Managing the project management process
| Pages | 39-46 |
| Date | 01 February 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570310456887 |
| Published date | 01 February 2003 |
| Author | Andrew J. Czuchry,Mahmoud M. Yasin |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Managing the project management process
Andrew J. Czuchry
College of Business and College of Applied Science and Technology,
East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee, USA
Mahmoud M. Yasin
Department of Management and Marketing, East Tennessee State University,
Johnson City, Tennessee, USA
Introduction
Why do chief executive officers (CEOs) of
reputable firms fail? The 21 June 1999 issue of
Fortune (Charan and Colvin, 1999) magazine
focuses on 11 CEOs who were unsuccessful,
in spite of having good vision, strategies and
work ethic. It is estimated that 70 percent of
the CEOs failed because of poor execution
(Charan and Colvin, 1999). Effective business
executives operating in the global
environment must secure profitable projects
to ensure the organization's financial
success. The majority of executives enjoy
creating the vision, strategy, and marketing
plans needed for business projects and new
business ventures. However, few executives
enjoy the decisional mode that involves
evaluating a project's success, assessing the
project manager's performance, identifying
problems and taking corrective actions.
Often, a CEO wonders as to why his/her
empowered team cannot resolve operational
problems, thus allowing the executive to deal
with the really important strategic issues.
Many executives, senior managers, and
senior project managers often fall into the
trap of asking themselves this question.
In reality, what they should be asking
themselves is when and how do I get into the
operational details? Although it is more
glamorous for an executive or a senior
manager to think of himself/herself as a
strategic-proactive leader, successful
executives often must deal with daily
operational problems, and drill down into
details in order to be around for the future.
This means that successful executives and
managers must maintain an appropriate
balance between strategic and operational
concerns, as they conduct the affairs of their
organizations. Unfortunately, there is no
textbook approach toward achieving this
needed strategic and operational balance. In
many cases, mustering such balance can only
be gained through rare experience. However,
an informational integrated approach to
capturing the experience of others may
enhance business executives' overall
effectiveness, thus, reducing the trial and
error learning process. The question of how
much should senior managers know in terms
of operational details is an important and
interesting question. The answer to such
question is certainly worthy of investigation,
especially in the context of managing
projects.
The lead author had the opportunity to
work directly with Dennis Picard, former
President and CEO of Raytheon, for four
years. Picard was a master at knowing how
and when to drill into operational details and
he passed this knowledge to those who
worked with him. His philosophy was simple,
yet effective. He contended that you must
know more about your problem area than
anyone else. He stressed that areas which
were operating smoothly required less
details drilling and efforts to manage.
His hands-on operational philosophy
proved him right in many instances. As a
case in point, consider the experience of the
lead author related to managing a project
that required production, testing and
delivery of several hundred complex
electronics systems each weighing over 1,000
pounds, and having over 4,000 parts, with a
half dozen major subsystems. One of these
parts, a varactor diode that is smaller than a
finger nail, threatened to shut down the
production line due to vendor's quantity,
quality and timing delivery problems. Picard
insisted that the project manager personally
acquire operational details involving four
layers of the Raytheon organization and
three layers of the vendor's organization to
identify and fix all operational problems
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[39]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
103/1 [2003] 39-46
#MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-5577]
[DOI 10.1108/02635570310456887]
Keywords
Project management, Strategy,
Operations, Executives
Abstract
The effective executive operating
in today's global environment
must formulate, operate and
execute across multi-faceted
environmental and organizational
modes for different projects
throughout their distinct phases in
order to achieve results that meet
shareholder expectations. In this
study, the authors draw on a
stream of research dealing with
domestic and international project
managers as well as the practical
experience of the lead author to
provide an informational
integrated approach to help senior
executives and project managers
manage the strategic and
operational facets of different
projects. In this context, a
practical roadmap for identifying
problems and implementing timely
corrective actions to improve
projects' success is advocated by
this study.
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