Project Management Office: an Opportunity for Organisational Development? Klaus Neundlinger, Jeanny Gucher, Simone Rack
4dimensions Consulting and Research Institute, Vienna
Abstract The paper presents theoretical reflections arising from consulting processes accomplished by
our institute. In these processes, consultants specialised in project management, by
accompanying the building up of project management offices in different corporations,
succeeded in changing management’s perspective on organisational and strategic
development. Initially, the offices were introduced as executive departments serving to
coordinate and standardise processes and structures regarding the implementation of
projects. Yet, based on insights deriving from social capital theory, actor-network-theory,
knowledge and socioeconomics, the consultants proposed to extend the office’s services to
other areas like the management of performance indicators and transparency,
communication and stakeholder management, education and training, management of
critical and exceptional situations, operative support, knowledge transfer, risk and quality
management. The process was embedded in a series of encounters, seminars and peer-to-
peer training forms that enhanced the exchange between the single project managers. The
organisation attained a strengthening of group cohesion, the establishing of forms of
common reflection and mutual commitments, i.e. an enhancement of the organisation’s
bonding and linking social capital. In addition, the building up of a project management
office allowed for new ways of processing the knowledge originated by project managers via
the contact with customers, enhancing by that the organisation’s bridging capital. The paper
analyses the impact of relational dynamics on the effectiveness of organisations in
implementing their business goals.
Keywords: actor-networks, social capital, project management, organisational development,
relational dynamics, effectiveness of organisations, institutional reflexivity, cooperation
Track: Management
Word Count:
1. Project management and strategic change
1.1. Consulting: conceiving of change from a multiple actors’ perspective In this paper, the question of organisational development will be addressed in its relation to
project management. In order to achieve theoretical insights from experiences and reflections
accomplished in the context of a series of consulting processes, we take up a position that
proposes to analyse the relation between the overarching targets of change processes and the
specific modes of implementing solutions and services in the form of projects. Thus, we
address the problem of the implementation of targets from the perspective of the various
actors involved; be it the corporation as a collective actor, be it the project manager as an
individual actor, or the diverse levels of hierarchies and departments that contribute to the
creation of the value of an organisation.
What makes us believe that the theory of change and organisational development can draw
useful insights from the external view of the consultant in terms of the type of agency that
triggers, facilitates or impedes change processes? The work of the consultant, if it is done
with due accuracy, implies interaction with actors on various levels, hence it acknowledges
that agency in terms of change is not limited to the top levels of management. Rather, it
implies a dynamic, evolving network of institutionalised as well as informal relations. These
are decisive for the appropriate use of given resources, in particular immaterial ones like
knowledge (Moldaschl, 2007), but also trust, reciprocity (Coleman 1990), and the capability
to maintain sustainable relationships with customers, cooperating firms and other
departments.
The external look comprises and takes account of the views of actors on various hierarchical
levels. In this sense, it contextualises the resources, because it attributes them to the actors
that actually dispose of them. If we succeed in transposing this look into a theoretical
standpoint, this can shed light on the way the actors are linked to each other aside from
hierarchical and departmental logics. In other words, what the consultative look on
organisational change may reveal are the multiple modes of relating that underpin any type of
concrete acting—the specific ties of trust and acknowledgment that bind people influencing
the way they cooperate or the limits, aversions or conflicts that separate them impeding a
fruitful cooperation. The resources to be rendered accessible by organisational change are
bound to specific contexts and to determined actors that have to be invited to contribute to the
achievement of a goal, but have to be also given the opportunity to transform the goal itself.
Transposing the external look into a theoretical standpoint means, thus, introducing a new
level of reflexivity into the corporation. In this way, the consultants begin to be part of the
networks they observe, they obtain the status of an actor that extends the internal view by
adding a reflexive quality to the established modes of acting.
Strategy, in this sense, acquires a twofold meaning: it is not only referred to the problem how
adaption to the market, the development of new services, mergers and acquisitions and other
decisions and processes can be best communicated and implemented within the organisation.
Strategic change has also to do with the fact that the formulation of business goals and the
individuation of appropriate resources undergo a series of transformations by passing through
the various networks inside the firm. Thus, it is indispensable to dedicate attention to the
various actors, the networks involved, to the claims and obligations that mould them. One has
to analyse the social capital that constitutes the firm as a field of agency that potentially
enhances the productivity of the corporation, but must be also seen as a context of diverging
individual and group interests and conflicting views. Since we adopt an actor’s perspective,
we define social capital as the result and pre-condition of individual investments in relations
in form of claims and obligations towards other actors in the same or different networks. In
other words, we consider the social capital of an organisation as the stock of trust, reciprocity
and other norms individuals and departments can draw on in their intention to realise
cooperative advantages (Ostrom, Ahn, 2003).
1.2. Actor-networks that relate line to project management Concerning our specific case, in order to capture the specific dynamics of the processes we
have been investigating on, we conceive of (individual and collective) actors as essentially
embedded in networks, adopting by that a point of view that extends the narrow view of
methodological individualism and takes into account the social context of economic action
(Granovetter, 1985). The fact that we relate the question of organisational development to the
issue of project management has led us to establish an actor-network-perspective (Latour,
2005) on the phenomenon of organisational change. As already stated, what appeared
interesting to us with respect to the problem of acting in organisational contexts is not so
much the question how individuals can be hierarchically controlled and motivated to commit
themselves (and contribute something) to a collective target fixed by executives at the highest
levels of the organisation. Instead, we are interested in the way how targets are transformed
and emerge as the outcome of decentralised, yet networked modes of acting. This way of
looking at organisational processes establishes a vision on project management in firms that
stresses its importance as core process of all business activities in project driven
organisations. As project driven organisations we define corporations that generate more than
half of their profits via project-based business.
The question is, thus, if and how the well-known conflict between line management and
project management can be overcome by adopting an actor-network-perspective. Speaking
from a practical perspective, the question is how the diverse departments, such as research
and development (R&D), sales, marketing, finance, controlling, quality etc. can conceive of
themselves as networked, as providers and suppliers for the ever changing core process, the
realisation of business goals in form of projects. Can there be a constructive, a cooperative
way of contributing to these processes, or is it inevitable that the single departments’ logics,
the specific logics of optimising processes without taking into account the interests and needs
of other actors, prevail?
1.3. What does the project manager contribute to change? One concrete example we will refer to in this paper is a consulting process we have been
accomplishing in a corporation that provides technologies in the areas of medical imaging
and patient information systems. From the overarching point of view of the change process,
the major challenge for the firm consists in the fact that growth rates are diminishing in terms
of the scalability of the technological solutions. The number of hospitals and other health care
structures is limited; in addition, these structures are subject to financial restrictions due to
shortfalls in public budgets.
If project managers were seen as figures that are exclusively limited to the implementation of
solutions acquired by the R&D department, the management’s perspective would almost
completely lack to ponder their potentials, the ways they could represent valuable resources
for the corporation. It would hardly recognise the potentials of business development that
reside in the relations and networks characterising the figure of the project manager. In this
sense, it would also lack to grasp the potential contribution to organisational development
deriving from the immaterial resources possessed by the managers. With respect to their
immaterial resources (Moldaschl, 2007), project managers dispose of an invaluable advantage
that, if supported and properly organised, could be transformed into a competitive advantage
for the whole corporation. The general assumption behind this statement is that project
managers often represent the part of the staff that finds itself in the closest position to the
market and to the customer. Being embedded in a network of personal relations that evolve at
the interface between customer and organisation respectively between the market and the
organisation, the project manager potentially opens up the following opportunities for the
firm:
a) He or she can act as a sales agent, because in his/her every day communication with
the customer, he/she learns to know the problems and needs of the latter. If the
relation is based on a common understanding of the problems connected to the
implemented technologies, the project manager has the opportunity to credibly fulfil
the role of a sales agent, offering solutions provided by the own corporation.
b) This opens up a second opportunity: the accumulated knowledge on the customer’s
needs and wishes can be forwarded to and discussed with the sales department in
order to develop new strategies of managing the relations with customers or extending
the scope of the sales representatives.
c) The most important opportunity is to be seen in the fact that the project manager, once
he or she has established a relation of trust and mutual understanding with the
customer, gets involved in (or can offer himself to contribute something to) the
development of processes in the customer’s organisation. This equals to the opening
up of a new field of potential business and counters the phenomenon of shrinking
markets in terms of the scalability of products.
d) Furthermore, the project manager is to be seen as a resource for innovation. In fact,
he/she constantly reflects problems or new situations that occur in the process of the
implementation of technology or other business solutions. On the other hand
experiencing processes taking place in other institutions can be a valuable starting
point for rethinking and innovating processes in the own organisation, but also in the
context of other customer organisations.
e) There is another opportunity to be taken into consideration by the firm, and this is
precisely what the corporation providing solutions for medical imaging and patient
information systems we refer to has been experiencing. Project managers work in a
decentralised way and often suffer from an administrative overload at the expense of a
limited opportunity to dedicate time to the customer. In addition, many of the
bureaucratic work that is accomplished by the project managers could be done more
efficiently by a central office within the organisation. Thus, the opportunity to
standardise processes and reduce the administrative workload for the project
managers could be combined to the establishing of links between them in order to
create a common understanding of the meaning of many aspects concerning project
management. In our case, this opportunity was embraced via the building up of a
project management office as an executive department.
In order to expose all the analytical aspects that are connected to the construction of the
project management office (PMO), we will start with a reflection on the opportunities and
restrictions that condition the single project manager’s agency. In a subsequent step, we will
argue for the hypothesis that project managers, if they are recognised as providers of valuable
immaterial resources, can form a transversal community. In this way, they create actor-
networks and trigger by that organisational development towards a conscious management of
the various relationships inside the firm as well as between the firm and cooperation partners,
customers and competitors. All this should help to sustainably reduce the conflict between
line and project management.
In nowadays firms, value creation should be considered as based on projects, hence on a
rather dynamic way of organising processes and services, while stability should be generated
by the reciprocity and trust to be evolved within the transversal communities. Therefore, at
the end we will briefly discuss the meaning of change in organisations that base their value
creation essentially on projects.
2. The project manager as decentralised actor: opportunities and restrictions
2.1. Establishing actor-networks Project management appears as a resource according to whether the project manager’s agency
is extended by opportunities or limited by restrictions. This is a question that, as already
stated, cannot be answered satisfyingly from a resource or competence based view approach
(Moldaschl 2007). These approaches show the tendency of not sufficiently taking into the
account the way the actions set by the project manager are embedded in the social context.
Yet, the embeddedness of acting determines which conditions or consequences turn out to be
opportunities and which represent restrictions.
In the previous section, we have already listed a series of opportunities that can be grasped by
the project manager implementing technological solutions. His/her proximity to the market
and the customer potentially provides the basis for the development of new products and
services. In the best case, these services comply with the customer’s peculiar needs and do
account for the specificity of the respective context, hence they are to be considered as taylor-
made for the organisation in which the project manager implements the solution. Furthermore,
the project manager has the opportunity to adopt the function of an interface in a twofold
sense:
1) Being an expert that disposes of IT-related know-how, he or she has the competence to
develop processes in the customer’s organisation. Together with the customer, he/she can
detect solutions for the planning and implementation of new processes. Since the project
manager learns to know internal structures and particularities of the customer’s organisation,
he/she can offer to develop services for departments or areas beyond the context he/she is
currently operating in. The project manager’s approach, in this sense, can differ significantly
from that of a sales agent, because he/she can try to arouse interest for new services by
confronting the customer with research questions and problems still to be resolved by the
R&D department.
2) Doing so, he/she may be able to involve the R&D department in his/her relation with the
customer. In this sense, the project manager would act according to an actor-network-logic by
building up new links that influence the way things are reflected on. A specific problem or
research question would then function, in Latour’s (2005) terms, as a mediator that involves
various actors aside from institutional logics and makes them act in a different way. What
could change with respect to the way the R&D department acts is that there could be a shift in
the perspective from a problem-solution-oriented approach to an approach that goes much
more into the specific needs and wishes of the customer. Following this view, one can state
that, by establishing new actor-networks the project manager can succeed in integrating the
customer’s needs into the corporation’s view on topics connected to research and
development.
2.2. Being aware of the own history: the limited transferability of practices While acting, especially when it is accompanied by reflexive forms and communicative
practices, potentially extends the actor’s realm of opportunities, as embedded in specific
contexts it is also bound to restrictions. From the perspective of the corporation as such,
major restrictions derive from external forces, like the market or competitors, institutional
settings or socioeconomic conditions. Increasing pressure due to the internationalisation of
markets and the general phenomenon of shrinking growth rates in developed economies are
restrictions almost all corporations have to face.
In addition, restrictions for acting emerge also from within the organisation itself. Referring
to the topic of this article, one can say that however much project management is conceived
of as the core process of most of the organisations, in many cases departmental interests and
logics prevail and department representatives do not adopt supportive modes of conduct
towards project managers. A major problem for project managers when it comes to the
processing of knowledge, relevant insights and ideas for changing and extending business
inside the firm consists in the fundamental gap between the function of executing the core
process activity (which generates a series of useful insights for the corporation) and the
relatively peripheral position in terms of institutional hierarchy. In this sense, it is the
problem of being or not being heard, of the possible solutions, ideas, contacts being or not
being perceived as opportunities when they do not emerge from a departmental process, but
from experiences in projects. How can this knowledge be fed back to the organisation? Often,
project managers are not sufficiently interconnected in order to form a critical mass that is
able to effectively initiate change processes on the basis of the knowledge and experiences
they accumulate.
Still, there is a more fundamental point about the relation between opportunities and
restrictions. If we conceive of acting as being embedded in social contexts, hence not in the
sense of the atomistic conception endorsed by methodological individualism, the
embeddedness and interconnectedness of acting has to be thought of as depending on specific
evolutions. Acting has its own history, and this is a reason why, in our opinion, a “best
practice” approach to organisational change has a rather limited validity (Moldaschl, 2007). It
is not fruitful to treat the experiences made in a determined organisation as a model to be
imitated by other organisations. On the contrary, any concept of change has to be developed
by specifying the opportunities and restrictions in the respective context. In our work as
consultants, we are particularly aware of this circumstance. Instead of referring to practices
established in other contexts as models to be followed or offering standardised procedures for
the introduction of new departments like the PMO, we try to grasp what are the specific
historical and structural conditions that determine the way projects are carried out.
The first step of this detection of the specific frames for the implementation of strategic aims
is to do a series of interviews with actors on various hierarchical levels. As stated in the first
section, by building up relationships with diverse levels and by learning to know diverse
departmental logics, the mode of acting of the consultant becomes in itself strategic.
Nevertheless, the strategy lying behind this acting is not to sound the interlocutors out in
order to advise the executive board how to impose the own ideas concerning change in a
more effective way. Rather, the consultants behave strategically in the sense that it should be
possible to confront actors at all levels with their own history, with the specific opportunities
and restrictions that contribute to or harm the immaterial assets of the firm. In this way, inter-
and intradepartmental relations, networks, modes of interacting, ways of evolving motivation
by trust and acknowledgement can be reflected on as well as a look on the corporation’s
culture and the structures and processes fixed on the operational level is facilitated.
Figure 2: Model of 4 dimensions of social productivity. The conceptual scheme serves to generate indicators for
the organisation’s social capital. It is a tool for measuring the different forms of investing in relationships and
therefore the different types of social capital (linking, bridging, bonding) that are constitutive of the actor-
networks within the corporation as well as connecting the corporation to other organisations and the market.
The scheme we developed for the analysis of corporate settings is an instrument for
generating qualitative and quantitative data regarding a firm’s social capital. On the basis of a
set of key concepts applied to the topics raised in the interviews, a series of items is
developed that allows executives on the various hierarchical levels as well as project
managers or employees to evaluate 1) the quality of the relationships, 2) the ability to
cooperate and 3) the competence in finding solutions that characterise teams, departments
and the corporation as a whole. This makes it possible to reconstruct evolutionary paths the
company has been pursuing as well as the opportunities that are connected to these peculiar
evolutions, but also the restrictions deriving from them. In the consulting process, the items
are not only used for a qualitative or quantitative account of the individual assessments of the
company’s situation. They are also discussed in seminary and workshop settings in order to
compare the diverse points of view and to derive concrete measures for the enhancement of
the firm’s social capital.
Team Team Team Team
formation of
culture 4,8
participation 5,0
internalised
values 3,7
living structure 4,2
acceptance of
responsibilies 4,9
interaction rules 4,9
acknowledgement 4,5
acceptance of
structure 4,0
handling of
responsibilities 5,0
common
reflection
process
4,4
trust evolution 4,5
development of
structure 3,7
involvement 4,9
adoption of an
autonomous
position
4,6
individual level
of autonomy 4,5
analysis of
needs with
respect to
structure
4,0
culture
interaction
motivation
structure
cultural shift 1,7
social
conformity 2,8
attitude of
expectancy 5,0
cluelessness 3,0
uncertainty 2,3
irritation 2,7
deception 2,8
error frequency 2,6
chaos 3,3
ineffectiveness 2,2
demotivation 2,0
assignment of
guilt 3,2
might is right 2,5
exercising of
power 3,1
inefficiency 3,4
defending
against
accusations
2,5
Figure 3: Example for the quantitative measurement of a team’s social capital in a given situation based on a
process of qualitative data generating. The research involved the application of the conceptual scheme of the 4
dimensions of social productivity, an interview series and the creation of items developed together with
executives and employees of the corporation where the consulting process took place.
3. Organising transversal communities: the project management office experience
3.1. Subject-groups, not subjected groups: project managers In diverse consulting processes like the one already referred to on behalf of the medical
imaging and patient information systems provider, we had the occasion to accompany the
introduction of central project management offices. As mentioned above, the offices were
initially set up as executive departments serving to coordinate and standardise processes and
structures regarding the implementation of projects. The institution of an independent
department on a high level in the hierarchy implied a valorisation of project management
inside the respective corporations. Therefore, we proposed to extend the offices’ services to
other areas like the management of performance indicators and transparency, communication
and stakeholder management, education and training, management of critical and exceptional
situations, operative support, knowledge transfer, risk and quality management and the
management of social productivity (Barnett, 2011).
Figure 4: Scheme of extended services provided by PMO
However, a valorisation of project management via the institution of an own department
should not be confused with the “disciplining” of project management. Such an idea could
create the illusion that the conflict between line and project management is resolvable by
confining the latter to a separate department that functions according to the given hierarchies
and interferes much less with the internal affairs of the other departments. By standardising
processes and structures, one could be tempted to think, project management would end up as
finally tamed shrew. Yet, such a perspective would also impede any possibility to tackle
organisational development precisely from the challenges emerging from project
management. What these concrete challenges are can only be addressed by involving project
managers as an important, rather open network in the corporation with links to many other
departments. This is the reason why we assume that organisational development cannot be
achieved without going deeper into the process of community building amongst the project
managers.
Project standards
* development of PM guidelines, toolkit
* IT support
* restructuring of the master project plan
* maintenance of standardised templates
* definition and further development of PM processes
* regional meetings for coordination of current and future activities
* unifying of accounting practices
* evaluation of portfolio and controlling practices
Project coaching and training
* annual scheduling of the internal training
* standardisation of methods and training for project managers
* certification by the PMI (Project Management International)
* tutorials provided by senior PM's in form of mentoring programms
* specialised support during the project implementation phase
* preparation and moderation of workshops
* coaching in delicate situations
* coaching of project managers
Project assistance
* support regarding the invoicing of internal and external services
* support regarding post-auction sales of external services
* project evaluation and risk assessment
* support for licensing and lump sum cost accounting
* support in sales planning
* preparation of kick-off events for projects
Knowledge Management
* participation in the creation of the corporate training programms
* planing of the resources according to the project structure plan in coordination with the PM
* exchange of knowledge and experiences between PMs
* knowledge data base
* public presentation of successful projects
Services provided by the PMO
In our approach, the process of building up a PMO is always embedded in a series of
encounters, seminars and peer-to-peer training forms that enhance the exchange between the
single project managers. In this process, project managers begin to form a community that is
to be considered a subject-group, not a subjected group (Guattari, 1972). This means that it is
not the external imposition of uniting all project managers in an own department that forms
them as a group, but rather their possibility to autonomously set goals, to exchange
knowledge and contribute to the construction of a common understanding (Ostrom, Ahn,
2003). In the case of the medical imaging provider, the knowledge exchange was fostered by
the creation of a virtual community. A rather successful intranet platform was developed that
allowed project managers to communicate with others on various problems. The platform
was regularly visited and filled with contents by many of them, so that soon also employees
and experts from other department claimed to be admitted to it. In this case, the specific
context allowed for an IT-solution to become an agent of the group-building. Sticking to the
actor-network-perspective and to what we have stated on the specificity of opportunities and
restrictions, we assess that in other firms and contexts the same solution maybe won’t have
the same positive effect. Still, what we dare to hypothesize on the basis of the same
theoretical perspective is that it is not so much the affiliation to a department that generates
group identity, but rather the possibility to get networked, to have the possibility to exchange
knowledge, to share problems, solutions and experiences.
3.2. Transversal community: spreading acknowledgement, trust and learning A second point about the formation of a project (not department) based community is that it
is not built on the claim to achieve unity. Rather, it has to be imagined as a transversal
community (Guattari, 1972). As stated, this sort of community cannot be achieved by simply
focussing on the aspects of rationalisation and standardisation. On the contrary, by modelling
the process of standardising the project implementation mode from the perspective of the
interaction between project managers, the organisation is much more likely to attain a
strengthening of group cohesion, the establishing of forms of common reflection and mutual
commitments, i.e. an enhancement of the organisation’s bonding and linking social capital
(Badura, 2008, 2010; Cohen, Prusak, 2001). This means that, while on the one hand
commitments between colleagues working closely together are intensified, also the
connection between the different hierarchical levels is solidified. Employees have the feeling
that they refer to the same values as their superiors because the latter dedicate a lot of
attention to their problems and support them in their everyday activities. If this attitude
spreads all over the corporation, people feel committed to each other without acting
according to the logics of group closure. There will be less need to evolve strong ties
exclusively towards the colleagues of the own department.
In our example, the building up of a project management office allowed for new ways of
processing the knowledge originated by project managers via the contact with other
departments and, as we have stated above, the customer organisations, enhancing by that the
organisation’s bridging capital (Burt, 2005; Lin, 2001). Networks, in this way, are enabled to
evolve dynamically, as actor-networks that are accessible and permeable for new ideas and
different points of view.
Figure 5: The spreading of acknowledgement, trust and learning fostered by PMO
The circulation and co-creation of knowledge is a crucial point if it comes to the building up
of a transversal community of project based actors, be they the project managers, be they
their colleagues in the various departments like R&D, sales, marketing and so on. Therefore,
as a second step in the building up of the project based transversal community within the
organisation of the medical imaging and patient information systems provider, training for
the project managers was reorganised in form of an internal “academy”. By means of this
training institute, managers from other departments came into contact with the project
managers’ community. With respect to the didactical design of their trainings, they were
given the task to impart their specialised knowledge against the background of the interests
and needs of project managers. On the one hand, this was a way to spread acknowledgement,
appreciation and trust across the diverse departments. Project managers came into touch with
the high quality of the specialised knowledge created in and provided by the members of
other departments. On the other hands, one can say that the specialists from the other
departments were successfully “infected” by the project-virus, because they had to re-design
their specialised knowledge taking account of the specific needs and purposes of project
management.
4. Project based value creation: what changes?
4.1. Which direction is to be taken? The conflict between line management and project management is not only a structural
condition, but also a conflict between different approaches to organisational development. As
we have seen, the building up of a project management office can be mistaken as an illusory
departmentalisation of the core activity, i.e. the value creation by realising projects.
Organisational development would then consist in the perseverating of unchallenged and
taken-for-granted hierarchies and the claim that the existing departments continue pursuing
their internal logics of optimising processes. Yet, the conflict could also be used to reorganise
Shared Service
Center
PMO
R&D
sales
marketing
finance
customer
controlling
quality
engineering
the structures of a firm towards a project-oriented form of acting. For many firms, putting the
project form into the centre of the attention and reorganising all the structures all the
structures around the core activity represents a fundamental challenge and is to be considered
the first step in organisational change.
The building up of a PMO is nothing else than doing this first step in organisational change in
project driven organisations. Attributing a central importance to the everyday work of project
managers by easing the burden of the administrative part of their tasks equals to the implicit
acknowledgement of the other parts of their work. And these other parts are, as we have seen,
essentially based on immaterial resources:
1) Social capital: the possibility to intensify the relation to the customer and the relations
with other departments; the possibility to form a peer-to-peer community (subject-group)
with the other project managers and to initiate a transversal community of practice and
knowledge across the departments;
2) Human capital: the possibility to detect new needs and challenges, to develop new services
and products.
The PMO can take over the function to feed the new ideas, solutions and challenges back to
the organisation. Doing so, it contributes to the redesigning of the operational activities and
takes part in the innovation process.
4.2. What is organisational change if orientation shifts towards projects? The question of what organisational change is if the core business process is put into the
centre of organisational restructuring cannot be detached from the way the head of the PMO
and the consultants supporting the building up of the office as executive department act.
While both of them have a strategic agenda, it is obvious that their positions differ in nature.
The consultant’s position can contribute, as we have stated, to the evolution of an enhanced
institutional reflexivity because it confronts the organisation with views from outside, with
standpoints that emerge apart from the institutional logics.
For the head of the PMO, it is as crucial as it is for the consultant to build up a strategic
position, but he/she is much more involved in the institutional and above all in the
departmental logics. Hence, the PMO head has to build up, on the one hand, a maximum of
bridging social capital. He/she has to deal with all different departments and whether he/she
is able to achieve something depends on the trustworthiness he/she is endowed with by the
others. In this sense, the building up of bridging social capital enables the PMO head to
advance requests towards other department heads or members, extending by that his/her
opportunities to receive relevant information, forward ideas, claims or challenges to the R&D
or the sales department and take part in business development processes. On the other hand,
this trustworthiness can also turn into a restriction, as it creates obligation for the PMO head
in terms of dealing with diverging interests. The more he/she gets to know from other
departments, the more the PMO head gets into the position of a broker, the more he/she is
obliged to account for the different, diverging interests and is, thus, forced to interact by
mediation.
We consider it crucial that the PMO head positions the office as a reflexive institution inside
the firm, i.e. as a provider of valuable knowledge concerning the processes for the other
departments. This would complete the consultant’s view which is limited to offer reflexive
elements and processes from an external position. By behaving in terms of reflexivity, the
PMO can succeed in inverting the roles. The PMO could establish as a provider for
specialised knowledge for the departments. As we have just stated, the specialised knowledge
provided by the PMO concerns the processes that have to be developed according to a
project-oriented logic. There are three areas of interest the PMO can intervene:
a) The PMO can initiate the building up of a data base gathering knowledge on
processes. In this way, it would be possible to foster institutional reflexivity
concerning the way processes are planned and implemented. Still, such a data base
is valuable only if it is regularly updated and if the knowledge accumulated is
communicated in seminars, virtual communities etc. In this sense, the “academy”
and the intranet community established by the medical imaging provider
organisation revealed as appropriate measures for an effective combining of
human and social capital.
b) The PMO can contribute to improve processes in other departments. This
presupposes that the PMO head is accredited with the necessary social capital, i.e.
if he/she is considered trustworthy enough to be heard by the heads of other
departments. In addition, institutional forms of exchange between the PMO and
the other departments have to be found in order to create a balance between the
given hierarchies and the actor-networks emerging from the various interaction
and exchange processes occurring in everyday cooperation.
c) The PMO can contribute to discussing the question how the organisation as a
whole can be developed around the core process of doing business by projects.
Can new business opportunities be created out of single projects? How can the
knowledge emerging from the cooperation in projects be reflected and processed
in the organisation? How can the administrative overload connected to project
realisation be diminished in order to extend the time spent on creating knowledge
together and managing sustainable relationships inside and outside the firm?
d) The PMO can represent a driving force for innovation processes. Information
generated in the interaction with the customers is reflected on and forwarded to
the various departments of the organisations and can therefore provide the basis
for product and process innovation. Project managers are supported in their role as
contributors to innovation in that their specific knowledge regarding the
implementation and application of technologies is processed by the PMO.
5. Conclusion Organisational development needs to be based on a theoretical approach that presupposes
multiple actors. It cannot be based on methodological individualism, but must define and
analyse the opportunities and restrictions of acting in organisational contexts on a
socioeconomic perspective, on the insight that acting is embedded in determined cultures and
social frames. This leads us to the conclusion that organisational change can be analysed
better if we take into consideration actor-networks, i.e. dynamic relations evolving on the
basis of the exchange of knowledge, the forwarding of information, the advancing and
challenging of standpoints etc. This process is shaped and organised by the use of
technologies and by the emergence of virtual communities. Yet, it is also a process of direct
interaction that is based on the incurring of commitments and the advancing of expectations,
of claims. These claims and commitments are exchanged and accumulated in the concrete
relational dynamics between collaborators in projects, projects managers and customers,
members from different departments on the diverse hierarchical levels. As sustainable
relationships are based on trust and reciprocity, the underlying commitments and expectations
form the social capital of a network (Coleman, 1990).
Project managers and decentralised actors can be organised in form of subject-groups. This
means that they are given the opportunity to organise themselves in form of peer-to-peer
activities, but also in form of an intense relationship with customer organisations. Doing so,
they enhance the social capital of a firm and can contribute to the development of new
services based on a close relation to the customer. Intensifying services on the basis of a
relationship of mutual trust and understanding is a crucial mode of value creation under the
conditions of shrinking markets and the diminishing opportunity to sell scalable products.
Since project management is not only based on the dealing with and the reduction of
uncertainty in economic interaction, but also with the shaping of relationships, it can be
conceived of as an important element for organisational development. Instituting a PMO as
executive department can contribute the valorisation of projects and project management in
corporations if the office is endowed with strategic influence. In other words, it depends to
what extent the other departments accept the proposals for improving processes, for
intensifying the exchange etc. across the hierarchical borders imposed by the line
organisation. It depends to what extent firms approve the emerging of actor-networks, of
transversal communities.
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