Project Management

A Multi-Perspective Leadership Framework

Hans Mikkelsen, Jens O. Riis

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781787148307
• eBook ISBN: 9781787432666
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

Modern projects are confronted with complexity and ambiguity. To provide a holistic framework, this book presents five core elements of a project: project management, project task, stakeholders, resources, and project environment. This model is used to identify the nature of a specific project and to develop appropriate project solutions for business success. It also allows a circular planning process that gradually leads to coherence among these five elements.
To better cope with the complexity of the project environment, the authors adopt a multi-perspective framework that considers technical, business, organisational, and stakeholder perspectives. This framework recommends that change management is viewed as an integral part of a project.
This book is organized in two, almost equal parts: a theoretical part that covers the key models and issues related to project management, and a set of appendices, which include a number of tool sheets aimed at providing practical methods, techniques and checklists. By integrating the theoretical and the practical, the authors extend and rethink recent developments in agile and lean approaches to project management.

1

Introduction

Abstract

The wide spread application of projects to many areas of society has led us to identify five generic elements that every project will have to address. They are: project management, project task, stakeholders, resources, and project environment. Each element will be further divided into five sub-elements. This five-by-five model will be used to identify the nature of a specific project and to develop appropriate approaches and means. It will also allow a circular planning process that gradually will lead to coherence among the five elements.

To illustrate the broad spectrum of projects that we see in practice, we have identified five types that will be characterized by the five-by-five model.

In view of the complex nature of most projects, the chapter will introduce four complementary perspectives: a technical, a business, an organizational, and a stakeholder perspective. Each perspective will describe key features of a project and is supported by theories, models, and methods. Although the perspectives are complementary, they are strongly interdependent.

The chapter will give an overview of the book.

Moving to new premises. During lunch, the Finance Manager, Svend Petersen, discussed moving the company to new premises with the CEO, Peter Eriksen. Production was in need of space and much time and effort were wasted in the daily operations, simply because the workshops were inconveniently located and because of overloaded machining tools. In addition, both sales and development had expanded heavily in recent years.

“We spend a lot of time discussing our lack of space, but how do we do something about it?” Peter Eriksen asked. “There is no lack of proposals for what to do, e.g. to move part of the company to new locations, or to move the whole company; within our current municipality, or to our neighboring municipality, or perhaps to another region. The easiest thing would, of course, be that I alone made a decision. Then we could observe how many would like to move. But I do not want to take this approach.”

“What about considering the issue of moving to new premises as a project?” asked Svend Poulsen.

“Perhaps this is a good idea. We already run several development projects. But what would it imply to define the issue of moving our company as a project? What do we have to consider to ensure that such a project really will be successful?”

Soft Ball. Henning Larsen, the project manager of a product development project, called Soft Ball, was confused and bewildered. One of the best members of his project group had just informed him that a new competitor had introduced a new product on the market with the same features as Soft Ball was planned to have. And this was not the only problem. Recently, production engineers had suggested many changes to the engineering design – changes they claimed were improvements. If accepted, the development time would be prolonged with at least half a year.

“The time has come to ask who, in fact, wants to see Soft Ball completed, and if it is even possible to reconcile the many conflicting objectives and requirements,” Henning Larsen contemplated. He went to see the R&D manager for a meeting.

1.1. What Is a Project?

Working with projects represents a specific organizational form and working mode for solving complex and difficult tasks. A project takes its outset in a task that requires the formation of a unique organization and management. This is the notion of project that will be used in this book, but we are aware that, in practice, the notion is often used for both large and small tasks.

As a key feature, the project mode is oriented toward a given task. When we want to solve a task as a project, a project organization is established with sufficient authority, energy and acceptance from the parties involved. In this way, the project organization is temporary and geared to solve a complex task for which no known procedures or organizational forms exist.

As a consequence, some tasks are suited to the project-working mode, while other tasks are solved more smoothly and efficiently by applying a different working mode. Examples of tasks appropriate for applying the project-working mode include:

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  Design, planning, and erection of an apartment building
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  Production of a movie or a theater performance
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  Development and pilot production of a new product
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  Research and development
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  Expeditions and explorations
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  Health care campaigns
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  Change of the present organizational structure
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  Planning and construction of a major engineered facility
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  Renewal of the production system in an industrial company
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  Improvement of business processes in a public administrative unit
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  Introduction of a new IT system

The examples of projects represent a broad spectrum of tasks coming from different parts of society. It is fair to claim that they represent different project worlds. This suggests that we treat each project on an individual basis, seeking to identify its unique characteristics as a basis for planning and carrying out the project.

On the other hand, it is possible to identify some common features of tasks that are suitable for the project-working mode:

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  They are complex and especially contain many mutually interacting parts and elements and interactions between human beings, organizational units, technology, and systems.
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  They involve many development elements, because new solutions need to be developed and new directions explored.
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  They lead to a result of significant size and importance, e.g., in terms of the number of people to be impacted, the time of operation (life cycle), as well as its commercial and economic consequences.
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  They require multi-disciplinary contributions, i.e., persons with different professional backgrounds need to be involved in carrying out the project task.
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  They require a joint organizational effort, in that several departments and functions, as well as companies, should provide knowledge, man hours, test, and approval.
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  They are subject to declared interests and pressure from several stakeholders, because the project solution will become a significant part of the daily life of groups of employees, sections, and companies.
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  They have a considerable size, e.g., in terms of man hours and expenses.

Even when tasks differ in terms of nature, the main focus is to create value for a group of individuals. In some cases, the task is to develop and produce a physical product that is offered to customers. In other cases, a group of people has to adopt a changed behavior, e.g., to improve hygiene or to achieve higher precision in deliveries to customers. In any case, the task is to create value for a group of persons.

The literature includes a number of definitions of a project, e.g.:

• 
  “A temporary effort to create a unique product or service.”
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  “A special set of coordinated activities with a defined start and end result, carried out by a special organization with the aim to achieve a specified goal at a given date and within a given budget.”
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  “An undertaking where human, material, and financial resources are organized in a new way to carry out a unique task, with a specified goal, a deadline, and a budget, aimed to achieve useful changes defined by quantitative and qualitative objectives.”
• 
  “A task oriented, specific organization, and management that creates a meeting place, an arena, for the interested parties of the project and setting for project activities.”

The notion of a project has spread to a large range of tasks. More routine tasks are also called projects, such as the erection of a house, the delivery and installation of a production facility, or the installation of a standard IT system. The project-working mode can strengthen the managerial effort, but successful application depends on the reuse of defined and well-proven operating procedures and organizational structures, as well as of knowledge and experience. The application of the project mode for operational tasks supports a process-oriented approach that has become widespread in recent years, e.g., Kohlbacher (2010).

In recognition of the variety of different projects, we suggest that a prefix be used to characterize a given project, e.g., to distinguish between exploration projects, development and renewal projects, and repetitive delivery projects.

The counterpart to the project organization is in most cases the basic organization of the company, the participating companies, or operations. This organization seems suited for executing routine and repetitive tasks. This is, however, but one role of the ordinary organization. Other functions are to serve as owner of projects, to provide necessary competencies and resources to projects, and to act as receiver of the results of projects in the capacity of being one of the customers of projects. In other cases, a project is carried out as a joint effort of several, independent organizations.

In the following three sections, we will give a basic introduction to the world of projects by first presenting a model of generic elements as a means of coming to grips with a project and find out what it takes to work with a project task. Second, we will demonst...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Forming and Defining the Project
• 3 Planning the Course of Action
• 4 Organizing
• 5 Cooperation in the Project Organization
• 6 Project Leadership
• 7 Project Control
• 8 Management of Several Projects
• 9 Trends and Challenges for Future Projects
• Appendix A: Project Characteristics
• Appendix B: Forming and Defining the Project
• Appendix C: Planning the Course of Action
• Appendix D: Organizing
• Appendix E: Cooperation in the Project Organization
• Appendix F: Project Leadership
• Appendix G: Project Control
• References
• About the Authors
• Index