Managing Beyond the Comfort Zone: An Exploratory Study of IS Project Managers

Authors

Tracey Neil, National Bank of New Zealand
Pak Yoong, Victoria University of Wellington

Abstract

This paper reports preliminary results from a case research on the question of how project managers adapt to managing IS projects when the project is beyond their comfort zone. ‘Comfort zone’ is used in this study to denote the area or areas in which a project manager has technical expertise, or a background in a particular area of IS, and at the same time a good understanding of project management methodologies. The main finding from this study is the development of an emergent model of Active Knowledge Gapping which describes the processes that project managers use when they adapt to managing IS projects which are beyond their comfort zone.

Recommended Citation

Neil, Tracey and Yoong, Pak (2001) "Managing Beyond the Comfort Zone: An Exploratory Study of IS Project Managers," Journal of Information Systems Education: Vol. 12 : Iss. 2 , 73-80.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol12/iss2/4