Our Research Project

To identify practices and processes adopted in the management of PBOs, we have undertaken an international research project in which we interviewed twenty firms from nine countries from three continents (Turner and Keegan 1999). Firms included:

• Design and construction contractors from the heavy and light engineering industries

• Building contractors

• Contractors and consultants from the information systems industry

• Design and construction contractors and operators from the telecommunications industry

• Design and delivery contractors from the electronics industry

• A supplier of data products.

In the functional, hierarchical, line management organization, the functions fulfill five roles, which must also be fulfilled in the PBO:

1. Governance

2. Operational control

3. Management of human resources (people and competence)

4. Management of knowledge, learning, and innovation

5. Management of customers.

Elsewhere we have written about governance and customer relationships in the PBO (Turner and Keegan 2001), the management of human resources (Keegan and Turner 2000a), learning (Keegan and Turner 2001a; Turner, Keegan, and Crawford 2000), and innovation (Keegan and Turner 2000b; Keegan and Turner 2001b).

In this chapter we report our findings about how the PBO undertakes one of those findings—the management of operations. We identify that different operational models are adopted for different project types, and that this identification is influenced by the nature of the customers and projects undertaken for them.