Towards a reflective approach to research project management

This chapter describes how we supported the project leaders of TATA-BOX in their task of designing a management system for the project. We did so by fuelling their reflectivity: rather than making suggestions on how to manage the project - in a normative approach -, we analysed the on-going project management and mirrored what had been done after a year. The TATA-BOX project leaders would thus be able to decide how to adjust their management and to carry on - in a reflective approach. We report on this process in this chapter: after giving some theoretical background on the concept of reflectivity and its role in helping the project leaders to manage TATA-BOX, we describe: (1) how we worked with them over 6 months, 1 year after the project began, and (2) the different methods we used to meet the project leaders' expectations. We then discuss the efficiency of these methods, their effects on the management of the project, and some lessons learned for the management of such research projects generally.