Examples


Sambac Energy

At Sambac the communications were mainly top down. That is, the managers from the two companies would come in and make directives and issue instructions top down. This communication approach was not effective. It took too long for instructions to reach through middle management down to where the work was being performed.

To rectify this situation, the projects were divided up into subprojects that were managed and directed at lower levels. This provided for more communications and input on projects from the working levels. The managers from the two companies then functioned as steering committees with the higher-level local managers. Instructions made more sense because they were in the context of the actual work.

Whitmore Bank

In the first attempt at the credit card project, you will recall that they attempted to entirely base the project in one location. The result was failure. This was in part due to communications. Communications were stifled at the single head location. People in other locations after voicing issues several times then just went about their other work.

Another problem was that the project leader did not want to hear about issues. He expected that the project team members would deal with issues on their own. How can they when the scope of the power and influence may be extremely limited? Managers in the other countries did not see their role as solving issues— in part due to the culture of the country.

In the new organization of the project, things got better. There was much more communications between locations since the project was organized across locations.




International Project Management
International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments
ISBN: 0470578823
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 154

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