A “beliefs of the future” framework: Addressing project management tactics to harness the power of disappointment

For projects to be successful, expectations need to be met. This has been a rule of thumb for project managers for ages. However, as expectations differ from person to person, from stakeholder to stakeholder, it can be difficult, even impossible, to meet.
In this position paper, I show how the common assumption of considering expectations as absolute and immovable will have a tendency to end with disappointment, and that disappointment does not necessarily need to be avoided. The research question being addressed is to identify project management reactions that can be used when expectations change. A single case study of an IT implementation in the pre-hospital sector is used to find that disappointment is not an absolute negative for projects. Rather, disappointment can be conceptualised as a range that can be viewed as positive or negative for further motivation of the project.