Thought-piece on the effectiveness of contemporary project management and its top performing enablers

Abstract

One of the most important factors for project success is effective contemporary project management. The aim of this study is to provide project manager practitioners with access to the successful contemporary project management enablers using evidence-based research. A systematic scoping literature review using qualitative and quantitative design was performed on the ScienceDirect database using studies and articles, published in English between 2010 and 2019. This search included factors regarding successful contemporary project management and citation tracking. All studies and articles were peer reviewed. Charted data was narratively reported by clustering the results according to the identified success criteria. The review process resulted in one conceptual framework, one literature review, one survey, and one article about research on another topic which is related to project management success factors. This study shows that to enhance evidence-based practice, it is recommended that in a contemporary project approach, every project establishes a complementary team-related project with gates as checks to ensure transparency, clarity and comprehension. Its purpose would include the definition, development and implementation of clear communication strategy and a mentoring and training programme to support retention, build loyalty in organizations and enhance co-operation between the stakeholders and the project team. A limitation of this study includes the consideration of contemporary project management success factors only but not those success factors influencing contemporary project management success. A second limitation is the use of a single database and the exclusion of journal quality.