The Corporate Culture
Traditionally, corporate management has not been concerned with projects but
with conducting and maintaining an on-going enterprise. Even though management
is concerned with planning, coordinating and controlling resources, a culture
exists in which work is accomplished by functional units, and time is not an
immediate concern. Change is often minimal and protracted, and can be thoroughly
programmed and progressively integrated. The work places of such enterprises
are typically bounded by classic organizational hierarchies, established policies,
procedures and lines of authority, by centralized control and by repetitive,
assembly-line-like jobs.
Unfortunately, this traditional corporate management approach breaks down where
urgent or significant change needs to be instituted. The correct response is
to establish one or more projects to implement the change. However, new management
relationships are then required, which tend to cut across the normal functional
authority and flow of responsibility and radiate beyond the functional units.
Happily, project management is seen by many as a much more challenging and
exciting work environment, even though a clear understanding of its concepts
and application is relatively new. This is because project management is indeed
a different style of management as applied to project-type work. However, where
capital construction projects are concerned, there are almost always many people
associated with them, who only have but a limited understanding of the process
of bringing a capital project on stream. Without embarrassment, I include politicians,
owners, sponsors, financiers, bankers, operators, lawyers, accountants and, I
regret to say, even engineers.
Consequently, it is essential to establish a competent project management capability
for a potential construction project even before putting in place appropriate
design, engineering or construction capability.
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The
Internal Project Culture
