PMQ602 Organisations and projects: Assignment 1: Professional Plan

PMQ602 Organisations and projects

Assignment 1: Professional Plan

Introduction

In this project work, a detailed discussion is carried out about the organizational culture and project delivery. The aim of this work is on identifying the influence of cultural aspects on the management of the project. This study specifies how the culture of the organization or project team is linked to project delivery. In this work, few recommendations are also made about the development of a supportive project culture which assists in the successful completion of the project. In this, the process of cultural change management is also provided. All the points listed in this work are supported by literature reviews. In the first section relationship between Project delivery and Organizational culture is provided then the recommendation for the development of project culture, Approach for Cultural Change Management and in the end conclusion is provided which highlights the major points of this work. This will help the readers in understanding how culture affects project delivery or implementation.

Development of Project Culture

Link Between Project delivery and Organizational culture

Organizational Culture can be defined as values, beliefs, behaviour and attitude shared by the employees of an organization. Culture acts as the foundation of any organization or business. If the culture of the organization does no support the project, that project becomes the burden on management and creates hurdles in the daily activities of the organization. The project culture of the organization can result in succeeding the project or can break the project of the organization if not supported properly. The culture of the organization takes a long time to be formed; therefore changing this culture for the project is one of the challenging tasks the management of the organization can face. Those project which is aligned with the culture of the organization has higher chances of smooth implementation and success than those which challenges organizational culture.

Organizational culture severely affects the project performance that is if the culture supports the project and its activities it leads to effectiveness and efficiency in project completion on the other if the culture of the organization is different from the activities of the project, this results in resistance and delay in the completion of the project (Nguyen & Watanabe, 2017). Project culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, assumptions and norms of a project team. Understanding the distinct aspects and needs of project culture and development of a culture which suits the organizational project complexities is important for effective management of the project. The project culture has an immense influence on its successful implementation such that if the culture and positive and strong about the completion of the project than any kind of hindrances from the external environment or stakeholders cannot stop that. In contrast, if there is a lack of project culture, it will result in inconsistency, confusion and disagreeing team experience. A project culture which involves high performance is a sign of a project team with high performance.

Recommendations for the Development of Project Culture

For the development of appropriate project culture, there are few recommendations which should be followed that is:

• Understanding of the process of project management: The detailed understanding of the processes involved in project management will help in formulating a strong project culture environment. The project team member should be actively involved when the project processes are updated or changed. Accodring to Varajão et al. (2017) in IT projects the standards specified under PMBOK 5 should be followed which involves 6 process groups that is initiation; planning, execution, monitoring and closing. These standards guide can guide the project manager about the efficient management of project. It also involves ISO 21500:2012.

• Project Culture Initiation: In this step, all the cultural aspects which are essential for the smooth implementation of the project should be studied. This will help in designing the culture according to the needs of the project. For the completion of this, the in-depth understanding of the project will be required.

• Leadership: The leader or project manager is responsible for the supervision of the entire project and acts as a role model for project team members. The leaders influence the project team culture to a larger extent (Novo et al., 2017). Therefore it is important that the leader of the project have charismatic qualities which can motivate the team member to give their hundred percent for the completion of the team. More focus should be given to the project leaders as they should possess the abilities for the successful implementation of the project.

• People-Centric: The project culture should be designed in such a manner that each individual of project teams is equally respected. The team members should be encouraged to provide creative ideas for the completion of project tasks, and proper independence should be provided to perform a particular task of the project.

• Awarding achievers: The performance of the project should be periodically evaluated to identify the best performers and to award them accordingly. This will help in motivating the other employees as well as will help in the retention of employees with higher performance.

Approach for Cultural Change Management

According to Shih & Koch (2020) Cultural change is regarded as the most challenging leadership task. There can be the number of reasons for cultural change. For the management of cultural change brought up by the project 5 step cultural change process will be utilized which will be focused on changing the culture of team or division involved in the project. The steps need to be followed in proper sequence for effective results. The steps are as follows:

• Measurement of Existing Cultural Values: This is the beginning step of cultural change management process where the existing culture of the department involved in the project will be analyzed. This involves the analysis of the employees' beliefs about cultural values. In this, the existing culture will be compared with the required culture, and the gap will find out. This gap will help in getting the idea of the required change.

• Aligning culture, structure and strategy: In this step, it will be ensured that ideal cultural change fits with the organizational structure and project strategy. In this several things will be considered, such as reporting relationships, performance appraisal, job description, recruiting practices, selection, rewards system and training of employees. The changes will be made in the previous rules according to the requirements of a new culture for smooth implantation.

• Participation of employees and stakeholders: As per the study of Selloni & Corubolo (2017) any kind of change requires the involvement of all those people who are getting affected by the change. In the context of cultural changes, this can vary from offering ideas to giving the stakeholders and employees a chance to participate in the project team meeting of cultural change. During this balanced approach will be used where the participation of employees will be encouraged to motivate the employees and stakeholders as well as on the other hand a separate structure for cultural change management will also be incorporated which will involve change committee, change sponsor etc. This will help in reducing the resistance from the employees and stakeholders as well as will also eliminate the confusion and will assist in clear and timely decisions.

• Communication: Communication is the heart of any change process, whether it is related to culture or any other function. In cultural change, frequent communication about the change will be carried out in both the hierarchy upward as well as downward (Yue et al. 2019). The communication will be carried out in such a manner that the project team get the vision of the desired future. During communication, new languages will be used to draft a clear image in the mind of the team involved in the project.

• Emotional Response management: The emotions of employees plays a major role on the way they look at change. Here the project manager is required to utilize the skills of emotional intelligence. In this case, the project manager will strategize and analyse the emotional messages coming from the team members. During this, the emotions will be read and interpreted to get knowledge about the potential response to cultural change. This will help in the adoption of the appropriate strategy for the employees according to their emotions.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from work carried out in this study that the culture of any organization have a severe impact on the project performance and implementation where if the culture supports the project and its activities the chances of its successful completion increases. A strong project culture prevents the project from any kind of obstacles created by external factors or stakeholders. The work listed five recommendations which can help in the development of an efficient and effective project culture which will enhance the performance of the project. This work also highlights the cultural change management, which can be utilized to change the culture of project team members. The process involves 5 steps which need to be followed in sequence to effectively manage cultural change. These steps involve Measurement of Existing Cultural Values, Aligning culture, structure and strategy, Participation of employees and stakeholders, Communication and Emotional Response management.

References:

Nguyen, L. H., & Watanabe, T. (2017). The impact of project organizational culture on the performance of construction projects. Sustainability, 9(5), 781. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/5/781/pdf

Novo, B., Landis, E. A., & Haley, M. L. (2017). Leadership and its role in the success of project management. Journal of Leadership, Accountability, and Ethics, 14(1), 73-78. http://www.na-businesspress.com/JLAE/NovoB_Web14_1_.pdf

Selloni, D., & Corubolo, M. (2017). Design for social enterprises. Co-designing an organizational and cultural change. The Design Journal, 20(sup1), S3005-S3019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352809

Shih, Y. W., & Koch, A. (2020). Psychological Safety for Organizational Cultural Change: An exploratory study in a Swedish multinational chemical engineering company. Malmö University. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1508536/FULLTEXT02

Varajão, J., Colomo-Palacios, R., & Silva, H. (2017). ISO 21500: 2012 and PMBoK 5 processes in information systems project management. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 50, 216-222. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joao_Varajao/publication/308813306_ISO_215002012_and_PMBoK_5_processes_in_Information_Systems_Project_Management/links/5f32ddaca6fdcccc43c1f021/ISO-215002012-and-PMBoK-5-processes-in-Information-Systems-Project-Management.pdf

Yue, C. A., Men, L. R., & Ferguson, M. A. (2019). Bridging transformational leadership, transparent communication, and employee openness to change: The mediating role of trust. Public relations review, 45(3), 101779. https://e-tarjome.com/storage/panel/fileuploads/2019-09-17/1568720817_E13508-e-tarjome.pdf