Verktækni - 2019, Page 111

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and interpersonal issues on a higher level—i.e. to deal with self-managerial challenges, communication
skills and cultural awareness—and the ability to deal with increased complexity. Similarly, agile
approaches will continue to be used as methods to better manage complexity through iterations and
dynamic approaches to project management.

We predict that project management as a profession will be increasingly valued in future, and that
project management standards and ethical codes of conduct will be increasingly important. Project
portfolios will link the shaping of strategy to execution, and boards of directors/boardrooms will
demand more information on planned and ongoing projects. Managers will serve as project sponsors
and have ownership of projects relating to other business areas, and they will be held accountable for
project outcomes. There will be more emphasis on projects as investments and for long-term gain.

Our findings are in line with some of the key references detailed in the literature review section of the
paper. There will be an increased demand for project management competency (Morris, 2013), the
discipline will focus more on the organisational context (Turner, Anbari and Bredillet, 2013; Pollack and
Adler, 2015; Geraldi and Söderlund, 2017), and higher levels of complexity will demand the professional
ability required to deal with them (Sveivik and Andersen, 2015; Dalcher, 2016).

The predicted trend of the project manager´s role is that it will require independent people who are able
to work in a self-reliant manner. This is to some extent the opposite of being a company employee. The
future professional project manager will increasingly assume the role of an internal or external
consultant on whom the project owner can rely when it comes to executing strategy and getting things
done. This trend should be taken into account when defining the professional standards of the project
management profession and shaping future educational and training programs for project managers.

As stated at the beginning, this paper is the last of three papers on project management in Iceland. It
illustrates how project management and the project management profession has crystalized within the
Icelandic society, a small Nordic community known for the independent character of its people, who
possess high levels of creativity and strong social capital. It also illustrates how a method from the world
of engineering, based on mathematical optimization and operational research has developed into a
substantial profession of well-equipped doers/achievers who can work both independently and with
others to shape our future.

This study—and the other two articles on the evolving on project management in Iceland—indicate that
the discipline of project management will play a significant role in defining organization theory in the
future, impact the role of line- and functional managers, and advance organizations towards a more
behaviourally-based set up. Project management (project, programme and portfolio management) is
the contemporary solution to our future need to deal with complexity through agility and versatility.