Rethinking Project Management and
Decision-Making in an Age of
Permanent Uncertainty
FEATURED PAPER
By Prof. Dr. M. F. HARAKE
MESOS Business School (France)
GBSB Global Business School (Malta)
CEREGE Research Laboratory, University of Poitiers (France)
Abstract
Crises are increasingly normalized in contemporary project environments, challenging classical project management assumptions that uncertainty is temporary and reducible through planning, control, and risk rationality. This article reframes crises not merely as operational disruptions but as epistemic events that reveal the strengths and limits of dominant project management knowledge systems. Building on the French management formulation “crisis of knowledge, knowledge of crisis”, the analysis advances a dual argument. First, crises expose a crisis of knowledge: frameworks oriented toward prediction, linear causality, and methodological control become fragile in contexts marked by non-linearity, emergent dynamics, fragmented expertise, information saturation, and epistemic overconfidence. Under systemic uncertainty, risk registers, dashboards, and expert models may generate an illusion of control while obscuring meaning, delaying response, and producing misalignment across stakeholders and governance levels. Second, crises simultaneously generate a knowledge of crisis: adaptive forms of understanding emerge through practice, improvisation, transdisciplinary coordination, and accelerated feedback. This knowledge is tacit, situated, and relational, enabling action before certainty is possible and revealing how projects function when formal routines collapse. Yet crisis-generated insights are frequently marginalized after stabilization, as organizations revert to compliance-driven “lessons learned” and reassert familiar epistemic frameworks. To address this gap, the article proposes a shift from knowledge accumulation to knowledge navigation, an epistemic orientation that treats uncertainty as informative, privileges sensemaking and integration over exhaustive prediction, and redefines rigor as disciplined action under ambiguity. The implications are significant for leadership and governance: project leaders must facilitate collective understanding with epistemic humility, while governance systems should enable flexibility, iterative decision-making, and institutional learning that preserves crisis knowledge across projects. The article concludes by outlining avenues for empirical, comparative, and longitudinal research on crisis knowledge production, loss, and institutionalization.
Key Words: Crisis as epistemic event, Crisis of knowledge, Knowledge of crisis, Sensemaking, Knowledge navigation.
1. Introduction: Crises as Epistemic Events in Project Environments
1. 1 Uncertainty in Classical Project Management
Classical project management theory is fundamentally grounded in the assumption that uncertainty is a temporary and manageable condition. Through detailed upfront planning, standardized methodologies, risk identification, and control mechanisms, uncertainty is expected to be progressively reduced as a project advances from initiation to closure (Turner, 2008; Kerzner, 2009; Turner, 2008; PMI, 2021). Within this paradigm, deviations from plan are framed as risks to be mitigated, exceptions to be corrected, or failures of execution rather than as inherent features of project work. Stability, predictability, and control are implicitly treated as attainable and desirable outcomes of project activity.
This understanding of uncertainty reflects an underlying epistemological stance in which projects are viewed as bounded systems operating in relatively stable and knowable environments. Knowledge is assumed to be available, measurable, and progressively refined over time, enabling managers to transform uncertainty into calculable risk through analysis and forecasting (March 1991; Flyvbjerg, 2014). Under such conditions, effective project management consists primarily of selecting and applying the appropriate tools, techniques, and governance structures to optimize performance against predefined objectives (Morris, 2013; PMI, 2021).
1.2 Normalization of Crisis in Contemporary Project Environments
This classical assumption is increasingly challenged by the nature of contemporary project environments. Over the past two decades, projects have been repeatedly exposed to crises that are systemic rather than incidental. Global pandemics, climate-related disruptions, geopolitical instability, supply chain breakdowns, financial volatility, and rapid technological change have become recurring features of the contexts in which projects are conceived and delivered (Boin et al., 2016; Flyvbjerg, 2014). Rather than appearing as exceptional disturbances, these crises increasingly shape project lifecycles, governance arrangements, and stakeholder relationships from the outset.
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How to cite this work: Harake, M. F. (2026). The Crisis of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Crisis: Rethinking Project Management and Decision-Making in an Age of Permanent Uncertainty, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue I, January. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pmwj160-Jan2026-Harake-The-Crisis-of-Knowledge.pdf
About the Author
Prof. Dr. M. F. HARAKE
Poitiers, France
Prof. Dr. M. F. HARAKE is a management professor based in France. He currently serves as the Assistant General Manager and Dean of Academic Affairs at MESOS Business School (France). In addition, he is the Manager of the Research Center at GBSB Global Business School (Malta). He is also affiliated as an Associate Research Fellow at the CEREGE Research Laboratory, University of Poitiers (France). Prof. Harake’s research interests include Post-Conflict Public Management, Crisis and Urgent Operations Management, Humanitarian Logistics, and Project Management in Unstable Environments. His academic and professional contributions focus on bridging strategic theory with high-impact practical execution, especially in volatile and complex contexts.
He can be contacted at mfharake@mesos-bs.com
To view other works by Prof. Harake, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/mohamad-fadl-harake/
