Research on Project, Programme and Portfolio Management: Integrating Sustainability into Project Management by Roxana Cuevas

Research on Project, Programme and Portfolio Management: Integrating Sustainability into Project Management by Roxana Cuevas

Chapter 1
Introduction
Roxana Cuevas, Constanta-Nicoleta Bodea, and Pablo Torres-Lima
Abstract This brief introduction provides an overview of the book structure and
content. The chapter discusses the concepts, research methods and results which the
contributors present in their chapters. The diversity of addressed topics, the wide
geographical and sector coverage lead to a wide range of book audiences. The book
is useful to researchers, practitioners, educators and trainers in project management
domain as well to postgraduate students, in general for all those interested to better
understand how the sustainability can be integrated into project management.
Keywords Project management · Sustainability · Sustainable business · Social
responsibility · Project excellence · Projectification
Climate change, threats to biodiversity and accelerated exhaustion of non-renewable
resources have made researchers and practitioners more involved in revising
economic growth models and practices, and in promoting sustainability into theory
and practice. The research literature on sustainable development has expanded and
more and more companies have started to include sustainability principles into their
strategies and to report their regular actions/practices related to sustainable business.
Nowadays, one of the important trends of societies worldwide is projectification.
Several studies reveal that around 40% of economic activities are performed as
projects and programmes (www.ipma.world). For this reason, the implementation

of sustainability into project, programme and portfolio management is considered as
being critical for assuring sustainable development.
Sustainable project, programme and portfolio management aims to take into
consideration the environmental, economic and social aspects of programmes and
portfolios in order to achieve sustainable results. Many project, programme and port-

folio management professionals took the responsibility for integrating sustainability
by developing sustainable objectives and management plans and by translating them
into practice. Professional associations, such as the International Project Manage-

ment Association (IPMA) are actively involved in promoting sustainability in project,
programme and portfolio management disciplines by financing research, developing
standards and organizing events as platforms for professional knowledge sharing.
The book includes the extended version of selected papers presented at the
31st IPMA World Congress held in the Yucatan International Congress Centre,
Merida, Mexico from September 30 to October 2, 2019. The main topic of the
IPMA World Congress was “Integrating Sustainability into Project Management”.
These selected papers address relevant topics related to sustainability in projects by
presenting advanced international academic research and practical studies on sustain-

able project, programme and portfolio management. The results can be adopted into
project, programme and portfolio management practices.
The book is structured into three parts. While the first part covers concepts and
approaches related to the integration of sustainability in project management, the
second part presents research on integrating sustainability into project management
in different industries and regions. The final part takes specific perspectives on inte-

grating sustainability into project management related to learning and continuing
competence development.
The first part includes the following five chapters.
Chapter 2, by Lars Nielsen, Philipp Klausing and Peter Nyhuisis entitled Towards
a Target System to Incorporate Sustainability in Multi-Project Management in Facto-

ries. The authors raise the awareness about the challenge of portfolio balancing,
which is requiring an overarching target system for providing guidance. Their
research leads to a hierarchy framework according to which sustainability can be
integrated and implemented. An exploratory case study, for the German automobile
OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) is conducted and the main findings are
presented.
In Chap. 3, Maedeh Molaei, Marcel Hertogh and Marian Bosch-Rekveldt inves-

tigate the Factors Affecting the Integration of Sustainability in the Early Project
Phases in an Integrated Project Management Model. They conducted a qualitative
cross-case analysis on three highways projects in the Netherlands. It is concluded
that each project management role is inclined towards specific sustainability dimen-

sion. The authors proposed a model for integrating key roles involved in integrating
sustainability into project management of infrastructure projects.
Chapter 4 by Thordur Vikingur Fridgeirsson, Bara Hlin Kristjansdottir and Helgi
Thor Ingason explores the challenges of complexity in the modern business environ-

ment and proposes a diagnostic tool, which was designed by the authors to assess
the VUCA dimensions a project is facing with. For validation purpose, the tool was

Research on Project, Programme and Portfolio Management: Integrating Sustainability into Project Management by Roxana Cuevas