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Friday, April 8, 2011

Organizational Influences in Projects

Every project is performed under certain organization which will have its own environment, culture, structure, SOP (Standard operation procedures). By this definition, a project is more likely be influenced by the organization than external factors, thus understanding the operating organization better is the key to successfully performing a project.
We'll start from the organization's culture which includes management style, visions&missions, and working environment.

The most influencing factor in a organization's culture is of course the management style. If we talk about management style, it can be dictatorship, leading-by-example (leadership), authority, but most certainly not democracy..:)

Second, clear visions&missions of the performing organization will help boost the project execution to run smoothly because a clear definition of what the organization is doing will give better direction than a randomly taken decision.

Last but not least, the working environment also plays important role as an organizational culture. Beware of a company treating overtime as a habit or tradition if you are not comfortable to endure work 98 hours per week straight (for example). Usually, an organization led by a dictator and has a carelessly directed/overridden decision-making process will create uncomfortable working environment for what supposedly done still can be altered by higher management. 

Other than the work-hours, working environment also includes work ethics which is quite general across any organizations.

Going forward to organizational structure, there are at least 3 types of structures: Functional, Projectized, and Matrix. Those three are already simplified in a book by Dr. Paul Sanghera, PMP: "PMP in Depth" page 38 as shown as follow:


 
Please note that in a weak matrix organization's structure, a project manager role is more a coordinator which similar to functional organization's structure. Only in a strong matrix and the projectized structure a project manager will have the fullest mean (influence and power) of being a project manager


"A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him." -- H. S. M. Burns

2 comments:

  1. Wow Wendy woderfull discussion on Organizational Influences in Projects .hatts off


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  2. Organizational influences directly affect a project's success—either positively or negatively. These influences include the organization's culture and its structure .So u have mentioned it magically.Hatts of

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