Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
business to another group in the organization. The Director knew he needed
to start making changes related to delegation, involving more of the organi-
zation in the
decision-making process
. He understood the ramifications to
organizational productivity when people often found themselves
waiting
on
others to make a decision. He knew he was at least partially responsible for
this situation. But he wasn't prepared to tackle what he viewed as
unaccept-
able risk
to ongoing projects.
This is an area where too often process improvement efforts fall short of
leveraging some of the best opportunities for real value within an organiza-
tion. NANO did exhibit a number of “Agile” characteristics that had helped
them achieve their success. At this point, they were continuing to survive
because of those reasons. However, they were beginning to fail more fre-
quently due to weaknesses in the scalability of those processes. The Director
knew it. And he knew those failures would continue to increase if action
wasn't initiated quickly.
If NANO tried to make too many changes too fast, it was certain to set their
performance back while people adjusted to the new expectations. This, in
turn, would increase the risk of losing their business due to the cut-throat
internal politics.
On the other hand, the Director also knew that if he didn't start making
changes now, his project troubles were certain to grow. Eventually he would
lose his business to dissatisfied customers. We had to put a plan in place that
could move the organization forward, managing both of these risks.
To o o f t e n , I s e e p ro c e s s i m p ro v e m e n t i n i t i a t i v e s t o o f a r re m o v e d f ro m t h i s
level of thinking and collaboration on real project issues. If you are not
think-
ing through
the plan at this level including potential consequences, you are
not managing.
When the real risks to projects are not adequately considered, project man-
agers steer clear—and rightly so—of ongoing process improvement
initiatives, rather than gravitate toward them. As a result, real process
improvement opportunities that could benefit projects and organizations
too often get missed.
LESSON 3
When planning process improvement initiatives, think through the full set of
issues including process deployment risks to on-going projects.
