Organizations as “Boxes” Analogy Reveals Power of Projects
Sometimes you get unexpected insights. My post “What’s Harder? Project Management or Management” elicited a wonderfully simple “boxes” analogy from Ren Garcia at Accounting Solver. In it he said:
“In a standard hierarchical corporate organization, you have specializations through boxes (i.e., departments, divisions, sections, etc) identifying finance, marketing, production, human resources, etc. Frequently, the specializations become rigid over time and the boxes neglect to communicate with each other (The managers or heads of boxes are supposed to be doing this, but often neglect).
Consequently, integration of all the functions / tasks / responsibilities within the corporation becomes a difficult process. The entire organization needs to be on the same page and move towards the same goal. What you don’t want to happen is one box (function / task / responsibility) undoing what another box is trying to put together. A classic example is the finance department trying to bring down accounts receivable and the marketing department keeps giving credit…
Projects & Project Management bring together managers and technical / professional staff and is a potent form of integrating an organization that has become too specialized. Without any extra effort at all, boxes (departments / divisions / sections) talk to each other more frequently and productively and get to understand what the other boxes are all about. In a project team, the talk is not all about the project and there can be a lively exchange about non-project issues, including relevant corporate-wide issues.”
Ren’s insights elicited my (mildly edited) response:
“Ren- nice analysis. The boxes analogy helps. I’ve been referring to the divisions as “silos” but “boxes” better aligns with some current thinking about “getting outside the box” related to innovation. Also, I appreciate your view that project management facilitates breaking down the barriers between departments.
One of the first things that one strategy consulting firm does is to simply have all executives present to each other about what all the other departments are doing. This enables executives to do a better job of determining strategies and creates the cooperation necessary to later execute them.”
As I recall Ren had some hesitancy to comment on my blog because he felt a little intimidated by the subject matter. I, of course, knew better and encouraged him to offer his views. Now I need to comment on his because he obviously has a lot to say.
What’s holding you back? I’m sure you have something to offer.
Don’t miss a post, SUBSCRIBE via RSS or EMAIL.
I like this line of thought. You may recall the fishbone diagrams – Juran Charts I think they were called – from the Demming era. It’s a nice way to align the boxes with direct focus on the end goal. Some companies have called this a share-holder value tree, as the boxes align to strategy to delivers value to endpoint of the diagram, the shareholder or the customer.
In several organizations where I have worked the fishbone diagram was readily accepted as it was easy to understand where in the hierarchy you fit, and exactly what value you were providing along the chain to product delivery.
Similar thinking is in a concept called strategy mapping where a multi level hierarchy starting with broad company goals at the top, strategies feeding/enabling the goals, and then tactics feeding/enabling the strategies. Assignments or owners for each “box” were given. Others, like Eli Goldratt, call the result a strategy tree. It enabled a view of projects, usually tied to tactics, that were enabling execution of strategies. Projects that could not enable a strategy are questioned and often stopped.