P roject L ifecycLe

Project lifecycle refers to the similar path of phases that the project under-goes from origin to completion. The project birth is usually signified by the managerial decision to execute the specific project (ideally, decision undertaken after the process of project selection, and includes staffing, goal setting, and detailed planning). Project termination (whether at the end of the project or before—see Chap. 5) includes the wrapping up of all project-related activities and, if needed, measures aimed at institutional-izing the project within the school. Usually, a project lifecycle can be depicted through the level of time invested or the level of effort invested in each of the project’s phases (see Fig. 2.1). It is characterized by the slow

Fig. 2.1 The common S-shaped project lifecycle (adapted from Pinto, 2013)

start and slow finish and increased rate of completion at the middle of the project timeline.

Despite the relatively low percentage of actual project tasks that are supposed to be performed during the initiation phase, the project success depends largely on this phase, where careful planning is performed. This is the stage where institutional politics in the school should be specifically taken into account, together with the role of individual actors within the school’s internal and external environment (Mullaly, 2015). In school, this would be the phase where agency and entrepreneurship of teachers, parents, pupils, and external agencies will take place, while usually the school principal will take the role of decision maker as to whether to con-tinue with the planning process or bring it to a halt.

Figure 2.2 presents the same project lifecycle, this time with the y axis outlining the effort invested throughout the project. The level of effort steadily increases through the project lifecycle and decreases toward the project’s termination.

Those are typical figures but it is important to note that there are proj-ects that act differently through the lifecycle curve. During the project lifecycle, additional variables are likely to change as the level of risk will typically decrease and the level of budget use will change according to the project expenses.

Fig. 2.2 Effort invested through the project lifecycle (adapted from Pinto, 2013)

This chapter will address the project initiation phase in particular, focus-ing on the role of school staff in initiatfocus-ing projects and actfocus-ing as corporate entrepreneurs (intrapreneurs) and the school’s organizational diagnosis to identify the school’s needs and opportunities. It will end with a discussion on the models and the reality of project selection processes in schools.

Project management is an ever growing domain, by which organizations achieve their objectives. Despite the growing use of and increasing research attention on project management in different settings and organizations, the discouraging reality is that too many projects are failing to achieve their goals, in particular failing to sustain the basic planned triangle of projects:

scope (performance), cost (budget), and time (schedule). This so-called triple constraint was once a gold standard by which projects were assessed.

The importance of scope, cost, and time lies not only in their role in the basic project definition, but more importantly in the complex interdepen-dencies between them, implying that modification in one of the parameters must be followed by the respective changes in the other two (see Fig. 2.3),

Fig. 2.3 Projects’ constrains and schools’ outcomes triangles (adapted from Meredith & Mantel, 2012)

the change in the length or slope of one of the triangles’ sides will immedi-ately lead to a change in the other two sides of the triangle. Managing the trade-offs between each one of those parameters with the other two is one of the most challenging tasks in project management. For example estab-lishment of the new school library within one academic year, with 10,000 different titles relevant to elementary school, and a budget of $100,000, might be challenging if the books are apparently 15% more expensive than the original estimate. This means that in order to achieve the projects goals we need to either reduce the quantity or the quality of the books or post-pone the project schedule in order to raise more funding to pursue the original scope of the project.

In addition, when discussing project implementation, it is important to remember the significance of the fourth basic parameter of project success:

customer satisfaction (Meredith & Mantel, 2012) or the project quality.

Since this parameter might appear as a very vague feature in schools due to the multi-dimensional structure of power struggles between the differ-ent agdiffer-ents (Jacobson, Brooks, Giles, Johnson, & Ylimaki, 2007), during the phase of project initiation it is crucial to map all the relevant stakehold-ers who might count as beneficiaries of the project and to engage them through the initiation phase.

In the education sector, the use of the word ‘customer’ for different stakeholders is overloaded with negative connotations and fierce critique over marketization, privatization, and commercialization of education, which was originally (as claimed by many) supposed to be a public good, provided by the government to the citizens in an equal and fair way (Ball, 2007). The discourse on ‘customers’ positions the school and the educa-tion system into a quasi-market situaeduca-tion where ideological judgments are developed and sustained. Without dwelling on a discussion of the ideo-logical nature, it should be noticed that it is not uncommon that the ‘cos-tumers’ in schools are holding different or even contradictory expectations concerning the project’s scope and outcomes. For example the students as customers of the school wish to get less homework and to finish their day early, while their parents are worried about the competencies acquired in school and wish to increase the workload, as well as the length of the school day. The teachers aim for the best preparation of the students for the global and interconnected world but also worried about their work–

life balance, decreasing status and social security, while the ministry of education and the state are worrying about the socialization of those future citizens to the nation and its local values together with the need to perform adequately on an international level. The press also plays a

prominent role here when covering educational issues, often shaming national performance, thus putting more pressure on all those involved (Yemini & Gordon, 2017).

There are many different ways to initiate a project in schools. Some projects are implemented through national or regional legislation, some are promoted by parent organizations, and some are brought into the school by philanthropic or even commercial entities. In each case, the process of initiation will start at a different stage and will be developed by the school’s leadership team differently. Nevertheless, probably the most common way that projects are initiated in schools is by the school staff.

Agency and entrepreneurship expressed by the school leadership team and staff are detailed in the next section.