Kilden Performing Arts Centre: The Importance of One Man – Learning Project Governance From Real Life Experiences.

Abstract

Most texts on project governance and project management portrays the organization as populated by anonymous people in abstract roles like ‘project manager’, ‘sponsor’, ‘team member’. This paper takes the contrasting position that the project organization is developed by individuals with a specter of competences, strong and weak sides and relations to other people and organizations. The storyline presents a case study from a real-life project developing a new culture institution in Norway over a period of 10 years. Data was gathered ex-post by two researchers through interviews and document studies. The paper first defines key concepts and then presents an analytical framework for the purpose of analyzing the roles in this case story. It gives new insight to the roles as project manager and project executive. The story illustrates the importance of continuity and persistence in the role as project executive. These issues are relevant in future projects given the growing size and complexity seen in projects and the focus on stakeholder value that is prominent in project literature.