Project. Program. Change

Roland Gareis, Lorenz Gareis

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429797088
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Projektmanagement

This book gives managers an integrative approach to project, program, and change management. It describes the differences between change in projects versus programs with case studies in both areas and the different life cycles. While the project and change comprise much of the book, it is up to date with its emphasis on agile, scrum, and benefits. The book also describes methods to both initiate and manage a change and what must be done for success and business value.

1
Projects and Programs

The project management literature provides different definitions for projects and programs. Different perceptions of projects, such as perceiving projects as tasks, as temporary organizations, and as social systems, lead to different expectations regarding the way projects are managed and further on to different project management approaches.

A general clarification of the term “project” and the operationalization of project definitions in different organizational contexts are required. Small projects, projects, and programs are to be differentiated, so the adequate organization for performing different business processes can be selected.

Projects and programs are performed in contexts, which influence their success. Contexts are, for example, the strategies, structures, and cultures of the project-oriented organization, the investment implemented by a project or program, and the change delivered by projects.

The benefits provided by projects and programs are to be differentiated from the benefits provided by project managing and program managing.

1.1 Perception of Projects and Programs

1.2 Definitions of Projects and Programs

1.3 Categorization: Small Project, Project and Program, Non-Project

1.4 Projects and Programs: Contexts

1.5 Projects and Programs: Benefits

1.1 Perception of Projects and Programs

The project management literature and international project management standards provide different definitions for projects and programs.¹,²,³,⁴ This is relevant insofar as different project perceptions and definitions result in different project management approaches.

Perceiving projects as tasks with particular characteristics leads to a specific project management understanding—that is, of the objectives of project management to be achieved, the project management tasks to be fulfilled, the project dimensions to be managed, and the project management methods to be used. Perceiving projects as tasks leads to a different understanding of project management than perceiving projects as temporary organizations and as social systems.

Perceiving Projects as Tasks with Particular Characteristics

Traditionally, projects are seen as tasks with particular characteristics. These particular characteristics are the medium scope of the tasks to be fulfilled, the relative uniqueness of these tasks, their short-term to medium-term duration, as well as their associated risks and strategic importance. Projects are understood as goal-determined tasks, because goals relating to the scope, schedule, and costs can be planned and controlled.

Perceiving Projects as Temporary Organizations

Projects can be seen as temporary organizations established in order to perform relatively unique, short-term to medium-term, risky, and strategically important business processes of medium scope. Here projects are understood as temporary organizations for performing business processes with particular characteristics.

As with other organizations, projects have specific identities, expressed through specific project structures and project contexts. Due to the temporary nature of projects, establishing a project during project starting and dissolving it during project closing acquire particular significance.

Perceiving Projects as Social Systems

Perceiving projects as temporary organizations allows them to be also perceived as social systems. According to the social systems theory, organizations, and therefore also projects, are social systems which are clearly separate from, yet at the same time related to, their contexts. The specific characteristics of social systems, such as their social complexity, dynamics, and self-reference, are also relevant for projects. In the RGC project management approach presented here, projects are understood as both temporary organizations and social systems.

Projects can either be perceived as tasks with particular characteristics or as temporary organizations and social systems. These different project perceptions lead to different project management approaches.

As stated by Luhmann,⁵ “A system is […] anything in which it is possible to distinguish between inside and outside. The inside-outside distinction implies that an order is determined, one which cannot be arbitrarily expanded, but whose internal structure and particular form of its relationships creates boundaries”.

Luhmann principally divides social systems into interactions, organizations, and societies. Here a further distinction is made between permanent organizations such as companies, divisions, and departments, and temporary organizations such as projects and programs, which can also be perceived as social systems (see Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1: Projects and programs as temporary organizations and social systems.

The reason for differentiating between different social systems is that drawing boundaries creates systems which are less complex than their particular environment.⁶ Projects as subsystems of companies are less complex than the company as a whole. By reducing complexity each social system can be successfully managed.

Excursus: Projects and Programs as Social Systems

A social system is characterized as having specific structures which differentiate it from its environment, while simultaneously placing it in contexts which create dependencies. Context dimensions are the stakeholder relations (see Fig. 1.2), the superordinate social system, the history of the social system, and expectations about its future.

Fig. 1.2: Social system and its stakeholders.

An organization has both external and internal stakeholders. Project stakeholders external to a company include customers, suppliers, competitors, and media, while stakeholders within a company may include the management and individual departments. Every social system is shaped by its history. Many of a system’s “peculiarities” can only be explained and understood with reference to past events. On the other hand, it is also future expectations of the social system which determine current actions. Consequently, the results of analyses of the pre-project and post-project phases provide the orientation for action in a project. A project’s “superordinate” social system is the organization undertaking that particular project. A project contributes to fulfilling this organization’s objectives and strategies.

Social systems are complex, self-referencing, and dynamic, and so these characteristics apply to both projects and programs. Luhmann understands communications as elements of social systems. He defines the following factors for evaluating a social system’s degree of complexity:

• Number of system elements
• Number of potential relationships between these elements
• Diverseness of these relationships
• Development of these three factors over time

The formation of social systems both reduces and builds up complexity. The ability of a social system to survive is largely determined by its ability to develop an appropriate degree of complexity as a means of adequately dealing with the complexity of its environment. In project management practice, it is observed that the willingness to develop the appropriate level of project complexity is often small. For example, the involvement of project stakeholders in project management, the analysis of project risks, and the consideration of ecological and social consequences of project management are often not practiced.

“A system can be described as self-referencing when the elements of which it is composed regenerate themselves”. Projects and programs are able to reflect. Thus project communications lead to new communications. Aggregations of communications lead to project roles, project rules, etc. “The dynamics of system processes depend to a large part on the dynamics of the environment, as well as the degree to which the system is open to this environment”. Due to their relative uniqueness, projects and programs are generally very dynamic.

The boundaries of social systems, their structures, and their contexts are social constructs. Constructivism deals with the creation of realities by people or social systems. Watzlawick⁷ states that there is no objective reality, but rather only subjective constructions of reality. Social systems theory and constructivism are the two theoretical models which offer a basis for systemic thought. Social systems theory deals with the “world of objects”, and constructivism with human recognition, thought, and judgment.

1.2 Definitions of Projects and Programs

Project Definition

A project is a temporary organization to perform a relatively unique, short-term to medium-term, strategically important business process of medium scope.

Projects are used to perform relatively...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• 1 Projects and Programs
• 2 Project Management Approaches and New Values
• 3 Strategic Managing and Investing
• 4 Managing Requirements and Projects
• 5 Project Initiating
• 6 Business Process: Project Managing
• 7 Project Organization and Project Culture
• 8 Teamwork and Leadership in Projects, Competencies for Projects
• 9 Sub-Process: Project Starting
• 10 Sub-Processes: Project Coordinating and Project Controlling
• 11 Sub-Processes: Project Transforming and Project Repositioning
• 12 Sub-Process: Project Closing
• 13 Program Initiating and Program Managing
• 14 Change Initiating and Change Managing
• 15 Strategies, Structures, and Cultures of the Project-Oriented Organization
• 16 Business Processes of the Project-Oriented Organization
• 17 Message and Vision
• References
• Index