“Do we speak the same project language?” The aim of this article is to guide you to the answer, “Yes, we do!” by disclosing how we support the company's mission more efficiently by means of an improved project management process. We will look at the steps taken to implement a global project management framework. In particular, this article will provide details about the integrative approach that has been applied, the speed of implementation, cultural differences that needed to be addressed, and the motivational level of all involved. In addition you will be introduced to the standards developed for supporting the implementation process and the roll-out agenda of targets compared to current results.
Introduction
After expanding internationally in the past 10 years, the group currently comprises more than 80 legal entities in 53 countries. The challenges the group faces today stem from the global economic crisis, which has led to a general market reduction and strongly affected economic results. In order to increase its competitive strength, the group decided to look first “inside the organization” for optimization. Hence, the group started a global strategic standardization of key processes.
Being a project-driven company, it makes sense to start any strategy implementation in the project management area. Among the challenges waiting to be addressed here are: cultural differences, clients’ expectations, different development levels of companies, different expectations and understandings of project measurement and controlling, and, last but not least, the question, “Do we speak the same project language?”—a crucial point to consider when rolling out the same standard of project management over several companies and countries.
How to Develop an Integrative Approach Linked to the Company Strategy and Break It Down Into Actions
One of the first applications of the term strategy was made approximately 3,000 years ago by Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who stated, “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”
A lot of time has passed since the term strategy was used for the first time, and nowadays it is inserted in an increasingly competitive environment—organizations are pressed to effect strategic changes at a fast rate.
Driven by a need for action, the management might feel pressured to initiate change processes without taking into consideration the less visible political, cultural, and environmental factors that can very easily interfere with the original intentions and expectations.
Back in our project-driven company, the group decided to “slice” the strategy into manageable tranches—while still keeping an integrative approach—and start from three different cornerstones that are directly linked to project management: communication, personnel development, and standards (Exhibit 1).
The first cornerstone, communication, had to address the fact that a clear and consistent communication regarding project management was lacking. A decision was made to choose one focal point per country and to define where the focus should be—on country level or on the larger regional level—thus improving the experience exchange.
The second cornerstone, personnel development, is concentrated on our varied situation with a multitude of companies and their different local perceptions of project management development, and on the necessary decision related to training programs: buying “off the shelf” or rather setting up our self-designed project management qualification program?
The third cornerstone, standards, was committed to the assessment and evaluation of existing common standards.
Exhibit 1: Cornerstones.
1. Cornerstone 01: Communication
The importance of communication has been increasingly recognized in the processes of change and transformation of organizations, presenting itself as a fundamental driving force for organizational development (Bergue, 2010; Casado, 2002; de Oliveira Cardoso, 2006; Fleury & Oliveira Júnior, 2002; Kunsch, 2009; Lemos, 2011; Monteiro & Soares, 2012).
The aim of this article is certainly not to present the current theories on communication, but I would like to point out that the role of “receiver of communication” appears frequently in theories of social transformations. Its implications actually shed a light on communication processes within organizations, and we can therefore deduce practical solutions for our case.
“Cyberculture,” for example, is one of the topical theoretical buzzwords in communication studies. Its emergence is linked to social transformations with active participation of the interlocutors. For Lévy (1999), the emergence of cyberspace creates a situation of disintermediation whose political and cultural implications need to be further investigated.
Another point to consider while planning a solid and straightforward way of communication is the internal hierarchy. The decentralization of power, where hierarchies alternate as people, groups, and circumstances, is for the author the essence of cyberculture. Its highlight is the “elastic space” where the possibility of virtual proximity overrules the physical or geographical space.
Corrêa (2009) also points out the function of organizational communication in establishing channels and tools for the organization to talk to its different audiences. The organization must have this integrated and aligned relationship “by the same strategic vision, for a uniform speech and the consistency of messages” (Corrêa, 2009, p. 105).
A challenge for establishing communication channels in project management was associated with bridging the time zones and communication patterns. We felt the need to create our own “cyberculture” and to establish our internal channels.
Taking communication as a key starting point for the strategic implementation of project management, and taking into consideration the range of geographic regions the company was active in, an appropriate solution was to establish project management experts in the group.
Following the cyberculture approach, the project management expert is a role and not a function, and the nominated persons came from different hierarchic levels in order to motivate an exchange of experience and to offer different perspectives. The nominations were made according to necessity: either one project management expert per country or one per larger geographic region if its project management processes were considered mature enough already. Currently, there are around 17 project management experts, as shown in Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2: Project management experts assigned per region/country.
The main responsibilities of the project management expert are as follows:
- Content-oriented responsibilities while updating and developing local project management processes
- Practical knowledge/field knowledge of project management processes and procedures
- Focal point for group strategy discussion under project management matters
Together with the nomination of the project management experts, an agenda with annual strategic meetings was set in order to define the direction where project management should go in the organization. In addition, the monthly e-magazine “PM newsletter” helped to showcase accomplishments and to share ideas.
After having invested in project management experts—and with their participation—it was time to move to the next cornerstone: development of the project managers worldwide.
2. Cornerstone 02: Personnel Development
In project management offices (PMOs) it is common to see the lack of systematic methods to treat new demands for training and development that are directly focused on project managers. This mostly happens due to the lack of knowledge regarding the available/required competences needed for such a profile (Le Boterf, 2000).
It is also important to mention the high demand for an extensive set of skills to the project managers. Here, we may evoke the observation made by Rezende (2010) citing Githay and Fischer (1996) related to the “syndrome of construction of a super-man,” identified in research conducted by the authors in a Brazilian subsidiary of a global company.
In this direction, instead of focusing on avoiding the “construction of Superman's” in the company, we realized that we should have super-project managers, tailoring and developing their competences directly based on our business necessities (Sant'anna, Moraes, & Kilimnik, 2002; Rezende, 2013).
Although the professional training market offers successful and professional project management development courses to buy “off the shelf,” we were hesitant to do so. We considered that it is difficult to reach a common understanding and a common company “language and culture” by sending more than 1,000 project managers to different courses around the world.
Instead, we decided to develop a 100% bespoke course for KAEFER. In a time span of over six months and in regular meetings, the project management experts, the corporate human resources department, and an external provider created the KAEFER Project Management Qualification (PMQ) program that is detailed in Exhibit 3.
Exhibit 3: The structure of the PMQ program.
The PMQ program allows KAEFER to develop its project teams and give aspiring project managers a defined career plan that enables them to achieve their goals and ambitions. 1
This program strengthens the understanding that a structured and consistent approach among project teams gives each member the necessary tools to plan and execute the project successfully. It also creates the conditions necessary to cope with the many and varied situational tasks arising throughout the project life cycle. The result is a more focused team approach through consistency, better project results, improved customer satisfaction, and a level of competitive advantage that leads to commercial success.
It consists of three levels, and each level consists of different modules. As seen in the structure, Level 1 has two modules, namely Module A and Module B, which are further divided into e-learning and workshops. On Level 2 there are four modules with a similar approach (e-learning plus workshops); Level 3 is composed of not only three workshops but also the development of an assignment.
During the workshops participants work with a uniquely designed case study. This case study is designed to support the participants’ learning outcomes throughout the entire PMQ and to foster participants’ transferability. Additionally, the continuous group work lifts their team spirit and leadership competence as well as strengthens their methodological knowledge (e.g., presentation skills) and analytical skills.
While participants are placed in a fictional setting and take over different roles (project manager, supplier, client, observer), they get a chance to view the project from various angles. This aims at developing a better understanding of the complexity of project management.
Since the beginning of the PMQ program, it has seen around 460 participants from more than 30 different countries. In total, 194 participants from more than 12 countries have already successfully finished the PMQ program, and we expect an average of 30 more every year.
However, a solid standardized program supported by local project management experts still leaves room for an important topic in the triad developed for KAEFER: the standard processes and procedures that will be globally observed.
3. Cornerstone 03: Standards
Our starting point was: Do we have any standards?
This simple question propelled us to other important questions that were raised during this project phase, such as:
- How can we measure the compliance of the project management process steps and still save room for local particularities?
- How do we deal with local habits in terms of information spreading?
- How do we deal with countries on different development levels when applying improving priorities and in which order? How do we define the best approach per country?
- What about the different cultures involved? How can we reach all of them together in a completely decentralized environment?
Being a global company, and with these questions in mind, we realized that the process of competitive intelligence (CI) is extremely important for organizations that compete in a consumer market, whether regional, national, or international. Another point to consider is that CI occurs in organizational environments and therefore constantly receives influence from internal and external factors.
In this direction, for competitive intelligence, organizational culture is relevant, because it represents the essential elements that reflect and determine the behavior, values, resistance to change, and interaction that must occur between individuals and groups (Valentim, 2002).
Each organization, from private to public sector, looks at the world “outside” in its own unique way. The individuals forming a particular organization, and therefore its organizational culture, agree upon the vision itself and the interpretation of the view. If, on one hand, individuals who comprise the organization directly influence the formation of organizational culture, on the other hand, the organization, in systemic terms, influences how the individuals approach their daily lives.
With a clear aim of having a common project management standard, but also taking under consideration the local cultures that definitely have a direct influence on the design and implementation of competitive intelligence, the project management experts developed the KAEFER Project Life Cycle (PLC).
The purpose of the PLC is to ensure a common method for project management within KAEFER. This strengthens the planning, execution, and management of projects. In addition to the defined phases in a KAEFER project, the PLC describes roles and their responsibilities, decision gates (D1–D5) before moving from one phase to the other, and project management templates that can be used as input for decision gates (Exhibit 4).
Exhibit 4: The KAEFER Project Life Cycle.
The PLC introduces:
- A common terminology
- A common understanding of roles and responsibilities
- A common set of project management documents
- A controlled and organized start, middle, and end of the project
- Regular reviews of progress against plan and contract
- Decision gates (go/no-go)
- Management control of deviations from plan
- Involvement of management at the right time during the project
- Good communication channels between the project management team and the rest of the organisation
Framework Developed to Support the Implementation and Implementation Plan
Relying on a strong triad—project management experts, the PMQ, and the PLC—the process implementation and standardization has started worldwide with a clear schedule and a challenging target.
The strategy for the implementation was the following:
- Local assessment (per country) and implementation
- Regional consolidation (geographic regions)
- Global standardization
An initial assessment was done in every single country in order to understand how mature their current project management process was already and how that could be acknowledged in the KAEFER PLC. Next, after understanding the current status, the group decided on the further implementation steps with the support of the local experts, always taking into consideration the local particularities.
As a starting point, the company, as an average, achieved 58% of standard implementation. However, with the goal to “continuously improve our operational processes so that they are state of the art, safe, cost efficient, on time, and competitive,” the set target after four years would be 90% of global standardization.
The current result is 75% of global standardization, but the planned result to date is 85%. Exhibit 5 summarizes this.
Exhibit 5: PLC implementation: Countries' performance.
Final Words
The global standardization of processes and procedures is an important step for continuous improvement, especially under an economic crisis that leads to general market reduction. However, the individual particularities also need to be taken under consideration, such as:
- Local culture and business environment
- Implementation speed of process and maturity to achieve the following higher level
- Acceptance from the group
- Development of personnel in parallel to process improvement: is every project manager ready for the next level?
Based on these particularities, it is possible for the companies to design their strategies and cornerstones before starting toward a greater goal, and also to guarantee a high level of motivation not only from those directly involved but also from the line managers who will deal with all these changes in the future.
References
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1 In 2009 the KAEFER PM Academy, in association with Metier Academy GmbH and Tiba Managementberatung GmbH became an official training provider (Registered Education Provider) accredited by the internationally renowned Project Management Institute (PMI®). This guarantees challenging, high-level training content, leading to an internationally recognized qualification for the participants.