Project managers’ and change managers’ contribution to success

Purpose – Many projects involve an organisational change component. Project management (PM) and change management (CM) have the potential to jointly contribute to the delivery of organisational changes. However, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the boundary and relationship between these disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution these disciplines make to a set of project critical success factors, to understand the ways that these disciplines can most effectively work together. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses data collected through an online survey, examining project managers’ and change managers’ perception of each disciplines’ contribution to critical success factors. The survey received 455 responses. Findings – This paper identifies the success factors that are most clearly influenced by PM and CM, and areas where practitioners of these disciplines hold significantly different perceptions of their contributions. The results have been used to rank and categorise success factors based on the influence of each discipline. This has been used to develop a risk-based questionnaire to guide the contribution of PM and CM to the mitigation of specific project risks. Originality/value – These findings will be of use to practitioners managing organisational change projects, or projects with a significant change component. The findings will be of assistance in determining the ways in which these disciplines should work together to mitigate risks associated with specific critical success factors.