Project Governance, An essay on the business policy approach as applied to the governance of megaprojects

Abstract

The literature addressing the subject of projects and megaprojects governance is somewhat incipient and ambiguous. This work aims at a discussion of the possible contribution of the business policy approach as a means to overcome this gap in the practical governance of megaprojects. The category of megaprojects was chosen because they are organizations with some resemblance to companies in the wider sense of the word, despite some fundamental differences. Within the scope of megaprojects, we find a governance architecture that parallels the double tier of traditional corporate governance models. Project directors usually have a team similar to that of traditional companies. This can be envisioned as the executive board or managing structure of a traditional company. But these sorts of projects generally have a project steering committee, which is a non-executive governing structure addressing the scope of the project and which broadly considered might be compared with the non-executive board (or supervisory council) from traditional organizations. We propose for discussion an example of double tier project governance, approached from a business policy viewpoint, distinguishing executive from non-executive roles. The text ends by addressing the institutional configuration area of business policy in the context of megaprojects, as well as a reflexion on the validity of the points of view proposed.