Saturday, February 11, 2012

Role of the program in issue resolution: Project Management

Several times I had been told that the role of the program is to keep the ball rolling on tasks, and this meant little to me.

In a matrix organization, a key role of the functions is functional excellence. Several times, each functional member raises issues on other groups and the response to this issue by another group is usually a solution

Wrong!

The response to the issue by another group is another problem - rarely a solution.  Each functional team has what is often labelled as professional ego and it hurts to change their pas

Example, I need to fit this part and need 10 mm clearance. You have only 2 mm. Answer from a mating part group, even if I change you will have 3 mm besides I cant change it as it costs too much.

In most non-program situations, the conversation stalls here and in a muddle of competing tasks, functions move to easier tasks (not necessarily important). Often times, the issue gets resolved after long periods of inaction in a kind-of batch mode resulting in delays.

It requires a program team to get the experts together and strike a bargain with a unifying metric - the customer requirements - to move the program forward.

This is probably the key value add from program teams.



Subscribe to A.Karthiks blog