The Role of Project Managers as Improvement Agents in Project-Based Organizations

We propose that the project manager is implicitly expected to participate in and contribute to continuous improvement in project-based organizations (PBOs). This article explores how project management literature treats the project manager in relation to improving overall PBO performance. The results, supported by case study insights, indicate implicit expectations of the project manager to contribute to organization-level PBO improvement. We argue that if organization-level improvement should be part of project management practice in PBOs, as promoted in project management literature, the role of improvement agent needs to be formalized for the project manager.