The Engineering Project as Story and Narrative

Engineers most often organise their work in projects and consequently project management becomes an essential part of an engineer’s work and working life in general. Even if most engineers are trained in project management, it seems that this is a challenge to most engineers. It also seems that the traditional project management tools are not always sufficient when it comes to managing engineering projects. In this chapter, an engineering project is examined, and it turns out that the language, the stories, and the narratives connected to the project is of greater importance to the engineers than the formal project management tools that were offered to the engineers. It also turns out that the term “project” could itself be a problem when it comes to fulfilling the project goals. Therefore, it is concluded that when working on engineering projects, language, stories, and narratives are just as important to the engineers as any other element in the project.