August/September 2015 ■ Project Management Journal ■ DOI: 10.1002/pmj 3 Project Management Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4, 3–5 © 2015 by the Project Management Institute Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pmj.21519 Photo credit: Markus Bullick From the Editor Hans Georg Gemünden, Dr. rer. oec. habil., Dr. h.c. rer. oec. et soc., Chair for Technology and Innovation Management, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany Written in collaboration with Monique Aubry, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada Success, Learning, and Risk This issue of Project Management Journal ® offers insight- ful views on three major intertwined themes: success, learning, and risk. The first article proposes a new con- ceptualization of success factors within a project decision chain. Very complementary to project success are three articles, which bring our attention to different facets of education in project management. Two articles focus on the role of onsite project management learning, whereas the other one compares engineering education in project management in two different countries. Finally, there are three articles concerned with risks—all three hav- ing strong pragmatic implications for project success in three different situations: public–private partnerships, infrastructure projects, rework projects, and green retrofit projects. It is worth mentioning that in this issue, several arti- cles offer the innovative methodology research approach. For example, two articles adopted a data collection strat- egy based on the critical incident interviewing technique based on Flanagan’s (1954) work in psychology. This technique aims at distinguishing between a demonstrated behavior and the perception of an individual’s behavior. For example, Dillon and Taylor in this issue ask the par- ticipants in their research to describe a critical situation (memorable, nontrivial) from a recent project where they managed a difficult situation. One explanation of the interest in exploring methodologies might be a positive outcome of the efforts made in recent years to promote novel approaches in methodologies (Müller, 2015). We hope you will enjoy reading these seven articles! The first article in this issue offers a fresh look at suc- cess factors when considered within a decision-making process. In this invited article, “Project Decision Chain,” Asbjørn Rolstadås, Jeffrey K. Pinto, Peter Falster, and Ray Venkataraman propose revisiting success factors within the decision-making process, a core process of project management activities. Inspired by the concept of supply chain and the value added to raw material along the chain of activi- ties, they elaborate on the project decision chain making decisions as primitive elements along the project life cycle, where they add value to the overall project perfor- mance. Foundations of this model have been found in the supply chain process, the decision-making process, deci- sion-making tools, and applications. The article adopts a step-by-step approach to bringing the reader along the development of the model: primitive elements, project decision chain within the project life cycle, networks of decision elements, and finally, the project decision chain management structure. The editor of this article was Hans Georg Gemünden. The second article from François Chiocchio, François Rabbat, and Paule Lebel, “Multi-Level Efficacy Evidence of a Combined Interprofessional Collaboration and Proj- ect Management Training Program for Healthcare Project Teams,” makes a valuable contribution to the particular topic of education in project management. Scholars in project management are not very active in education research. In this article, Chiocchio et al. adopt a very pragmatic approach in a unique field in the healthcare sector. This research provides an insightful context in which healthcare professionals not trained in project management and collaboration were constantly faced with projects in their day-to-day lives. Aren’t similar situ- ations encountered in various organizations and sectors? The article is based on quantitative data collected over the course of 36 weeks after three half-day training work- shops for 14 interprofessional healthcare project teams. Globally, their findings show positive results in terms of efficacy of the training in project management and col- laboration as well as valuable for the organization. The authors also recognize the limitations of this article, given the small size of the sample and the difficulty in captur- ing longitudinal data. The specific case of this research was effective and had positive results on project manage- ment: individual, team, and project-level results showed high satisfaction and perceptions of utility; improved self-efficacy for project-specific task work and teamwork; increased goal clarity and coordination; and a significant impact on the functional performance of projects. This study provides initial benchmark measures regarding the pertinence of project management and interprofessional collaboration training for healthcare project teams. The editor of this article was Hans Georg Gemünden.