Project practitioners become so familiar with the word project that they think about it more in terms of how it is used, and less in terms of what it really is. But is there such a thing as the project being managed? What's most real in the project? What's a project? We raise these questions to contribute a subtler understanding of project management, and to help project practitioners see that their metaphysical stance informs their project management style: A thing-based understanding leads to a planned project management style, and a process-based understanding leads to an emergent management style.
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