Beyond Frontiers of Traditional Project Management: An Approach to Evolutionary, Self-Organizational Principles and the Complexity Theory—Results of the Research Program

Abstract

This article speculates beyond current thinking in project management, asserting that traditional project management cannot fulfill the challenges and requirements for mastering increased complexity in society, economics, and technology. The new paradigmatic evolutionary-systemic and cybernetic-systemic research results (including self-organization or chaotic systems) in the more recent natural and social sciences were analyzed based on their relevance for a new perspective in project management. Selected results of the research program will be presented, including a short description of “Project Management Second Order (PM-2)” as a highlighted result and a new paradigm in project management.