Homeworking Project Management & Agility as the New Normal in a COVID-19 World

Abstract

The COVID-19 global pandemic crisis has had a deep and profound impact on fundamental elements of society, the economy, and the environment as a whole. Key organisations, businesses, sectors and industries vital for delivering crucial projects have been affected by the relatively fast onset of COVID-19 on a global scale. As a result, organisational routines and project management processes that would have focused on established methods and practices have incurred dramatic changes leading to a greater emphasis on agility as part of a more exhaustive strategic COVID-19 world, where new routines and processes become embedded as the new normal. This research focuses on the increased demand in Homeworking Project Management (HPM) and more significant agility requirements across dispersed virtual project management teams. Initial insights from semi-structured interviews with a cross-section of 12 high-level project professionals suggest that; (i) Transitional homeworking project management processes have a direct impact on collaborative and operational routines; (ii) There is a greater level of demand on agility with HPM teams which do not necessarily have the organisational infrastructure to support these, (iii) Technological resources are becoming a primary concern with inequality of information across HPM teams, and (iv) Increasing critical bottlenecks across dispersed HPM teams is adversely affecting tenable project outcomes.