KSP's Executive Series brings serious white papers and articles designed for organizaitonal executives. Based on the works of some of the greats ranging from Maslow, McGreagor, Vroom, Flamholtz & Randle, and many others, KSP presents innovative yet sound principles to each article.
Managing Task Interdependency
Managing task interdependencies is one of the most challenging aspects of project management. A recent study indicated that 70% - 80% of project changes can be attributed to internal (and controllable) issues, not client issues. If your organization is experiencing:
- Large number of changes found toward the end of a project
- Team members spend more time addressing issues, getting questions answered, or gathering information than they do performing work
- Frequent "emergencies" to address issues to get a product to market on time
- Project delays increase as the project proceeds
... your issue lies in managing interdependencies.
Project Management vs Managing Projects
A few months ago, I read an article on LinkedIn entitled, The PMP – How it Ruined Project Management which compelled me to respond quickly. In my response The PMP – How it Ruined Project Management – A Follow-Up, I noted a cultural shift in how we recognize and hire project managers (as well as other recognized positions). Early in the new millennium, we (culturally) adopted a process of recognizing excellence through certifications. The problem with certifications is that they are test-based, rather than skills-based.
Some (many) years ago, a colleague and I contemplated the difference between “project management” and “managing projects”. We concluded that project management consisted of a framework (or structure) for managing projects; while managing projects includes the actions that project managers perform day-by-day. The former is knowledge-based, the latter is skills-based. We discovered that many individuals “know” project management, but still can’t run projects successfully.
Why Focus on Culture?
There’s been an explosion in the field of organizational culture over the past decade. My research suggests that the interest in this field began in earnest with the 2008 recession and has focused primarily...
In this article, we explore the concept of organizational culture as it applies to productivity, specifically project work.
The Value of High-Performance Teams
Many experts have proclaimed the value of high-performance teams… myself included. Some time ago, I decided to run some numbers to see potential results. Those results surprised even me.
In this paper, we examine the effects of high-performance project teams on the organization’s bottom line. Specifically, we examine two overall effects: project duration and product quality. Under project duration, we divide the analysis into three sub-categories:...