Author: Michel de Blois
This paper examines the phenomenon that allows the built environment (design) project to organize itself and carry out its objectives. The hypothesis states that: projects influence, transform and create the organizations and processes that conduct them, following a dynamic and iterative process, referred to as «self- organizing » and « structuring ». This « active organizing » process generates transformations – organizational and structural – conditioned by the very nature of the project itself. To support this assumption (hypothesis), an ontological frame, based on four categories of analysis has been devised, including: (a) organization and structures; (b) the project and its processes; (c) the artefact and its design, and; (d) actors’ dynamic. These knowledge fields are put in relations using systemic principles and tools within the paradigmatic frame of complexity. This research, through case studies and case surveys, explores the following topics:(1) the design thinking approach to projects and actors’ dynamic behavior ; (2) the informality of communications and coordination ; (3) contingency factors that influence the « structuring » of the temporary multiorganization – TMO; (4) the typologies of the TMO, and ; (5) the study of iterative processes and their influence on organizational structures. The analysis produced a set of seven results. They help validate sub-hypotheses that state that: a process of «self-organization » generates transformations – organizational and processual – linked to the specific nature of the project. Therefore, the project : (1) is conducted by both formalized and often linear management approaches as well as iterative design process, the former being non-linear and self-organizing and responding to systemic principles ; (2) contributes to create its own processes of development, and ; (3) constitutes a contingency factor that influences the structuring of the TMO that is created to conduct the project itself. Two important contributions are drawn from these conclusions : (1) the existence of inter-organizational work constellations; (2) the statement of the « organizing project » that, through the « self-organization » approach, « organizes » itself and the processes and organization that are created to conduct it.
