Rethinking the Purpose and
Practice of Projects
SECOND EDITION
By Dr. Lisa M. Hammond, DBA, PMP
Muma College of Business and Honors College
University of South Florida
BHER Group LLC
Florida, USA
Abstract
Traditional project management frameworks prioritise delivery against predefined constraints of scope, schedule, and cost. While effective for execution, this paradigm externalises environmental and social impacts and locks in unsustainable outcomes early in the project lifecycle, where between 70 and 90 percent of lifecycle impact is determined (Bragança et al., 2014; Buyle et al., 2013). This paper introduces Regenerative Project Management (RPM) as a reorientation of project practice from delivery-focused execution to systems-based stewardship. Drawing on biomimicry, circular economy principles, and adaptive governance, RPM reframes projects as interventions within interconnected ecological and organisational systems. The framework extends the conventional lifecycle with Phase 0 (Regenerative Opportunity Assessment) before initiation and Phase 6 (Regenerative Completion and Return) beyond closure, and embeds four Regenerative Decision Gates (Regenerative Potential, Circular Design, Waste Minimisation, and Ecosystem Health) that evaluate regenerative trajectory in parallel with traditional performance metrics. Through conceptual development, four practitioner tools, and a 1.2 billion dollar, 500-plus-organisation case from the 2020 Oklahoma COVID-19 response, the paper demonstrates how early-stage decisions determine the majority of lifecycle impacts, positioning project managers as critical agents of long-term value creation rather than short-term delivery. Embedding regenerative principles into project governance can shift organisations from extractive, linear models toward adaptive, resilient systems aligned with broader ecological and societal outcomes.
Keywords: regenerative project management, biomimicry, circular economy, project governance, Life’s Principles, decision gates, project lifecycle, stewardship
- Introduction: The Purpose Problem
A project manager in 2026 faces a strange inheritance. The tools have never been more sophisticated. The certifications have never been more standardised. The body of knowledge has never been more comprehensive. And yet the outcomes the profession is being asked to deliver increasingly exceed what the profession was built to do. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the Sustainable Development Goals, and a rising tide of net-zero commitments all land, at the level of actual delivery, on the desks of project managers working within a lifecycle designed for a different world.
Conventional project management asks a narrow question. Did the project deliver what it was chartered to deliver, on time, within budget, to specification, with stakeholders signed off? That question served a world in which the project’s downstream effects were invisible to the project’s accounting. It does not serve the world we actually work in now (Silvius & Schipper, 2019; Martens & Carvalho, 2017).
The purpose problem is not that project managers are failing at their jobs. It is that the job itself has been defined too narrowly for the outcomes society now expects projects to produce. A project that delivers its scope on time and within budget can still generate stranded assets, locked-in emissions, materials that cannot be recovered, and community impacts that metastasize long after the project closure ceremony. These are not side effects. They are structural consequences of a lifecycle that concentrates governance attention on execution and leaves the highest-leverage decisions, what the project is, whether it should exist, what it will leave behind, largely outside the project manager’s formal remit (Geraldi & Söderlund, 2018).
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Editor’s note: Second Editions are previously published papers that have continued relevance in today’s project management world, or which were originally published in conference proceedings or in a language other than English. Original publication acknowledged; authors retain copyright. This paper was originally presented at the 18th Project Management Symposium at the University of Texas at Dallas in May 2026. It is republished here with permission of the author and conference organizers.
How to cite this paper: Hammond, L. M. (2026). Regenerative Project Management: Rethinking the Purpose and Practice of Projects; Originally presented at the 18th Project Management Symposium at the University of Texas at Dallas in May, republished in the PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue VII, July. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/pmwj166-Jul2026-Hammond-Regenerative-Project-Management-UTD-1.pdf
About the Author
Dr. Lisa M. Hammond
Florida, USA
Dr. Lisa M. Hammond, DBA, PMP, is a scholar-practitioner and adjunct faculty member at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business and Honors College, where she teaches project management at the undergraduate and MBA levels. She holds a DBA from USF and is completing an MS in Biomimicry at Arizona State University under Dr. Dayna Baumeister. She is the author of the forthcoming Routledge book Introducing Regenerative Project Management (September 2026) and operates BHER Group LLC, a research and consulting vehicle focused on regenerative governance and nature-inspired organisational design. Her 40-plus years of executive practice include coordinating a 1.2 billion dollar federal emergency response in Oklahoma in 2020 involving more than 500 organisations, the governance dynamics of which informed her doctoral research on Commander’s Intent and much of the framework presented here. She holds PMP, SAFe SPC, and CSM certifications. Contact: Hammond1@usf.edu
