Archive for September, 2008

Project management standards – Diffusion and application in Germany and Switzerland (Ahlemann et al., in press)

Dienstag, September 30th, 2008

 roject management standards – Diffusion and application in Germany and SwitzerlandAhlemann, Frederik; Teuteberg, Frank; Vogelsang, Kristin: Project management standards – Diffusion and application in Germany and Switzerland; in: International Journal of Project Management, Article in Press, Corrected Proof.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.01.009Update: This article has been published in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 27 (2009), No. 3, pp. 292–303. This article discusses the use of standards and reasons behind that in detail. Instead of going in to these details I want to quickly focus on the more interesting aspects of this article, with three simple questions (1) Which standards do exist in the industry?, (2) What are the benefits of using them?, and (3) What holds us back?The standards used, and as such included in this survey, were

  • DIN 69901 – 69905
  • IPMA’s (International Project Management Association) International Competence Baseline (ICB)
  • ICB’s German cousin the PM-Fachmann, and PM-Kanon
  • ISO 10006
  • OPM3
  • PMBOK
  • Kerzner’s Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM)
  • PRINCE

What are the benefits of implementing and using a project management standards?

Better communication/consistent terminology Project stakeholders are able to communicate about project management aspects without friction. They experience that communication about project management issues becomes easier when there is a shared understanding of fundamental project management terms as expressed in a standard
Faster process implementation (Compliant) project management processes can be planned and introduced faster than without a standard
Better process quality Higher quality in terms of cycle times, process failures and achievement of objectives
Transfer of knowledge and best practices Improvements of project management competencies
Better recognition by customers/marketing effects Compliance as a cue of high project management competence for external stakeholders
Cost savings Costs reductions for setting up and running the project management system
Better team play More efficient project teams with better project results
Comparability with other internal organizational units Standards allow benchmarking/comparisons of processes and results with other internal organisational units
Comparability with other external organizational units Standards allow benchmarking/comparisons of processes and results with other external organisational units

What holds us back in implementing project management standards in practice?

Too theoretical Standards are highly abstract and theoretical, such it cannot be understood easily and applied efficiently
Lack of flexibility Standard not flexible enough for the requirements of a specific organization. Adaptation is either not foreseen or only hard to achieve
Not applicable to the specific implementation scenario Standard is generally not applicable since its premises do not match the characteristics of the affected organisation
Costs of change The costs of implementing the standard are too high
Administrational overheads The operation requires too high administrative overhead
Lack of acceptance The standard is not sufficiently accepted by staff members
Inefficient processes/practices Standard requires inefficient processes or practices. Instead of improving process performance, cycle times and process costs rise

The empirical results of this survey show that PMBOK is the most widely used standard in the sample. The second most commonly used standard is the ICB. Whereby the standard is rarely (in only 11% of cases) used as-is. Instead it is mostly adapted to the organisation or used as a pool of ideas.Secondly the list of benefits was tested against expectations before implementing standards and the captured benefits after the implementation. Expected benefits were

  • Improvement of communication regarding project management issues
  • Better process quality
  • Faster implementation of project management processes
  • Implementation of best practices

Of all benefits tested only the improvement of communications was taking place after implementing the standard.The authors identify lack of flexibility and adaptability as the major shortfall of standards. The main reasons for not applying a standard were

  • High administrative overhead
  • Lack of user acceptance
  • High costs

Posted in Standards | 4 Comments »

Investigating the use of the stakeholder notion in project management literature, a meta-analysis (Vos & Achterkamp, in press)

Dienstag, September 30th, 2008

 Investigating the use of the stakeholder notion in project management literature, a meta-analysis (Vos & Achterkamp, in press)

Achterkamp, Marjolein C.; Vos, Janita F.J.: Investigating the use of the stakeholder notion in project management literature, a meta-analysis; in: International Journal of Project Management, Article in Press, Corrected Proof.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.10.001

Managing the stakeholders is an, if not the most, important part of the project manager’s job. Previously Vos & Achterkamp published articles focussed on the identification of stakeholders, which is a crucial and not so simple task.“Basic, but not trivial“, as one of my Economics professors always used to say.

In this article, however, Vos & Achterkamp reviewed 42 articles in terms of

  • Definition of stakeholders
  • Purpose of stakeholder notion
  • Identification issues
  • Role of stakeholders

Analysing the commonly used definitions of stakeholders the authors identify two key theoretically based definitions – stakeholders could either be persons with an interest in the project, or persons who can or are affected by the project. One or both of these two definitions are used in only 16.6% of articles reviewed, the remaining articles mainly deal with this topic without defining the object stakeholder at all.

Why look at stakeholders? The purpose of the stakeholder notion is first and foremost to sense-making and defining success. Further purposes of stakeholder management are risk management, use as source of information, and using stakeholders as a management instrument.

The review of the identification issue, a topic close to the authors, shows that most articles only recognise the issue, or explain it partly. Only a minority of 4 articles (out of 42) recognises and explains the issue.

Lastly Vos & Achterkamp review the roles of stakeholders. For reasons of not only simplifying complexity down to a managable level, but also for overcoming issues of stakeholder identification stakeholders the authors suggest an explicit, structured, role-based identificiation procedure. Whilst they acknowledge that stakeholder salience model, as discussed in this earlier post, is the leading theoretical model of identifying stakeholder; the authors argue that the role-based stakeholder classification model for innovative projects is more promising.

„Considering stakeholders in terms of roles of involvement in the context of projects then raises the question of whether there is anything new. Indeed, thinking in terms of roles is not new in project management. Could project roles perhaps be used for stakeholder identification?“ (p. 4)

Vos & Achterkamp review three articles in detail, which use a role-based stakeholder classification model. These three articles define the following roles

  • Callan et al. (2008)
    • Controller
    • Executer
    • Constraining advisor
    • Discretionary advisor
  • Turner (2008)
    • Manager
    • Steward
    • Owner
    • User
    • Sponsor
    • Broker
    • Resources
  • Vos & Achterkamp (2006)
    • Client
    • Decision maker
    • Designer
    • Passively involved

Posted in Literature Review, Research, Stakeholder Management, Theory | 4 Comments »

Resource allocation under uncertainty in a multi-project matrix environment: Is organizational conflict inevitable? (Laslo & Goldberg, in press)

Mittwoch, September 24th, 2008

Resource allocation under uncertainty in a multi-project matrix environment: Is organizational conflict inevitable?

Laslo, Zohar; Goldberg, Albert I.: Resource allocation under uncertainty in a multi-project matrix environment: Is organizational conflict inevitable?; in: International Journal of Project Management, Article in Press (2008).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.10.003

Laslo & Goldberg investigate the conflicts associated with resource allocation. They find that the matrix structure has become the organisational from to go for, when it comes to efficiently managing a multi-project firm. Unfortunately the matrix structure has been criticised (see the PMBOK Guide) to inherently spark conflicts between line and project managers about resources. In a mulit-project firm, the authors conclude, this drawback is even worsened by the resource allocation fights between projects.

In order to model the problem Laslo & Goldberg analyse the three most common resource allocation policies, which are (1) Profit & Cost Centres (PC), (2) Comprehensive Allocation Planning (CA), and (3) Directed Priorities (DP). Profit & cost centre are synonymous with the maximum project autonomy. In comprehensive allocation planning each inidvidual project is only part of an organisation wide optimisation of resource allocation. Thirdly, in the policy of directed priorities, projects whose objectives are closer to the organisation’s strategic goals receive addtional resources/funding.

As often claimed 3 types of conflict are inherent in the matrix structure, when managers would fight for the right policy.
(1) DP vs. PC – internal Project would favour DP, whilst sponsored projects and functional units favouring PC
(2) PC vs. CA – functional units favouring PC, whilst sponsored and internal projects favour CA
(3) DP vs. CA – internal projects and functional units favour DP, whilst sponsored project favour CA

Using Foster’s theory of systems dynamics, the authors model these conflicts as a resource flow. The model contains feedback loops to model information flow into planning and runs several what if simulations.
In order to simulate with the model three organisational objectives are defined
a) Minimise delay losses (conflict DP vs. CA)
b) Minimise direct labour costs (favouring CA policy)
c) Minimise functional unit total costs (favouring PC)

As the authors put it: „Findings from the simulation suggest that not all conflict is realistic. For some project objectives, higher organizational performance can be achieved when managers learn that they have no basic differences in real interests and they can agree upon a resource allocation policy.“ That said, the results also show, that alliances between functional managers, internal venture project managers, and sponsored project managers are unstable. If resource scarcity comes into the equation, e.g, if resources can not be obtained externally, conflicts arise for sure.

Posted in Conflicts, Decision Making, Resource Allocation | 1 Comment »

Foundations of program management: A bibliometric view (Artto et al., in press)

Dienstag, September 23rd, 2008

Foundations of program management: A bibliometric view (Artto et al., in press)Artto, Karlos; Martinsuo, Miia; Gemünden, Hans Georg; Murtoaro, Jarkko: Foundations of program management – A bibliometric view; in: International Journal of Project Management, Article in Press, Corrected Proofhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.10.007Update: The article has been published in International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 27 (2009), No. 1, pp. 1–18. Artto et al. investigate the big question if programme management is much more than project management on a large scale. The authors review 517 programme management articles, 1164 project management articles from 21 years. They look into the various foundations of programme management research such as the level of analysis (organisation and its major parts), object of analysis (change of permanent organisation), outcomes of programmes (ambiguity & long-term impacts). Artto et al. also conclude that programmes might be similar to projects, that both management practices share common concepts, but that programmes should not be treated as scaled-up projects.Some more detail is provided regarding the themes, theories, and system thinking behind programme management. The themes, which the authors identified in the literature, are the origins of programme management. They find that programme management has its roots in manufacturing, quality, work and organisational change, and product development. Moreover they do assess the change of focus in these themes – whereas the organisational change is dominant for programmes and new product development is the dominant theme for project management.What is the specific systems thinking regarding programmes? Programmes are usually conceptualised as open systems. [An approach more and more followed in project management research as well.] Furthermore innovation is a major concern of programmes. As such open systems are typically used to innovate processes, organisations, and infrastructure. In contrast innovation using closed systems is more dominant in product development, which subsequently employs more projects than programmes to innovate.Moreover the authors explore the theoretical basis of programme management. They found this research deeply rooted in organisational and strategy theories. Additional theories used to explore this concepts are product development, organisational change, manufacturing, quality, economic, industrial, and institutional theories.Lastly, Artto et al. identify shortcomings of existing research on programme management, which are

  • Ignorance of original theoretical roots of program and project management
  • Neglect of inter-project coordination
  • Neglect of inter-organizational issues and theories
  • Limited contingency view
  • Lack of industry-specific views
  • Neglect of the interplay between the permanent and the temporary organization

Posted in Program Management | 2 Comments »

Enterprise information system project selection with regard to BOCR (Liang & Li, in press)

Dienstag, September 23rd, 2008

 Enterprise information system project selection with regard to BOCR (Liang & Li, in press)

Liang, Chao; Li, Qing: Enterprise information system project selection with regard to BOCR; in: International Journal of Project Management, Article in Press, Corrected Proof
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.11.001

Lots of consultants earn their money with selecting the right IT system. I have seen the most bizarre total-cost-of-ownership (TOC) calculations to get to it and witnessed the political madness which comes with buying-center decisions in never ending rounds of assessment workshops.

Liang & Li claim that „a comprehensive and systematic assessment is necessary for executives to select the most suitable project from many alternatives.“ Furthermore they claim that „This paper first proposes a decision method for project selection.“ However, the authors apply a analytical hierarchy/network process (AHP/ANP) to this decision-making predicament. They suggest breaking down the decision unsing their mulit-criteria BOCR framework, with the dimensions of benefits (B), opportunities (O), costs (C), and risks (R).

In the case of an manufacturing system, described in that article, the benefits consist of time gained, costs saved, service improvements, capacity increase, and quality improvements. The opportunities are an increased market share, fast ROI and payback period, and the ability for agile manufacturing. The risks associated with this MES are budget overruns, time delays, and several technological risks, e.g., reliability, flexibility, ease of use. Lastly Liang & Li break down the costs into software, implementation, taining, maintenance, upgrade, and costs for existing systems.

Posted in Decision Making, IT Project, Project Selection | No Comments »

Understanding time delay disputes in construction contracts (Iyer et al. 2008) & Delays in construction projects (Sweis et al., 2008)

Dienstag, September 23rd, 2008

Sources and categories of delay in construction

Iyer, K.C.; Chaphalkar, N.B.; Joshi, G.A.: Understanding time delay disputes in construction contracts; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 2, pp. 174-184.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.05.002

Sweis, G.; Sweis, R.; Hammad, A. Abu; Shboul, A.: Delays in construction projects – The case of Jordan; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 6, pp. 665-674.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.09.009

In my recent obsession with delays [it’s quite sarcastic, I know], I read through these two articles on delays in the construction industry.
Sweis et al. analyse sources of delays on construction projects. The authors identify three main categories contributing to delays –  internal environment, exogenous factors, and input factors.
Internal environmental factors are financial difficulties, poor planning & scheduling, and too many change orders. Exogenous factors found are severe weather and changes in government or regulation laws. The input factor causing delay was a shortage of manpower.

In the second article Iyer et al. look into the contractual strings attached to delays. Therefore they categorise delays in excusable vs. non-excusable. Excusable delays are

  • Labour disputes
  • Force majeure
  • Unusual delay in deliveries
  • Unavoidable delay
  • Unforseen delay in transportation
  • Other unforseeable causes

Non-excusable delays and therefore punishable by fines are

  • Ordinary weather
  • Subcontractor delay
  • Contractor’s failure to coordinate the project site
  • Contractor financing problems
  • Contractor failure to ramp-up
  • Delay in obtaining materials
  • Poor workmanship

[On how many IT projects have I seen non-excusable delays which were excused.]
Lastely, Iyer et al. identify the origins of disputed delays, they were due to

  • Handover on site
  • Release mobilisation advance
  • Late receipt/checking of drawings
  • Accidents
  • Temporary stoppage
  • Re-work
  • Extra work

Posted in Contracting, Critical Chain | 1 Comment »

Leadership for future construction industry – Agenda for authentic leadership (Toor & Ofori, 2008)

Montag, September 22nd, 2008

 Leadership for future construction industry

Toor, Shamas-ur-Rehman; Ofori, George: Leadership for future construction industry – Agenda for authentic leadership; in: International Journal of Project Management, in press (2008).

Ever since Bill George popularized the meme „authentic leadership“ more and more articles pop up investigating this concept. In George’s words ‚authentic leadership‘ is simply just being yourself. Leadership is authenticity, not style! This includes building your own leadership style, adapting it to different situations, but also realising which weaknesses you have. Enough said – a summary can be found here.

Toor & Ofori look into the authentic leadership concept and root the ’new‘ way of leading on three antecedents – (1) image/style of the traditional project manager, (2) postitive mediation of leadership antecedents, and (3) positive environmental context. Thus allowing the authentic leader to develop, where leaders achieve awareness, can process unbiased, showthe distinct/authentic behaviour, and develop a relational orientation.
In Toor & Ofori’s article such a developmental process leads to an authentic leader who is characterised by

  • Confidence
  • Hopefulness
  • Optimism
  • Resilience
  • Transparency
  • Moral/Ethics
  • Future orientation
  • Associate building

Posted in Leadership | 2 Comments »

Factors influencing the selection of delay analysis methodologies (Braimah & Ndekugri, 2008)

Montag, September 22nd, 2008

 Delay analysis

Braimah, Nuhu; Ndekugri, Issaka: Factors influencing the selection of delay analysis methodologies; in: International Journal of Project Management, in press (2008).

Delay analysis. What a great tool. Whoever fought a claim with a vendor, might appreciate this. Braimah & Ndekugri analysed the factors influencing the decision which delay-analysis to use. Their study was done in the construction industry where delay analysis is a common tool in claims handling. [On the other side, I have not seen a delay analysis done for a fight with a vendor on an IT project. There is so many things we can learn.]

The authors identify 5 different types of delay analysis.
(1) Time-impact analysis – the critical event technique – modelling the critical path before and after each event
(2) As-planned vs. as-built comparison – the shortcut – compare these two projections, don’t change the critical path, might skew the impact of the event if work wasn’t going to plan previously
(3) Impacted vs. as-built comparison  – the bottom-line – analyse the new date of completion, but no changes to critical path
(4) Collapsed vs. as-built comparison – the cumbersome – first an as-built critical path is calculated retrospectively (this is tricky and cumbersome), secondly all delays are set to zero = collapsing. The difference between these two completion dates is the total delay.
(5) Window analysis – the best of all worlds – the critical path is split into timeframes and only partial as-built critical paths are modelled. The total delay is the total delay of windows impacted by the event in question. Good way to break-down complexity and dynamics into manageable chunks.

In the second part [which I found less interessting, but on the other hand I never touched this interesting analytical subject of delay-analysis before] the authors explore the factors influencing the delay analysis used. The factors found are

  • Project characteristics
  • Requirements of the contract
  • Characteristics of the baseline programme
  • Cost proportionality
  • Timing of analysis
  • Record availability

Posted in Scheduling | 3 Comments »

A multicriteria satisfaction analysis approach in the assessment of operational programmes (Ipsilandis et al., 2008)

Montag, September 22nd, 2008

A multicriteria satisfaction analysis approach in the assessment of operational programmes (Ipsilandis et al., 2008)

Ipsilandis, Pandelis G.; Samaras, George; Mplanas, Nikolaos: A multicriteria satisfaction analysis approach in the assessment of operational programmes; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 6, pp. 601-611.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.09.003

Satisfaction measurement was one of my big things for a long time, when I was still working in market research. I still believe in the managerial power of satisfaction measurements, although you might not want to do it every 8 weeks rolling. Well, that’s another story and one of these projects where a lot of data is gathered for no specific decision-making purpose and therefore the data only sees limited use.

Anyway, Ipsilandis et al. design a tool to measure project/programme satisfaction for European Union programmes. First of all they give a short overview (for all the non-knowing) into the chain of actions at the EU. On top of that chain sit the national/european policies, which become operational programmes (by agreement between the EU and national bodies). Programmes consists of several main lines of actions called axis, which are also understood as strategic priorities. The axis are further subdevided into measures, which are groups of similar projects or sub-programmes. The measures itself contain the single projects, where the real actions take place and outputs, results, and impact is achieved. [I always thought that just having a single program management body sitting on top of projects can lead to questionable overhead.]

Ipsilandis et al. further identify the main stakeholders for each of the chain of policies –> projects. The five stakeholders are – policy making bodies, programme management authority, financial beneficiaries, project organisations, immediate beneficiaries. The authors go on to identify the objectives for each of these stakeholder groups. Then Ipsilandis et al. propose a MUSA framework (multi criteria satisfaction analysis) in which they measure satisfaction (on a five point scale, where 1=totally unsatisfied, and 5=very satisfied)

  • Project results
    • Clarity of objectives
    • Contribution to overall goals
    • Vision
    • Exploitation of results
    • Meeting budget
  • Project management authority operations
    • Submission of proposals
    • Selection and approval process
    • Implementation support
    • MIS support
    • Timely payments
    • Funding ~ Scope
    • Funding ~ Budget
  • Project Office support
    • Management support
    • Admin/tech support
    • Accounting dept. support
    • MIS support
  • Project Team
    • Tech/admin competence
    • Subproject leader
    • Staff contribution
    • Outsourcing/consultants
    • Diffusion of results

The authors then run through a sample report, which contains the typical representations of satisfaction scores, but they have 3 noteworthy ideas – (1) the satisfaction function, (2) performance x importance matrix, and (3) demanding x effectiveness matrix. The satisfaction function is simply the distribution function of satisfaction scores.
[I still do not understand why the line between 0% at score 1 and 100% at score 5 should represent neutrality – Such a line would assume uniform distribution of scores, where I think normal distribution is more often the case, which is also acknowledged by the authors, when they try to establish beta-weights via regression analysis, where normality is a pre-requisite for.]

Furthermore Ipsilandis et al. continue to establish the relative beta-weights for each item and calculate the average satisfaction index accordingly (satisfaction is indexed at 0% to 100%). Cutting-off at the centroid on each axis they span a 2×2 matrix for importance (beta-weight) vs. performance (satisfaction index). The authors call these diagrams „Action diagrams“.
[Centroid of the axis is just a cool way of referring to the mean.]

The third set of diagrams, the so called „Improvement diagrams“, are demanding vs. effectiveness matrices. The demanding dimension is defined by the beta-weights once more. The rational behind this thinking is, that a similar improvement leads to higher satisfaction at items with a higher beta-weight. The effectiveness dimension is the weighted dissatisfaction index. Simply put it is beta-weight*(100%-satisfaction index %). Reasoning behind this is to identify the actions with a great marginal contribution to overall satisfaction and only little effort needed.
[I still don’t understand why this diagram is needed, since the same message is conveyed in the ‚action diagrams‘ – anyway, a different way of showing it. Same, same but different.
What I previously tried to fiddle around with are log-transformations, e.g. logit, to model satisfaction indeces and their development in a non-linear fashion, instead of just weighting and normalising them. Such a procedure would put more importance on very low and very high values, following the reasoning, that fixing something completely broken is a big deal, whereas perfecting the almost perfect (think choosing the right lipstick for Scarlett Johannson) is not such a wise way to spend your time and money (fans of Ms. Johannson might disagree).]

Posted in Portfolio Management, Program Management, Public Sector, Satisfaction, Stakeholder Management, Success Criteria | 1 Comment »

The mechanisms of project management of software development (McBride, 2008)

Montag, September 22nd, 2008

The mechanisms of project management of software development

McBride, Tom: The mechanisms of project management of software development; in: Journal of Systems and Software, Article in Press.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2008.06.015

McBride covers two aspects of tools and techniques for the management of software developments. Firstly the monitoring, secondly the control and thirdly the coordination mechanisms used in software development.

The author distinguishes four categories of monitoring tools: automatic, formal, ad hoc, and informal. The most common tools used are schedule tracking, team meeting, status report, management reviews, drill downs, conversations with the team and the customers.

The control mechanisms are categorised by their organisational form of control as either output, behaviour, input, or clan control. The most often used control mechanisms are Budget/schedule/functionality control, formal processes, project plan, team co-location, and informal communities.

Lastly the Coordination mechanisms are grouped by which way the try to coordinate the teams: standards, plans, formal and informal coordination mechanisms. The most common are specifications, schedule, test plans, team meetings, ad hoc meetings, co-location, and personal conversations.

Posted in IT Project, Methodology, Software Development | 2 Comments »

Why New Business Development Projects Fail (Burgers et al. 2008) and Interdependencies in Complex Project Ecologies (Newell et al. 2008)

Donnerstag, September 18th, 2008

 hy New Business Development Projects Fail

Burgers, Henri J.; Van Den Bosch, Frans A.J.; Volberda, Henk W.: Why New Business Development Projects Fail – Coping with the Differences of Technological versus Market Knowledge; in: Long Range Planning, Vol 41 (2008), No. 1, pp. 55-73.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2007.10.003

The authors of the first paper  identify five critical success factors for your new business development project (NBD)

  1. Match project autonomy to newness of technology
  2. Align completion criteria
  3. Get an organisational champion, who can overturn autonomy & completion criteria shortfalls
  4. Explore strategic alliances to speed up market knowledge on technlogoy
  5. Align sales force incentives to NBD

Especially point No. 1 is noteworthy for it’s interesting framework and the transfer of their framework onto other projects, e.g., IT. Burger et al.’s framwork spans two dimensions: market knowledge (existing vs. new) and technology knowledge (existing vs. new). If both knowledge areas are new fields to the organisation (technology and market), the project needs maximum autonomy, it’s goal should be the exploration and the product should stay in project mode until it achieved profitability. Whereas a project were both areas of knowldge pre-exist, the project should not explore, needs little autonomy and the product should be handed over into operations as soon as it hits the shelves.
Newell, Sue; Goussevskaia, Anna; Swan, Jacky; Bresnen, Mike; Obembe, Ademola: Interdependencies in Complex Project Ecologies – The Case of Biomedical Innovation; in: Long Range Planning, Vol. 41 (2008), No. 1, pp. 33-54.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2007.10.005

The second article in this post examines innovation projects from a different angle. Newell et al. draw a typology of projects based on their ecology and integration. They state that challenges associated with managing projects that are distributed across time, space and organizations – a common, though under-researched, feature of innovation in numerous high-technology domains.

Like marriage counselors they argue that in a complex project environment (high degree of interdependencies) a high level of interactivity is most fruitful. The reality check, as it turns out in the analysis, shows however that most project run as black-boxes, no knowledge is transferred between projects, and the level of collaboration is low at least. A case example for a bad marriage. Finally Newell et al. explore the reasons for this, and pay particular attention  to the effects of power dynamics and the sector’s dominant knowledge regime.

Posted in Failed Projects | No Comments »

Information Systems implementation failure – Insights from PRISM (Pan et al., 2008)

Donnerstag, September 18th, 2008

 Information Systems implementation failure - Insights from prism

Pan, Gary; Hackney, Ray; Panc, Shan L.: Information Systems implementation failure – Insights from prism; in: International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 28 (2008), pp. 259–269.

The authors apply a „antecedents — critical events — outcomes“-framework to analyse the implementation process. Pan et al. postulate a recursive process interaction model which repeats throughout critical events in the project. The Process modell flows circular between Project Organisation-(innovates)-IS-(serves)-Supporters-(support)-Project Organisation and so on.

Furthermore the authors identify critical events (positive and negative) to analyse the system failure of the whole project. Generalizing from the chain of negative events, Pan et al. found that recursive interactions lead to a drift of the project. Subsequently that drift leads to a sequence of decision mistakes which accelerated into project failure.

Posted in Critical Incident Technique, Decision Making, Failed Projects, IT Project | No Comments »

Evaluating leadership, IT quality, and net benefits in an e-government environment (Prybutok et al., 2008)

Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008

Evaluating leadership, IT quality, and net benefits in an e-government environment (Prybutok et al., 2008)

Prybutok, Victor, R.; Zhang, Xiaoni; Ryana, Sherry D.: Evaluating leadership, IT quality, and net benefits in an e-government environment; in: Information & Management; Vol. 45 (2008), No. 3, pp. 143-152.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2007.12.004

The authors did something quit unusual in eGovernment research, they went quantitative. Their survey consisted of 178 useful respondents among the public workers of Denton, TX. It generally tried to establish the cause-effect relationships between

  • Leadership Triad
    • Leadership
    • Strategic Planning
    • Customer/Market Focus
  • IT Quality Triad
    • Information Quality
    • System Quality
    • Service Quality
  • Net Benefits

The results support the hypothesis that the MBNQA leadership triad has a positive impact on the IT quality triad. The authors also found that both leadership and IT quality increased the benefits.

Posted in Leadership, Public Sector | No Comments »

Strategic management accounting and sense-making in a multinational company (Tillmann & Goddard, 2008)

Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008

 Strategic management accounting and sense-making in a multinational company

Tillmann, Katja; Goddard, Andrew: Strategic management accounting and sense-making in a multinational company; in: Management Accounting Research, Vol. 19 (2008), No. 1, pp. 80-102.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2007.11.002

Tillmann & Goddard analyse in a large German multi-national corporation how strategic management accounting is used and perceived. This is interesting as insofar they explore how managers work and get decisions made. The authors follow an open systems paradigm, which conceptualises the organisation as a set of ambiguous processes, structures, and environments. In such the manager is operating. Furthermore Tillmann & Goddard identify 4 major typically managerial activities (1) Scanning, (2) Sense-Making, (3) Sense-Giving, and (4) Decision-Making.

Sense-Making is of key interest to the authors. Sense-Making can be understood as constructing and re-constructing meaning, or simply as understanding the situation and getting the picture. Understanding is inherently linked to interpretations of real world events. In order to make-sense of events, simplification strategies are employed, such as translating, modelling, synthesis, and conceptualising/frameworking.

Moreover the authors propose a 3 step process model of sense-making.

  • Input – internal context, multiplicity of aspects, and external context which are individually internalised as information sets and ‚a feel for the game‘
  • Sense-Making – structuring & harmonising, compromising & balancing, and bridging & contextualising
  • Output – sense communication and decision-making

Posted in Decision Making, Research, Sensemaking | 1 Comment »

Post-project reviews as a key project management competence (Anbari et al., 2008)

Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008

 Post-project reviews as a key project management competence

Anbari, Frank T.; Carayannis, Elias G.; Voetsch, Robert J.: Post-project reviews as a key project management competence; in: Technovation, Vol. 28 (2008), No. 10, pp. 633-643.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2007.12.001

George Santayana was the wise guy who said: „Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.“ At university I learned that 2 strategies exist to make an organisation remember it’s past – Internalisation and Codification. While internalisation usually happens anyway and an organisation only needs to keep track on who did which projects in the past, so that he can be interviewed, the codification bit is tricky.

Anbari et al. describe which interest are held by which stakeholder group and how that is going to impact any knowledge management or lack thereof. The authors also outline useful techniques and critical aspects, plus when project reviews are most usefully held during the project lifecycle.

Furthermore, the paper discusses where post-project reviews fit into the project life cycle and project management processes. It assesses how such reviews can assist an organization in improving the manner in which its projects are conceived, planned, implemented, reported, and evaluated.

Finally Anbari et al. outline a 3-fold growth model for organisations
(1) Vicious circle = no real reviews
(2) Functional circle = reviews which no one knows about
(3) Virtuous circle = reviews everybody knows.

Posted in Actuality Research, Critical Success Factors, Knowledge Management, Organisational capabilities, Stakeholder Management | 1 Comment »

Investing Smarter in Public Sector ICT (VAGO (Ed.), 2008)

Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008

 Investing Smarter in Public Sector ICT

Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO): Investing Smarter in Public Sector ICT, Melbourne 2008.
Download available here: http://download.audit.vic.gov.au/files/ICT_BPG_Intro.pdf

The VAGO has recently published (if I remember correctly it was end of July) a 6 step best practices guide on how to invest into ICT. The best part – it’s written in a clear, non-techy language. Readers don’t have to be the master genius of IT to put this into practice. They break down the ICT project flow into 6 distinct steps, which are
(1) Understand & Explore
(2) Identify & Refine options
(3) Decide to invest
(4) Procure a solution
(5) Manage delivery
(6) Review & Learn

The nice thing in this guide is that it lists a lot of best practices, things to avoid, and gives meaningful examples. Although most of the recommendations sound fairly basic (It’s basic not trivial!) the hard part is actually doing them. I would never ever have expected that benefits and costs are not calculated cross agencies, or that someone is not considering a non-tech solution.

Posted in IT Project, Public Sector | No Comments »

Facelift

Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008

I admit neglecting this little blog in the last couple of weeks. In the spirit of a true marketer I gave it a facelift and will start posting some new articles soon – since the new issue of the Internation Journal of Project Management just landed on my desk.

P.S. It’s official Google’s Chrome needs an update – it doesn’t work with wordpress’s WYSIWYG-Editor, it’s more WYSIWYGWLB (what-you-see-is-what-you-get-without-line-breaks).

Posted in Admin | No Comments »