How Positive Psychology can Support Sustainable Project Management

In this chapter, the relationship between positive psychology and sustainable project management is discussed. A general description of the field of positive psychology is given. The relationship between positive psychology and the three P’s of sustainability (People, Planet, and Profit) is described. Specific attention is paid to hope and optimism as ways to intervene in project teams. Hope and optimism are central concepts in positive psychology. These concepts can help to improve the sustainability of project teams and to stimulate sustainable change. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND In this chapter, sustainable project management is studied from a psychological perspective. The field of project management evolved from the use of mathematical calculation models to a field concerned with change management and the roll of behavior involved in these change processes (Silvius & Schipper 2012). We can see an increasing awareness that human behavior is crucial for project success (Kahkonen et al., 2009), therefore human behavior is the central perspective for this chapter. The knowledge from the new scientific field of positive psychology will be used to study sustainable project management. More specifically, attention will be paid to the role of positive emotions, optimism and hope. This knowledge will provide us with insights in the way positive psychological approaches to project management will increase the sustainability of projects. This perspective is taken because a large number of studies both on sustainability and project management are ‘problem focused’. They are concentrating on ways to prevent problems, like risk management (Raz & Michael, 2001), stress Jasper C. van den Brink HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, The Netherlands DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4852-4.ch053