Limitations and Outlook
This study makes several significant contributions to project uncertainty management, but it also comes with limitations that should be addressed by future research. At this point, we would like to remind the reader that we did not intend to generalize our findings, nor is it possible. The limitations of our study need to be acknowledged to ensure a better understanding of the presented results.
First, the size of the sample in this study is not sufficient for statistical comparisons or more general conclusions. Case study research, in general, is not designed as a tool to test hypotheses. In this instance, an exploratory study was required to examine an under-researched but increasingly important phenomenon in project management practice and raise more granular questions for future investigation. Our results should be addressed with larger samples of data.
Second, industry and project type are not highly diversified, with 60% of our cases representing new product development projects and IT projects, thereby limiting generalizability of our study. It seems that industry-specific samples are necessary to enable and facilitate cross learning. After all, it seems that categories of uncertainties and opportunities are relatively numbered. We have also not fully considered the level of innovation as a source of uncertainty, even though we tried to acknowledge this project characteristic (Kapsali, 2011). But this needs further elaboration.
Third, the data represents the single perspective of the project manager, which can also be biased. The interviewed project managers might have accidentally forgotten details. While we attempted to overcome this weakness by asking the contacts to review their interview report, it does not fully resolve the single-perspective issue. Other stakeholders, such as senior managers and clients, should be included in further analyses. This is also important from the perspective of opportunities. It is very likely that perceptions of opportunities differ between different stakeholder groups.
Fourth, project documents from each case were not available to augment our data. The lack of documentation, or the unavailability of project documents, prevents more accurate quantification of the effects of opportunities. How do situations of uncertainty look when using project management controlling tools?
Fifth, the study design does not allow for analyzing causal relationships. In this case we cannot definitely say that the situations of uncertainty led to opportunities. This would require a longitudinal study which separates both events over time. A longitudinal study design would also allow for analyzing the “switch” between the management of risk and the management of uncertainty.
Finally, we have not looked at the new uncertainties caused by exploiting the identified opportunities. Changes on the project's value proposition are always related to uncertainty; however, new uncertainty, as well as risk, may arise when the value proposition is changed due to the exploitation of the original opportunity.
Our findings provide some suggestions for further research. We have proposed three hypotheses related to management of uncertainty. These hypotheses need to be investigated in different contexts and further tested by empirical study. In addition, we found PM mindsets are one important factor which influences their perceptions, but other factors may exist and need to be investigated. Moreover, additional research is called for to differentiate risk and uncertainty and integrate concepts of opportunities and explicit management of change.
The educational insights suggest enhancements of project management curricula to develop the comprehensive skillsets managers need to create project value. The confusion between risk and uncertainty was clearly evident in the case studies. The identified misperceptions of uncertainty indicate the need for foundational training, to provide the basis for differentiation between risks and uncertainties. Project managers who operate without this knowledge are unprepared to cope with uncertainties and will be hard pressed to identify potential value-enhancing opportunities. Businesses that are looking to maximize the potential of their projects will be well served by providing professional skill enhancement training for their project managers. These skill sets are not addressed by current project management standards. Knowledge areas in the PMBOK® Guide are related to the management of risks. Our findings also provide some suggestions for the education of project managers. The results demonstrate that the management of projects is not merely a technical or engineering exercise. Most opportunities that were identified are lying outside of technical solutions. Education and training of project managers should emphasize the business perspective of projects. It is not sufficient to train project managers in defining and defending a baseline. This is important, and the project management standards address these knowledge areas in depth, but they can be counterproductive when situations of uncertainty occur and have to be coped with. In particular, for those project managers who are responsible for enterprise-based projects in industry environments, earned value or other methods that were developed for complex projects are of limited value. In these contexts project managers need to be empowered and encouraged to discover the silver lining of the unknown-unknowns.
Our findings also provide some suggestions for the management of projects. The results demonstrate the differences between the management of risk and the management of uncertainty. Both concepts are important to create project value, but project managers need to be able to differentiate between risk and uncertainty. The practical insights of this research offer project managers basic questions to identify and exploit value opportunities as a means of maximizing rather than merely optimizing the business value of a project. Uncertainty is not occurring on a daily basis, and its management requires a very different mindset. First, it requires the relinquishment of the baseline view and the ability, and authority, to question the project's fundamental value proposition. Second, it requires a business perspective to identify opportunities for maximizing project value that could sacrifice significant project goals, such as significantly extending the budget or schedule, or changing the scope. Third, it requires leadership skills to moderate and lead the discussions with the different stakeholders in order to successfully exploit an identified opportunity.
In summary, this research offers some important insights for practitioners about how to manage project uncertainty during a project's implementation, and it contributes to the development of an alternative project management paradigm in the discourse of project management research. Our study demonstrates that uncertain events are not necessarily negative per se. We clearly discovered the silver lining of the unknown-unknowns, and we hope that project managers will make use of the lessons learned from our cases.