Archive for Oktober 23rd, 2008

Project portfolio management – There’s more to it than what management enacts (Blichfeldt & Eskerodt, 2008)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

Project portfolio management – There’s more to it than what management enacts (Blichfeldt & Eskerodt, 2008)

Blichfeldt, Bodil Stilling; Eskerod, Pernille: Project portfolio management – There’s more to it than what management enacts; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 4, pp. 357-365.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.06.004

Project Portfolio Management in Theory consists of

  • Initial screening, selection, and prioritisation of proposed projects
  • Concurrent re-prioritisation
  • Allocation and re-allocation of resources

These activities are free of any value. Blichfeldt & Eskerodt analyse the reality of project portfolio management to find out if it does any good to the organisations it is used in.

In reality they find that project portfolio management is merely a battle for resources and that portfolios consist of way to many projects to be practically manageable. He finds two distinct categories of projects in a portfolio – (1) enacted projects and (2) hidden projects.

Among the enacted projects are typically the new product developments, the classic project, trimmed for successful launch of a new cash cow. But in this enacted project category there are also the larger renewal projects. The larger renewal projects are usually not directly linked to the demand side, their primary aim is to enhance internal activities and not customer value, and some of them cut across departments. Overall the large renewal projects are not as well managed as product development projects – they lack experience, have a low priority, and lack structure, reviews etc.

The second category are the hidden projects. Usually bottom-up initiatives, departments or even single persons start during their work hours, or in specifically allocated time to pursue innovative projects of own interest.

Blichfeldt & Eskerod recommend to enact more projects. Manage the larger renewal projects in a more structured way, and include the hidden projects into the portfolio. If they drain resources they must be managed. Without destroying the creativity and innovation that usually come from these grass-root projects, organisations should allocate resources to a pool of loosely-controlled resources. Unenacted projects should be allowed to draw resources from this pool, with minimal administrative burden.

Posted in Multi-project management, Portfolio Management | 2 Comments »

The PM_BOK Code (Whitty & Schulz, 2006)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

 The PM_BOK Code (Whitty & Schulz, 2006)

Whitty, S. J.; Schulz, M. F.: The PM_BOK Code; in: The Proceedings of 20th IPMA World Congress on Project Management, Vol. 1 (2008) , pp. 466 – 472.

The bold claim of this article is that project management is more about appearance than productivity.
Whitty & Schulz argue that our hard-wiring for memes and the western culture have turned project management (in it’s special representation in the PMI’s PMBOK) into a travesty.
The western culture is synonymous with the spirit of capitalism combined with the meme of the corporation, which has been disected many times most noteably by Achbar, Abbott & Bakan.

The authors compare the everyday madness of projects to nothing else but theatres. Keeping up appearances. They draw similarities between the theatrical stage – think meeting rooms and offices, costumes – think dark suits or funny t-shirts, scripts – think charts and status reports, props – think powerpoint, and audience – think co-workers and managers. Whitty & Schulz that the big show we put up everyday is to appear in control and successful.

Project management is the ideal way to represent western culture. Being flexible, ready for change, constantly exploiting new opportunities.
On the flip side, the authors argue, that project management kills creativity and democracy. It fractionalises the workforce, thus driving down productivity.

The way out of this predicament is to „reform […] the PMBOK® Guide version of PM in a way that elieves practitioners from performativity, and opens project work up to more creative and democratic processes“ (p. 471).

Posted in Culture, Ethics, Methodology, Standards | 2 Comments »

Making a difference? Evaluating an innovative approach to the project management Centre of Excellence in a UK government department (O’Leary & Williams, 2008)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

Making a difference? Evaluating an innovative approach to the project management Centre of Excellence in a UK government department (O’Leary & Williams, 2008)

O’Leary, Tim; Williams, Terry: Making a difference? Evaluating an innovative approach to the project management Centre of Excellence in a UK government department; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 5, pp. 556-565.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.05.013

The UK has rolled out the ambitious programme of setting-up IT Centres of Excellence in all its departments. Focal point of these Centres of Excellence are Programme Offices.

The role of these Programme Offices has been defined as: Reporting, Recovering & Standardising.
The objectives for the programme offices are monitoring and reporting the status of the IT initiatives in the department, and implementing a structured life cycle methodology. This methodology ties in with a stage-gate framework that needs to be introduced. Additionally hit-teams of delivery managers have been set-up to turn-around ailing projects.

O’Leary and Williams find that the interventions seem to work successfully, whereas the reporting and standardisation objective has yet to be fulfilled. Moreover the authors analyse the root causes for this success. They found that the basis of success was:

  • Administrative control of department’s IT budget
  • Leadership of IT director
  • Exploitation of project management rhetoric
  • Quality of delivery managers

Posted in Actuality Research, Critical Success Factors, IT Project, Leadership, Multi-project management, Organisation, Organisational capabilities, Program Management, Project Recovery, Public Sector, Standards | 1 Comment »

Building knowledge in projects – A practical application of social constructivism to information systems development (Jackson & Klobas, 2008)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

Building knowledge in projects - A practical application of social constructivism to information systems development (Jackson & Klobas, 2008)

Jackson, Paul; Klobas, Jane: Building knowledge in projects – A practical application of social constructivism to information systems development; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 4, pp. 329-337.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.05.011

Jackson & Klobas describe the constructivist model of knowledge sharing and thus organisational learning. This classical model describes knowledge sharing in organisations as a constant cylcle of

  • Creating personal knowledge
  • Sharing newly created personal knowledge = Externalisation
  • Communication knowledge = Internalisation
  • Acquiring other peoples‘ knowledge = Learning

This cylcle includes the facilitating steps of Objectivation (=creating organisational knowledge), Legitimation (=authorising knowledge), and reification (=hardening knowledge) between externalisation and internalisation.

Jackson & Klobas argue that IT project failure can be explained using this model. The authors outline and discuss three failure factors – (1) lack of personal knowledge, (2) inability to externalise knowledge, and (3) lack of communication.

Posted in Case Study, Communication, Critical Success Factors, Failed Projects, IT Project, Knowledge Management | 1 Comment »

Project leadership in multi-project settings – Findings from a critical incident study (Kaulio, 2008)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

 Project leadership in multi-project settings - Findings from a critical incident study (Kaulio, 2008)

Kaulio, Matti A.: Project leadership in multi-project settings – Findings from a critical incident study; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 4, pp. 338-347.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.06.005

Kaulio asked project leaders, who operate in a multi-project environment about critical incidents in their last projects. The idea of critical incidents is, that as soon as a participant remembers the critical incident it must have some importance. Ideally it then is followed by a blueprint analysis followed by measuring the criticality is measured on each contact point. Kaulio focusses only on the elicitation of the critical incidents, without doing the triple-loop of the original research concept. The author shows the frequency of critical incidents happening:

  • Technical difficulties
  • Dyadic leadership
  • Group dynamics
  • Consultant relations
  • Client relations
  • Peer relations
  • Project adjustments
  • Re-prioritisations
  • Liked dyadic-group processes
  • Formation of project
  • Court decisions
  • Dependencies
  • Requirements specification

Kaulio then maps these critical incidents according to the Locus of Control (internal vs. external) and whether they are a Management or a Leadership issue. Thus he argues  most of the critical incidents can be tied back to internal project leadership:

Locus of Control External
  • Project adjustment
  • Court decision
  • Consultant relations
  • Client relations
  • Peer relations
  • Formation of project
  • Dependencies
Internal
  • Requirements specification
  • Dyadic leadership
  • Group dynamics
  • Linked dyadic-group processes
  • Technical difficulties
  • Re-prioritisation
Management Leadership
Focus

Posted in Conflicts, Critical Incident Technique, Failed Projects, IT Project, Leadership, Multi-project management | 3 Comments »

The balance between order and chaos in multi-project firms: A conceptual model (Geraldi, 2008)

Donnerstag, Oktober 23rd, 2008

 The balance between order and chaos in multi-project firms: A conceptual model (Geraldi, 2008)

Geraldi, Joana G.: The balance between order and chaos in multi-project firms – A conceptual model; in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 (2008), No. 4, pp. 348-356.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2007.08.013

Geraldi takes a deeper look into multi-project settings at the ‚Edge of Chaos‘. Geraldi describes the Edge of Chaos as that fine line between chaos and order. Wikipedia (I know I shouldn’t cite it) has something else to say about the Edge of Chaos:

In the sciences in general, the phrase has come to refer to a metaphor that some physical, biological, economic and social systems operate in a region between order and either complete randomness or chaos, where the complexity is maximal. The generality and significance of the idea, however, has since been called into question by Melanie Mitchell and others. The phrase has also been borrowed by the business community and is sometimes used inappropriately and in contexts that are far from the original scope of the meaning of the term.

Geraldi defines the Edge of Chaos as a match between complexity and flexibility.  Complexity can either be located within faith or facts. Flexibility, on the other hand, is either high or low, whilst it is measured along the dimensions of scope + goals, processes + tools, and roles + staffing. Geraldi argues that only two of these archetypes represent a fit (highlighted below):

Complexity Faith Bureaucratisation of Chaos Creative Reflective
Fact Mechanic-Structured Chaotification of order
Low High
Flexibility

Posted in Complexity, Culture, Hard and soft projects, Multi-project management, Program Management, Uncertainty management | No Comments »