This excellent paper was the winner of the 2025 best paper award in the Project Management Journal as chosen by the editors and sub-editors of the Project Management Institute – Abolish, Accept, Apply: Coping with Ignorance in Project Ecologies. Video of the webinar is available here (PMI membership required) as presented by the author Jonas Soderland and Joachim Thiel.
For those who do not have access, here is a summary…
While the Sydney Opera House is an iconic building known to many as the symbol of Australia (other than the kangaroo), this building is also known as a planning disaster (the Australians are not shy about it). While the scope was met, the budget was exceeded (original budget was $7 million, final cost was $102 million) and schedule was overrun (original was 4 years, and actual completion took 14 years) with 10,000 construction workers (yikes!). According to most project managers, if the original sponsors knew what they had known, the Sydney Opera House probably would never have been built.
Hypothesis: not knowing things can make things possible.
Obviously, when issues happen, we have to reconcile to allow us to move on after experiencing major failures. There are 3 attempts on doing so from accepted literature on project management:
- Types of project (Loch, Lenfle): standard (efficient) and exploratory (more experimental with potential issues)
- Notions of project (Kreiner): leaps into future (linear and manageable) and pursuits (open-ended)
- Project Behavior (Ika): holding down and acknowledging ignorance
There are 2 flaws though: one of which is ignorance where there is underspecification of the unknowns. Let’s face it, it is impossible to specify 100% of everything before we start. The other is how this applies in project ecologies which studies the interaction of projects. While the project is defined as temporary and independent with a start and finish. the reality is most of what we do probably has a effect on others. Let’s explore the two – ignorance and ecology.
Notes on ignorance:
- Uneasiness with relation to knowledge.
- The larger the knowledge, the larger the ignorance
- Ignorance can be both passive or active: passive is when we really do not know that there is an issue, and while active ignorance refer to knowing but choosing not to spend time to find out (more).
Ignorance can therefore be an element of decision-making: with the 3 types of ignorance, we can then chose how to move forward with our project – abolish, accept or apply.
Notes on project ecologies
- Projects are never something independent as the saying that “no project is an island”.
- Each temporary task will inevitably lead to a more permanent solution, esp. if there is a focus on time (past history and future) and context (relational, organizational, instituional)
The author define the project ecologies to 3 types and created a framework based on failed projects. While the field (pretty much the entire population) want to abolish ignorance, the project team and the people who do it at career level is able to tolerate to a certain extent, some level of ignorance.
Concluding thoughts
The questions remains: Does ignorance produce miracles?
We acknowledge that we should continue to probe, that it is good to understand. However, it is also correct that there are different types of ignorance and that tackling the unknowns depends on the type of ignorance. There is of course, a mismatch between what the general population thinks versus what is actually practiced. This is the essential role of professional experience, especially if there is a high cost removing the ignorance. One thing to note is that “miracles” do require some forgetting and unlearning.
Final quote (an addition by yours truly)….
There is always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet. And the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!
Agent K – Men in Black
