A vanguard project is the firm’s entrepreneurial vehicle for exploring opportunities, creating new products, services or markets. This type of projects requires flexibility and innovation to thrive. In this regard, a creative approach to project management is proposed for the successful execution of such projects. This creative approach is summarized in a framework that consists of two main components – flexible planning and creative climate.

The Central Services project, a vanguard in telecommunications, was used to benchmark the creative project management framework to the current project management methodology of the IT department of TIWS. Results show that there is a gap between the framework and the status quo. Moreover, the Central Services project is not efficiently and effectively managed, therefore, resulting to project delays which consequentially lead to negative company revenues. This reality strengthens the proposition that vanguard projects should be managed differently; hence, the birth of creative project management.