Project Transitions—Navigating Across Strategy, Delivery, Use, and Decommissioning

Depending on the sector and type of deliverable (e.g., infrastructure or software), many projects can be understood along the lines of a time-based ‘system’s life.’ This early model suggests that the elements of a system’s life can be understood as a relatively consistent sequence of four phases: strategic planning; construction and development (delivery); operations and use; and decommissioning and replacement. While a great deal of research focuses on the specificities of various project phases, there are a number of technical, organizational, economic, and managerial challenges relating to the transitions across the phases. Surprisingly, transition-related project phenomena remain remarkably under-investigated. As illustrated in the time-based perspective of the conceptual figure below, we often see three main project transition points in practice (represented as stars). Addressing transitional issues in projects is important not only for creating projects that deliver value to their respective organizations, users, and operators but also to maintain a more effective delivery while moving from one phase to the next. Transitional issue examples include, but are far from limited to, challenges such as the handover of data and knowhow, change in the workforce, and scope management. We solicit theoretical and empirical contributions on any projectrelated topic concerning transitions. One may choose to focus on transitions across the temporal phases of the system’s life as the main conceptual framework. However, we strongly encourage contributions addressing project transitions under new or different conceptual lenses.