Abstract
Project managers commonly adopt suboptimal work plans, even when optimal plans are readily accessible. This research identifies a factor that elicits this seemingly irrational behavior: the perceived complexity of the optimal work plan, as reflected in the plan’s Gantt chart representation. Four controlled experiments show that among experienced project managers presented with a work plan explicitly stated to be optimal, those who view a low-complexity plan are more likely to adopt the plan compared with project managers who view a high-complexity plan. Work-related stress triggered by exposure to the work plan is shown to mediate the effect.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 471-487 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Project Management Journal |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 Project Management Institute, Inc.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the esearch, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Keywords
- Gantt chart
- behavioral optimum
- motivation in project management
- optimal Gantt chart
- project complexity
- project planning
- software project management