Nice Ideas…Shame About the Implementation
Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.
It's time to face some basic facts. Project management seems to struggle not because there is something flawed with the idea, but because our organizational cultures often get in the way of what it takes to manage projects well. The past few columns have examined the findings and recommendations of an Ontario government task force exploring the project management challenges of government projects.
As we have discussed, these aren't unique to government--they are common to many of us. The recommendations that were made are reasonable, but we also observed that where many of the them fall down is in how they are implemented and used. This is where our organizational cultures seem to get in the way most.
Organizational culture is a complex thing. It defines who we are, why we are unique and the value proposition that we offer as organizations--at least from the perspective of our external stakeholders. Internally, it defines the principles of why we do what we do, as well as being the source for the mantra: "That's the way we've always done things around here." This is great for continuity, but lousy in terms of allowing for change. The single largest reason most organizations don't change is because they don't want to change.
So it is with project management. The entire concept of implementing project management--or a different …
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"In opera, there is always too much singing." - Claude Debussy |
