Systematic Review on Project Actuality

TL;DR

This systematic review explores how project actuality is defined observed and analyzed in literature from 1994 to 2013 highlighting common methods and contexts.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of existing research on project actuality, identifying key definitions techniques and research contexts.

Findings

Project actuality mainly studied in large organizations and public sectors in Northern Europe.

Various methods and techniques used to analyze project actuality.

Identified common definitions and approaches to transforming findings into knowledge.

Abstract

Nowadays much is written about how to manage projects, but too little on what really happens in project actuality. Project Actuality came out in the Rethinking Project Management (RPM) agenda in 2006 and it aims at understanding what really happens at project context. To be able to understand project actuality phenomenon, we first need to get a better comprehension on its definition and discover how to observe it and analyse it. This paper presents the results of the systematic review conducted to collect evidence on Project Actuality. The research focused on four search engines, in publications from 1994 to 2013. Among others, the study concludes that project actuality has been analysed by several methods and techniques, mostly on large organization and public sectors, in Northern Europe. The most common definitions, techniques, and tips were identified as well as the intent of transforming the results in knowledge.