2025/2026 KAN-CPSYO1603U Project Management
English Title | |
Project Management |
Course information |
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Language | English |
Course ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
Type | Mandatory |
Level | Full Degree Master |
Duration | One Quarter |
Start time of the course | Third Quarter |
Timetable | Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk |
Study board |
Study Board for Organisation, Strategy, Leadership and
People
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Course coordinator | |
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Main academic disciplines | |
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Teaching methods | |
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Last updated on 30-06-2025 |
Relevant links |
Learning objectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Examination | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course content, structure and pedagogical approach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Projects serve as critical vehicles for translating visions into action, driving change, and challenging the status quo. They are foundational to addressing contemporary grand challenges. For instance, combating climate change demands a portfolio of diverse projects, including the development of innovative technologies, the construction of sustainable energy infrastructure (such as energy islands), and marketing campaigns aimed at transforming consumption habits, among others. This course seeks to enhance participants’ knowledge of project management while fostering a reflexive and critical approach to both its theoretical underpinnings and practical applications. The course introduces two distinct theoretical perspectives on project management. The first represents the traditional view, as encapsulated in international standards and most textbooks, emphasizing analytical thinking, structured methodologies, and data-driven planning. The second, often referred to as the “Scandinavian school” of project management, with a focus on flexibility, co-creation, and the need to navigate uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. These perspectives are conceptualized as tightly coupled and loosely coupled approaches, respectively. Building on these perspectives, the course delves into four core project management practices that every project practitioner must master:
These two perspectives and four managerial practices form a 2x4 matrix, which serves as the framework guiding the course. Surrounding this matrix are three overarching components that contextualize and deepen the study of project management:
Through this comprehensive approach, the course equips students with the knowledge, tools, and critical insights needed to excel in managing projects that drive meaningful and sustainable change in an increasingly complex world. |
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Research-based teaching | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CBS’ programmes and teaching are research-based. The following
types of research-based knowledge and research-like activities are
included in this course:
Research-based knowledge
Research-like activities
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Description of the teaching methods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We will use a combination of the following
teaching methods:
• Reading: Students are expected to read the material individually or in groups at home. • Lecturers: We will have classic lectures, discussing the material, contextualizing the texts and its potential application to contemporary challenges and illustrating it based on project cases. • Guest lecturers: Project managers and academics will present rich project cases, that will be discussed in light of the course material, and thereby encourage the students to leverage their analytical knowledge to create value to ‘real life’ issues. • Group work: students are expected to work in their groups in exercise classes, where they will capture core message and concepts of each text, contrast texts and apply insights into project cases. • Peer review: students will review each other's essays, fostering learning and relearning. • Quizzes to review the basic understanding of each text. |
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Feedback during the teaching period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The students will receive feedback in three
formats
1. Peer feedback to group delivery: A draft of student's group assignment (the essay) will be peer reviewed. Peer review is structured around the course's learning objectives and aims to foster learning and releaning in the course. Specifically, it provides specific and constructive suggestions to improve the weak parts of the work and to identify the strengths of the essay. Peer review is used to 1) foster peer-to-peer learning; 2) provide formative feedback; 3) develop a good understanding of the course’s learning objectives; 4) expose students to different forms of writing the essay; and 5) have the opportunity to clarify expectations and improve their work. 2. Ongoing feedback: The lecturer will provide ongoing feedback on exercise classes when assisting each group’s development and discussing their analysis of the readings. The teacher will continuously challenge the students to capture core project management ideas, understand its assumptions and be curious about potential new angles and concepts. Such in-depth discussions aim to help students think critically and be curious about potential new angles and understandings of projects. 3. Quizzes will provide specific feedback on factual understanding of course's main concepts. |
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Student workload | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Expected literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bechky, B. (2006). Gaffers, Gofers, and Grips: Role-Based Coordination in Temporary Organizations. Organization Science, 17(1), 3-21. Carlsen, A., & Pitsis, T. S. (2020). We are projects: Narrative capital and meaning making in projects. Project Management Journal, 51(4), 357-366. Case – Pellegrinelli (2008) Chapter 4: Emotional attachment. In Pellegrinelli, S. Thinking and acting as a great program manager. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 48- 58. Coutu, D. L. (2003). Sense and reliability. A conversation with celebrated psychologist Karl E. Weick. Interview by Diane L. Coutu. Harvard Business Review, 81(4), 84-90. Davies, A., & Mackenzie, I. (2014). Project complexity and systems integration: Constructing the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games. International journal of project management, 32(5), 773-790. Dille, T., Hernes, T., & Vaagaasar, A. L. (2023). Stuck in temporal translation? Challenges of discrepant temporal structures in interorganizational project collaboration. Organization Studies, 44(6), 867-888. Engwall, M. (2003). No project is an island: linking projects to history and context. Research Policy, 32(5), 789-808. Engwall, M., & 1, G. (2004). Peripety in an R&D drama: capturing a turnaround in project dynamics. Organization Studies, 25(9), 1557-1578. Flyvbjerg, B. (2014). What you should know about megaprojects and why: An overview. Project Management Journal, 45(2), 6-19. Ika, L. A., & Pinto, J. K. (2022). The “re-meaning” of project success: Updating and recalibrating for a modern project management. International Journal of Project Management, 40(7), 835-848. Jensen, A. F., Thuesen, C. & Geraldi, J. (2016) The projectification of everything: Projects as a human condition. Project Management Journal, 47(3), pp. 21-34. Kreiner, K. (1995) In search of relevance: project management in drifting environments. Scandinavian Journal of Management. 11(4): 335-346. Kreiner, K. (2020). Conflicting notions of a project: The battle between Albert O. Hirschman and Bent Flyvbjerg. Project Management Journal, 51(4), 400-410. Kreiner, K., (2014) Restoring Project Success as Phenomenon. In Lundin, R. A. & Hällgren. M. (Ed.) Advancing Research on Projects and Temporary Organizations. Frederiksberg: Copenhagen Business School Press, p. 167-186. Lenfle, S., & Loch, C. (2010) Lost roots: How project management came to emphasize control over flexibility and novelty. California Management Review, 53(1), 32-55. Lindgren, M., Packendorff, J., & Sergi, V. (2014). Thrilled by the discourse, suffering through the experience: Emotions in project-based work. Human relations, 67(11), 1383-1412. Lundin, R. & Söderholm, A. (1995) Theory of a temporary organization. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 11(4), p. 437-455. Nieto-Rodriguez, A. (2021) The Project Economy Has Arrived. Use these skills and tools to make the most of it. Harvard Business Review, 99(6), 38-45. Partington, D., Pellegrinelli, S., & Young, M. (2005). Attributes and levels of programme management competence: an interpretive study. International Journal of Project Management, 23(2), 87-95. Pitsis, T. S., Clegg, S. R., Marosszeky, M., & Rura-Polley, T. (2003). Constructing the Olympic dream: a future perfect strategy of project management. Organization Science, 14(5), 574-590. Tryggestad, et al. (2013) Project temporalities: How frogs can become stakeholders. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 6(1), pp.69-87. van Marrewijk, A., Ybema, S., Smits, K., Clegg, S., & Pitsis, T. (2016). Clash of the Titans: Temporal organizing and collaborative dynamics in the Panama Canal megaproject. Organization Studies, 37(12), 1745-1769. Vogwell, D. (2003). Stakeholder management. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2003—EMEA, The Hague, South Holland, The Netherlands. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.(Available online: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/stakeholder-management-task-project-success-7736) |