I would like to examine in this week's questions two organizations that I have worked for. They will be similar in industry and field, but opposites in size. I stand of the opinion that the size has an effect on the type of structure and the types of methodologies that would be implemented. As in reference to the implementation of any process ie. Six Sigma quality, there are costs associated to this implementation. As an opportunity cost comparative to the consequences of errors or mistakes versus investing to the implementation; this is relative to the implementation of a PMO or a projectized organization, a maturity model or even the school of project methodology as promoted by many large organizations such as IBM or AT&T.
The first organization that I worked for is a large technology company dealing with security system integration. Stanley had over 10K employees. The other organization CBCI, in comparison, has 200 employees. The corporate culture for the Stanley was one where as a large ship had processes to help the machine work and progress, while CBCI as a smaller organization had an approach to be agile and able to maneuver to change nimbly and dynamically.
Project portfolio management has the objective to cut costs, properly allocate resources and determining if projects are worth their deployment being inline with the strategic objective. As one could be certain, no matter the stakeholder, they would want to ensure that they are making the most financially sound and least risky decision to project deployment. In Stanley being the large organization, they have a PMO with a school for project methodology that implements their adjusted PMI methods to their PMLC. Combined with a focus on continuous improvement, their "school" is able to make changes to ensure that methodologies are up-to-date for best practices. This is embedded within the culture, and as aforementioned this large ship that has investments to implement such practices to standardize and promote corporate-wide success. Challenges that could take place in this organization are that change is difficult to adapt to at times. As Kerzner discusses in his writings on best practices, "Corporate cultures make take a long time to create and put in place, but can be torn down overnight" (Kerzner, pg.272). This can pose as a challenge to the large organization, but is more likely to succeed as the structure in place has shown history of success and the continuous improvement ensuring best practices will help the PPM align in the best selections and decisions.
As for CBCI the smaller company, there is not the same structure. There is a strong emphasis on the PMs ability to perform at a high level without being part of a culture for many processes and structures. There have been attempts to create different structures, but it is relative to the size of the company and the direction that it is going. A booming industry with a strong revenue surge would definitely promote the standardization and its necessity and financial justification. The PPM is set by the highest of Stakeholders such as the CEO of the company, but as mentioned in the outline of this weeks note, there can be the difficult challenge as an arbitrary individual that may not share the view or perspective of a situation that could lead to hindering any adaptations or successful PPM models.
The challenges that are found in the McElroy case study range into the following:
- Arbitrary deadlines set without methodology
- Arbitrary decisions for projects made by staff without input from others
- Silo method of departments that resulted in poor communication
- Poor evaluation of strategic alignment of project selection
- Lack of understanding and definition of scope for projects
- Rudimentary PM methods from 80s did not evolve, especially in lieu of globalization environment of the 90s.
The upper management took a number of steps to address these challenges listed above:
- They implemented a software system that would serve as a tool to tracking, analyzing and managing projects that are in the pipeline.
- Addressing the silos of information and communication, McElroy was able to create a shared network to make all materials available including client communications, creating a dynamic and less restricted environment to working remotely with global clients etc...
- Instead of having line managers make decisions on technical specifications, there was the implication of the PM in the estimating stage of the project to ensure that the project transition was done as successfully as possible.