Project Management - an Integrated Approach

Terry Dawes FInstAM Terry's experience covers technical and commercial management, both at local and international levels and across a number of sectors, with major international companies in the fields of finance, travel, food, leisure and technology. During his 14 year career at Union Bank of Switzerland, he held the position of Vice President, Consultancy, as well as a number of different management positions in London, Tokyo and Zurich. He has also held senior positions at Saudi Arabian Airlines, Allied Lyons and The BOC Group. Terry has been responsible for the line management and leadership of multi-national teams of personnel, including the Global Business Solutions and Consultancy departments at Union Bank of Switzerland. Here, he managed individual teams of consultants, business specialists, service managers and project managers. Terry's expertise covers managing the development, implementation and management of global services, including business solutions, vendor selection and bid analysis, business continuity (including disaster recovery), organisational change and change management, risk management, security, developing and delivering service solutions, relationship management and programme management. He has led multi-national teams worldwide and understands the cultural and business requirements of organisations around the globe, including the need to provide well-structured, fully supported business solutions that meet the changing needs and expectations of customers. As an independent consultant, Terry provides interim management and consultancy for business solutions, project management, business continuity and risk management. He also undertakes strategic reviews and provides international support in developing projects, teams, business processes and services. As managers and leaders, we are all facing tremendous organisational change, uncertainty and decisions with huge opportunities and risks. This volatile environment calls for more personal creativity and insight within projects and project management. In addition, with the speed of change, organisations need to remain nimble to maintain their competitiveness, and this in turn reflects the way projects are managed and led. The approach by project managers as to how the expectations and the motivation of project teams are sustained will present a challenge for the future. Coupled with this, additional consideration will need to be applied in identifying ways to increase awareness ofthe values and creativity of all project members, to increase learning and to encourage personal growth of all team members. To undertake the successful management of projects, we must now look towards an approach where both the hard and soft entities of project management are integrated, and development of the team is undertaken in order to provide improved performance. Performance from commitment It was Kinlaw1 who argued that the key to superior performance is commitment, and stated that commitment is an engagement or involvement in the work in hand, characterised by a single -- minded desire and motivation to overcome all obstacles in order to get the job done. He further argued that in an organisation, tight controls and structures may enforce satisfactory performance, but do not lead to the superior performances of committed employees. Superior performances come from committed employees who want to do the job and want to do it well. Project managers will thus need to build upon the commitment within their teams to seek increased performance. To meet this approach, there are a number of sustainable and additional entities that can increase performance and contribute to the success of projects. These consist of the "hard" entities that include typically processes, tools, controlling and risk management, which are vital to all projects. However I would argue that the success of projects will now depend on the inclusion of the "soft" entities. …