Shared Understanding Management

Because most 21st century projects are distributed across multiple teams, companies, countries, and even continents, communication has the potential to become increasingly problematic. Luckily, communication technologies are keeping pace with these changes, and physical connections and bandwidth needs are not a concern. Furthermore, with the widespread globalization of organizations, a great many people are now learning to speak one or more common/international languages. Cultures are merging very rapidly by means of media and other effectors (e.g., tourism, education and business).

Therefore, the real problem with communication in project management is not communication itself, but something beyond it, which we will refer to “understanding.”

 Background

Understanding, as defined for the purposes of our discussion, is a result of different motivations for the project (the “hidden agendas”—not the requirements but the “desirements”). We believe that problems in achieving this type of understanding are the result of divergent interests, not divergent cultures and languages. We have found that divergent interests are strictly related to the growing complexity of life and systems.

It is possible to examine and understand project management and its context through utilization of a systems approach, and …