Projects - strategic norm or occasional distraction?

 I'm currently reading a book that I like quite a bit called Powered By Projects.  I like it because it confirms a lot of what I believe, so there is some recognized confirmation bias in what you'll read here.

The author believes that projects, rather than functions like marketing or finance, should be the organizing principle of businesses today.  Throughout the book and with some interesting case studies, he makes it clear why he thinks this way.

Currently, most organizations are structured in a top-down, hierarchical framework that we've inherited from the railroads and from the military.  In other words, siloed organizations based on command and control from the top down, where information flows up and down, and control flows down the siloes.  Most organizations are structured this way, because the structure reinforces command and control, efficiency, and provides stability.  This structure is over 150 years old (in the corporate world) and thousands of years old in the military realm.  The hierarchical structure was built in a time when most people were barely able to read and communication was poor and periodic at best.  

Today, we have far more people with more education and communication is much timelier and more effective.  In addition, more and more work involves people working on projects that cut across siloes and functions.  New product launches, new enterprise systems, new ways of serving customers cross functional siloes and often result in either increased revenues or reduced costs.  Note the last conclusion there - cross functional projects are responsible for generating new revenues or cutting costs, both of which are executive priorities.

Yet, as the title suggests, in most businesses, projects are often seen as occasional distractions from everyday work, rather than mission critical activities that deserve strong support.  Many cross functional projects today pull unwilling people from their day jobs, adding additional work with little management support, conflicting priorities and no clear reward structures.  Far from being a strategic priority or internal capability, projects are often viewed as a short-term distraction with an uncertain goal.

While there are organizational and cultural barriers to good project performance, there are structural barriers and reward concerns as well.  While most corporations have robust financial systems, enterprise resource management systems and customer relationship management systems, few have strong project management systems and almost none have project management linked effectively to budgeting or corporate financial systems and KPIs.  Which means that most projects struggle to obtain the necessary visibility and management support they need and often don't align to corporate rewards or incentives.

If projects are strategic, they cannot be occasional distractions added on top of other work, lacking corporate and IT support and unaligned to reward systems.  Rather, if projects are truly important and critical to future growth and success, how they are staffed and run need to become more integral to the structure and culture of the organization.

If the author's premise is true, and projects are what's critical, not a focus on functions, then everything about a business needs to be rethought, and there lies the rub.

This may be a bridge too far for larger and established organizations.  Trying to adapt to more agile and nimble business processes is challenging enough for most hierarchical organizations.  Rethinking structures and business processes to emphasize projects that cut across organizational structures while operating efficiently and attempting to be nimble may be more juggling than is possible. 

While the author provides compelling case studies of firms that have placed projects and project management at the core of how they operate, for many firms the investment in corporate infrastructure, people and the budgeting, financial and reward systems may make it difficult to make a change to structure around projects.

Regardless of your thinking on the importance and value of projects, I think every company should improve its ability to manage and run projects. I say this as a former consultant who witnessed a lot of poorly supported projects, where the participants felt the work was important but did not feel supported by their management teams, and still had day jobs to complete.  When companies aren't able or don't perform projects effectively, the next step is the PMO.

 The PMO becomes the next answer to the question - how do we make projects more important and visible, and how do we manage them effectively?  Note that this is NOT the same idea as the author is recommending - that projects become the central organizing idea.  No, the project management office has the responsibility for documenting and tracking a number of projects, but often rarely owns the projects.  This becomes sort of a central clearing house for projects, to help prioritize projects and track progress.  Some PMOs are well run, but in my experience, PMOs become committees that squabble over scarce resources, and eventually many projects in the PMO don't die, they just wither from a lack of desire, funding or attention.

If projects are as important as the author suggests, and I think they are, then we need a better way to ensure that projects gain the attention and sponsorship and get staffed with the right people who have the right skills and availability, in order to complete them quickly and successfully.  Organizing around projects may be one idea worth pursuing.