows: “When encountering embarrass-
ment or threat, bypass it and cover up the bypass.”
It is not di cult to envision defensive routines at work within the proj-
ect environment, especially within the context of red- light learning, where
management and the PMO intervene with project teams to understand
what went wrong after a project has been classi ed as red on the PMO
leader’s dashboard status report. One could also envision defensive rou-
tines at work not only at the project team level, but also at the PMO leader
level and among members of the management team. Each of these com-
munities, either by its action or by its inaction, may have the potential
to be seen as a contributor to “the problem.” Of course, project team
members—and especially project managers—are under a more acute
threat to their individual careers. The point here is that the PMO leader
and the senior management team, because of their relative positions of
power, can inadvertently undermine their own ability to “know the truth”
about what is happening at the project level. After all, defensive routines
are likely to emerge if project members have the potential to be associated
with a “mistake.”
In sum, then, under conditions of red- light learning, re ective practices
can come to be seen by the culture as a punitive experience, making it
more likely that defensive routines will be perpetuated and further reduc-
ing the utility and e ectiveness of re ective practices. Defensive routines
are likely to undermine the PMO leader’s attempts to help team members
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re ect constructively on past project experiences for the bene t of current
or future projects.
Conceptual Framework for the PMO Leader Role
A conceptual framework for how PMO leaders broker the continuous im-
provement process is presented in Figure 4.2. It synthesizes the ndings
and discussion in this chapter and includes the following elements: organi-
zational context, PMO leader brokering, social capital, defensive routines,
and collective brokering. Each of these elements is discussed here.
Organizational Context. Consistent with Wenger’s (1998) view that orga-
nizations are made up of multiple communities of practice, we nd the
Collective Brokering
Senior Management
䡲
Project Intervention
䡲
Process Improvement
䡲
Transfer of Standards
and Practices
PMO Leader
Brokering
Coordination
Reflection
Alignment
Translation
䡲
Status Reporting and
Governance
䡲
Lessons-Learned Practices
䡲
Personal Experience
Retrospective Learning
䡲
Project Methodologies
䡲
Knowledge-Sharing Forums
䡲
Formal Training
䡲
Personnel Selection
Prospective Learning
䡲
Tools and Templates
䡲
Systems and
Databases
䡲
Documents
Social Capital
Defensive Routines
Receiving
Project
Team
COP
COP
COP
COP
Originating
Project
Team
COP
COP
COP
COP
FIGURE 4.2
Conceptual Framework
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PMO leader to be immersed within a “constellation of practices” from
which and through which knowledge about past project experiences may
be negotiated and shared. The PMO leader works within the context of
these communities, which include senior management, project teams, the
PMO organization itself, and other functional departments. Members of
a project team may include people from multiple communities of prac-
tice within the organization, often from various functional departments
or areas of specialty. Over time, the project team may also develop a com-
munity of practice of its own.
PMO Leader Brokering. As discussed in this chapter, PMO leaders engage
in brokering—the process of establishing connections between communi-
ties by “introducing elements of one practice into another” through pro-
cesses of translation, coordination, and alignment among and between
these perspectives (p. 105). Re ection is also seen as an additional dimen-
sion of PMO leader brokering. All of these processes are therefore repre-
sented in the revised conceptual framework.
The analysis of PMO leader brokering given in this chapter indicated
that not only do PMO leaders broker in support of boundary practices
such as status reporting and governance, lessons- learned practices, and
knowledge- sharing forums, but they also intervene in the project environ-
ment to (1) improve projects, (2) improve processes that are common to
multiple projects, and (3) transfer standards and practices to project teams.
These elements are also represented.
Social Capital and Defensive Routines. Two broad themes emerged from
the additional interpretation of the enablers and barriers to cross- project
learning. Social capital is seen as being a key enabler, while defensive rou-
tines are viewed as a key barrier. Researchers in project- based learning
have drawn upon the concept of social capital to describe how knowledge,
particularly context- dependent, tacit knowledge, is more e ectively shared
and di used across projects and organizations by individuals who have
developed strong, mutually bene cial relationships and have therefore
gained a degree of social capital (Bresnen et al., 2003; DeFillippi & Arthur,
1998; Newell, 2004; Walker & Christenson, 2005).
As discussed previously in this chapter, red- light learning and the
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associated defensive routines it inspires may contribute to Keegan and
Turner’s (2001) nding that “in no single company did respondents ex-
press satisfaction with [the lessons- learned process]” (p. 90). Both social
capital and defensive routines are represented in the revised conceptual
framework.
Retrospective and Prospective Collective Learning Practices. Many of the
PMO leader’s activities can be classi ed as either retrospective, prospec-
tive, or both. Retrospective learning practices include status reporting
and governance, lessons- learned practices, and the personal experiences
of PMO leaders and their sta s. Prospective learning practices include
project methodologies, knowledge- sharing forums, formal training, and
personnel selection.
Boundary practices such as status reporting and governance, lessons-
learned practices, project methodologies, and knowledge- sharing fo-
rums—all forms of collective brokering—are viewed as organizational
routines (Bresnen et al., 2005) through which and by which knowledge
is captured and transferred for the bene t of current and future projects.
M. Bresnen et al. (2005) describe organizational routines as “repetitive,
recognizable patterns of interdependent actions involving multiple actors”
(p. 28). The development of these routines represents a shared history
of learning (Wenger, 1998) among management, the PMO, and project
teams. Collective brokering practices are a means through which lessons
learned are transferred from one project to another. Newly established
project managers and project teams experience these practices, with previ-
ous lessons built in, as a form of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave
& Wenger, 1991).
Boundary practices can also be construed as a means by which process
knowledge from past project experiences can be embedded into organi-
zational routines for the bene t of future projects. S. Newell et al. (2006)
describe process knowledge as processes that a team has deployed in order
to achieve its goals. Process knowledge can be distinguished from “prod-
uct knowledge,” which the authors de ne as “knowledge about what had
actually been achieved in relation to the stated goals or objectives” of a
project (p. 175). The transfer of project methodologies, including embed-
ded process knowledge, is accomplished through templates that are often
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