Title: Task lists as infrastructure: an empirical study of multi-project work

Authors: Tina Karrbom Gustavsson; Anna Jerbrant

Addresses: Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. ' Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Multi-project work is fragmented and unpredictable making project professionals continuously facing the risk of experienced control being reduced. In such work settings, there is an increased need for (temporary) sense making structures. In this article, the concept of infrastructure (Bowker and Star, 2002) is applied to multi-project work. The findings, which are based on 43 interviews with multi-project professionals, reveals that task lists are important infrastructures created for supporting sense making, control and prioritising. The task lists reduces ambiguity and uncertainty and thus bridge the gap between organisational demands and individual resources providing room for improvised action.

Keywords: multi-project work; multi-project settings; infrastructure; sense making; project management; project control; project professionals; task lists; prioritising.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPOM.2012.048225

International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2012 Vol.4 No.3, pp.272 - 285

Received: 06 Nov 2010
Accepted: 10 Dec 2010
Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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