Le métier de chef de projet comme activité prudentielle.. Enquête dans un groupe industriel du secteur de l'environnement

The paper, based on a survey conducted with project managers of an industrial group, sheds light on the effective content of project management. Indeed, whereas this task has a real social visibility, its content is not well known. This text mobilizes the categories of ?prudential activity? put forward by Florent Champy and shows that the project manager adopts a global view of his project, monitors the contingencies that may impede project progress, uses both his intuition and his experience to solve his problems and to arbitrate between conflicting requirements. The relationship of subordination that results from his status as an employee limits his autonomy, but also gives him organizational supports that consolidate his global view, his vigilance, and his intuition: prudence appears as a quality shared out within a narrow network of organizational devices.