Managing big projects with multiple organisations involves sophisticated and well-established routines, loaded with established tools and techniques. And yet figures suggest around a third of projects don't achieve their goals. What's going wrong? Christine Unterhitzenberger believes there needs to be more attention to how people are treated and highlights the importance of fairness in the working environment.

Projects can get messy. Not only are they often made up of temporary groups of different organisations, they are temporary organisations in themselves: a thrown together assortment of different individuals in terms of work culture, knowledge, fields of expertise, practices, resources and roles. Being temporary, it's harder for project team members to learn to work together, identify with each other, and to fully immerse themselves in the activities and goals involved.

And due to various pressures, it's also an environment that can become adversarial. In our research, speaking with project team members, we heard how the pressure of projects led to situations involving 'unfair' treatment, so treatment not based on principles of equality and justice. Project team members talked about examples of the client being 'inauthentic', of favouritism, disregarding views and dogmatism, 'destructive' behaviours, as well as general disagreements and grievances. Instances of unfairness lead to the undermining of trust, increasing suspicion and a cycle of a lack of engagement, understanding and communication; all of which has an effect on how projects are carried out and their likelihood of success.

Large-scale projects are fraught with these kinds of people factors. But these essential issues have also tended to be overlooked, not considered in the detail needed. This may well be because the managers and other staff involved see themselves as professionals, working in rational ways according to professional processes in order to get the job done. Success, in their eyes, has nothing to do with 'fairness' towards team members. Being 'fair' is associated with 'good' or 'nice' which appears to have nothing to do with the working mechanics of projects.

Project underperformance is a major economic issue. Billions of pounds are invested each year in projects internationally, and much of it is money that comes from taxpayers. In this context, it's becoming increasingly critical that alternative approaches are found which are not solely focused on tools and techniques. Project team members need to feel they are being valued and treated fairly, that there is a basis of ]ustice' that can be used to build trust, confidence and better working practices.

JUST US

The basic components of fair project working are the three dimensions to 'organisational justice'.

These are: distributive justice, so how the project resources are distributed (the time, the fees, the people); procedural justice, in terms of decision­making, what the process is, who's involved in it and how transparent it is; and, interactional justice, how project team members are treated by the client, the levels of respect and dignity involved in those day-to-day interactions. It's on the basis of these three dimensions that project team members build their perception of whether they are being subject to fair or unfair treatment, and the extent to which they feel committed to the project.

In our research we've looked at how org ani sati on al justice influences project performance; and in each case there is evidence of the importance of 'fair' treatment of people. We spoke with project team professionals undertaking a variety ofroles, working on various types of projects. The majority of participants were highly experienced, with 82% having undertaken a role of project leader or higher in their organisation. The average work experience of participants was 11-15 years. From discussions of past projects it was found that proceduraljustice was the most influential in terms of impact on performance and likely success of projects, suggesting it is particularly important to pay attention to how decisions are made and to consider if the team members have the opportunity to contribute and provide input to the process. Distributive justice also has a significant impact on performance, which means that the distribution of resources requires attention to both meet needs and to ensure equity and equality.

Fundamentally, these kinds of insights into the psychosocial dimensions of projects provide the basis for changing the way in which projects are currently managed. They provide an alternative perspective to the current project management approaches to the design and implementation procedures, which enhances project performance. They also identify new areas of responsibility and activity, particularly for the members involved in project management from the client/sponsor organisation.

Clients or project sponsors need to become aware of the importance of fair principles and procedures in projects and their potential impact. And need to pay attention to the practical steps that can be taken, starting very early in the project when the team members first come together, in relation to the conscious implementation of organisational justice. These findings can be used to raise awareness of the need for clients/sponsors to design fair procedures for decision-making, distribute resources and outcomes in a fair way and to communicate these procedures and outcomes on an individual basis fairly.

Broken down to the individual dimensions of organisational justice we have the following recommendations for clients and project managers:

• Evaluate your project team member's need in respect of the distribution ofresources and ensure that equality and equity are considered.

• Make sure you have consistent and transparent procedures in place, which your project team members can participate in the implementation of.

• Share information appropriately, i. e. be able to justify why you share information and which information you share.

• Communicate truthfully.

• Consider respect, propriety and dignity when talking to your project team members.

Christine Unterhitzenberger is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Project Management.

c.unterhitzenberger®lancaster.ac.uk