Abstract This study answers a call for more qualitative research on project management to unveil “what goes on in social construction of projects and project management”. More precisely, we focus on how trust and control are balanced in an inter-organizational project collaboration in the Norwegian petroleum industry. Our findings suggest that balancing trust and control is a significant part of the project manager role. We claim that this area is both neglected in education and training and under-researched. The aim of the paper is to provide more knowledge on the trust-control dilemma in project management. Our qualitative approach provides rich empirical examples of dilemma situations and how balancing trust and control take place in a real-life project management context. The data was collected between 2010 and 2013 and consists of observational data from project meetings, document analysis and interviews.