An exploratory study into the relationship and level of integration between project management and change management in a public utility

The focus of this study is to look at the relationship and level of integration between project management and change management. Organisations in the last 30 years have begun to discard the traditional organisation structure in favour for a more flexible and adaptable project based structure (Svejvig & Anderson, 2015). This has been in reaction to increased turbulence in the overall environment and increased complexity of organisations. The importance and perception of project management has dramatically expedited over the past number of years. Whilst many organisations are still predominantly formed and organised by the traditional 19th/20th century control based models (Thiry, 2011), many organisations have partially/fully integrated project management into their organisational structures. Organisations have recognised that they have must have the ability to adapt to change to survive. Most projects involve some component of change whether it’s changing work habits, cultural re-alignment and/or ensuring user uptake of a new system (Pollack & Algeo, 2014). As evident in the forthcoming literature review, there are a number of authors that make links between project management and change management. One such author Pollack (2016), suggests there is a need to integrate organisational project management and change management. Referring to them as separate disciplines, he recognises that both can work separately to deliver organisational change but when combined, they would possess a substantially greater chance of efficient and effective project delivery. This research paper focuses on this relationship between project management and change management and the potential integration of these disciplines. As identified by Prosci (2018), there are four core dimensions of integration, which are; people, process/methodology, tools and results/outcomes. These areas are recognised as the fundamental aspects of integration and will also provide structure to this study. Using a phenomenological philosophy, the purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of practitioners from both perspectives. Utilising purposive sampling, six semi structured interviews were conducted as the data collection mechanism. Ultimately, the findings were analysed and re-contextualized with the current literature resulting in a number of key recommendations for potential practitioners to around amalgamating both disciplines