Running your business involves dozens, possibly thousands, of projects. Each individual job, contract, or sale, is a project. Every system, with its attendant monitoring and controls is a project. They are all tasks, and the people involved are familiar with them. They know what they’re doing, and a good project manager will have created the right team to deliver each part of the task to bring it to fruition.
But suppose there is a need for new tasks? The organisation might be undergoing some level of transition, or, more radically, a transformation. It might be brought about by a merger, an acquisition, or a product development that alters the sales process.
Now the problem is different. And so is the job to be done. Because the organisation has to be adaptable. However, central to the process are the people.
Gary Hamel, the influential business thinker put it nicely when he said ‘You can’t build an adaptable organisation without adaptable people - and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to’.
That’s the point. Now it’s not project management. It’s change management. But, whichever discipline is appropriate, it will need the equally appropriate I.T. to underpin and effect it.
Leveraging the changes through technology will involve guidance and heightened awareness of the overall goals, and, like the changes themselves, implementation will need the engagement of the people.
It’s a point I’ve made before, and will again, but an external resource can deliver much better results in both identifying the best I.T. solution, and ensuring that those who will need to use it, understand it.
I’ve never seen my role as one where I’d take on project, or change, management within your business. But I will take on the planning and implementation of the best I.T. systems to make your business adjust and adapt effectively and profitably.
As an informed but objective ‘outsider’ I’m better placed to do it.