Project management

CHAPTER 6

CULTURErefers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities

significance and importance.

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CULTURE

• it is the most significant characteristic of companies that are excellent in project management.

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Corporate Values

• An important part of the culture in establishing an excellent company.

Four (4) basic values of project management• Cooperation• Teamwork• Trust• Effective communication

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Types of Culture

• Cooperative culture – These are based upon trust and effective communication, not only internally but externally as well.

• Non-cooperative Cultures- Employees worry more about themselves and their personal interests than the best for the team, company or customer.

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cont..

• Competitive culture: these culture force teams to compete with one another for valuable corporate resources.

• Isolated Culture: occur when a large organization allows functional units to develop their own project management culture.

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Cont..

• Fragmented Culture: Projects where part of the team is geographically separated from the rest of the team may result in a fragmented culture. It also allow multinational project.

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Corporate values at work

• Cooperative cultures are based on trust, communication, cooperation and teamwork.

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THE NF3 Project: Managing cultural Differences

• Creating Best Practices and Cultural Clashes = Mitsui chemicals is one of the largest chemical companies in Japan. Due to tremendous growth and the need for production in the US, a decision was made to conduct a technology transfer and build a new plant at their affiliate Anderson Development Company.

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ADC Mitsui

Practices

Centralized Decentralized authority Centralized Authority

Formalized Medium level of Formalization High level of formalization

Decision Making Individual decision making Consensual decision making

Communication Individually Group based

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• To overcome these barriers, The Mitsui and Anderson Company needed to find a way to use project management to overcome cultural differences while still satisfying each other needs. Time was spent listening to and understanding the rigid culture differences.

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MCI/ ADC

Practice Centralized Decentralized

Formalized High level formalization include project management templates and detailed roles and responsibility

Values Decision making Consensual decision making in design phase

Communication Group

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Multinational cultural issues should address and following

Integration Management • Clearly defined roles of project sponsors,

project manager and project members • Agreement on project management

methodologyScope management• Well documented assumption• Well documented charter and scope

statement

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Time management

Cost management

Procurement Management

Risk Management

Quality Management

Human Resource Management

Communication Management

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CHAPTER 7

Management SupportVisible support from Senior Managers

Companies excellent in project should posses the ff. characteristics

• Senior managers maintain a hands-off approach, but they are available when problems come up.

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• Senior managers expect to be supplied with concise project status reports.

• Senior managers practice empowerment.• Senior managers decentralize project authority

and decision-making.• Senior managers expect project managers and

their teams to suggest both alternatives and recommendations for solving problems, not just to identify the problems.

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Project Sponsorship

Executive project sponsors provide guidance for project managers and project teams. They are also responsible for making sure that the managers who lead functional departments fulfill their commitments of resources to the projects underway.

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• Sponsorship by Committee

As companies grow, it sometimes becomes impossible to assign a senior manager to every project, and so committees act in the place of individual project sponsors. In fact, the recent has been toward committee sponsorship in many kinds of organizations. A project sponsorship committee usually is made up of a representative from every function of the company: engineering, marketing, and production. Committees may be temporary, when a committee is brought together to sponsor one.

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• For example General Motors Power train had achieved excellence in using

committee sponsorship. Two key executives, the vice president of engineering and the vice president of operations, led the Office of Products and Operations, a group formed to oversee the management of all product programs. This group demonstrated visible executive- level program support and commitment to the entire organization. Their roles and responsibilities were to:

• Appoint the project manager and team as part of the charter process

• Address strategic issues• Approve the program contract and test for sufficiency• Assure program execution through regularly scheduled reviews with

program managers

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Phases of Project Sponsorship

• Helping the project manager establish the objectives of the project• Providing guidance to the project manager during the organization

and staffing phases• Explaining to the project manager what environmental or political

factors might influence the project’s execution• Establishing the project’s priority (working alone with other company

executive) and then informing the project manager about the project’s priority in the company and the reason that priority was assigned

• Providing guidance to the project manager in establishing the policies and procedures for the project

• Functioning as the contact point for customers and clients

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• Customer Relations

Customers prefer to have a direct path of communication open to their contractors’ executive managers. One contractor identified the functions of the executive project sponsor as:

• Actively participating in the preliminary sales effort and contract negotiations

• Establishing and maintaining high-level client relationships• Assisting project managers in getting the project underway

(planning, staffing, and so forth)• Maintaining current knowledge of major project activities• Handling major contractual matters• Interpreting company policies for project managers• Helping project managers identify and solve significant problems• Keeping general managers and client managers advised of

significant problems with projects

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CHAPTER 8

Training and Education

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During the early days of project management, in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, training courses concentrated on the advantages and disadvantages of various organizational forms (e.g., matrix, traditional, functional). Executives learned quickly, however, that any organizational structure could be made to work effectively and efficiently when basic project management is applied Project management skills based in trust, teamwork, cooperation, and communication can solve the worst structural problems.

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• In 1970. The old training programs were replaced with two basic programs.

Basic project management = which stresses behavioral topics such as multiple reporting relationships, time management, leadership, conflict resolution, negotiation, team building, motivation, and basic management areas such as planning and controlling.

Advanced project management = which stresses scheduling techniques and software packages used for planning and controlling project

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SCHOOL OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• The SPM was started with the objective of providing only high-quality project management education for the South African community. The SPM’s approach to project management training is focused on the management of project in association with the use and application of integrated computer-based software packages such as those that would be part of a company’s Intranet project management system and the core for the development of a company-wide project management methodology.

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The core competencies developed by SPM include:

• Corporate strategy: Showing how the environment affects’s project performance, cost management, and trade-off analysis.

• Organization Behavior: Illustrating the importance of interpersonal relationship, leadership skills, managing conflict situation, and managing cultural diversity.

• Project Finance: Showing how to effectively participate in feasibility studies by making decisions based upon IRR values,NPV values profitability indices, determining payback periods, and the management of risks.

• Project Nigotiations: showing how to effectively negotiate for the required resources and/or deliverables. This is extremely important at all management levels and is often downplayed in it’s importance.

• Decision Support Systems: Using linear and goal-programming models to make the “RIGTH” decision in order to optimize the required outcome.

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IDENTIFYING NEED FOR TRAINING

• Identifying the need for training requires that line managers and senior managers recognize two critical factors: first, that training is one of the fastest ways to build project management knowledge in a company and, second, that training should be conducted for the benefit of the corporate bottom line through enchanced efficiency and effectiveness.

• • The benefits can be classified according to

quantitative benefits.

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The quantitative results include:

• Shorter products development time• Faster higher-quality decisions• Lower costs• Higher profit margins• Fewer people needed• Reduction in paper work• Improved quality and reliability• Lower turnover of personnel• Quicker “best practices” implementation

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Qualitative result include:

• Better visibility and focus on results• Better coordination• Higher morale• Accelerated development of managers• Better control• Better customer relations• Better functional support• Fewer conflicts requiring senior management

involvement

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Informal Project Management

• Informal Versus Formal Project Management• Formal project management has always been

expensive. As project management became established, formal documentation was created mostly for the costumer. Instructors began managing more informally, while the costumer was still paying for formal management documentation.

• Paperwork is expensive. Even a routine handout for a team meeting can cost 500 to 2000 per page to prepare.

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• Policies and procedures represent formally. Checklists represent informally. But in formality does not eliminate project paperwork altogether. It reduces paperwork requirements to minimally accepted levels. To move from formality demands a change in organizational culture. The four basic elements of an informal culture are these are:

• Trust• Communication• Cooperation• Teamwork

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• TRUSTTrusting everyone involved in executing a project is critical.

CommunicationIn traditional, formal organizations, employees usually claim that communication is poor. Senior managers, however, usually think that communication in their company is just fine. Why the disparity? In most companies, executives are inundated with information communicated to them through frequent meetings and dozens of weekly status reports coming from every functional area of the business. Mostly project managers prefer to communicate verbally and informally.

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• Teamwork

In excellence companies, teamwork has these characteristics:

• Employees and managers share ideas with each other and establish high levels of innovation and creativity in work groups.

• Employees and managers trust each other and are loyal to each other and the company.

• Employees and managers are committed to the work they do and the promises they make.

• Employees and managers share information freely.• Employees and managers are consistently open and honest with

each other.