Organizational Culture: An Overview

by Rob Thomsett, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

There are hundreds of books and a countless number of articles on the nature of corporate or organizational culture. However, there is general agreement that corporate culture is about "how things happen in this organization" and the underlying shared views about what are acceptable ways of behaving, feeling, thinking, and communicating. What most observers of organizational culture agree on is that it is a combination of the interaction among three key elements. These elements are:

1. Culture. This is the complex whole that includes knowledge, morals, customs, and capabilities; it is the way of life in the organization.

2. Values and beliefs. These are the enduring beliefs around specific modes of conduct and preferred end states; to most people, beliefs and values are interchangeable.

3. Behaviors. These are the end states that are evidence of the values in action; these can be viewed from both a positive and negative perspective.

Project management models also reflect a specific culture and value system, and the resultant behaviors have a significant impact on how project management is perceived and deployed within organizations. More importantly, the specific project management culture can have a major impact on the effectiveness of project management.

The Two Principle Project Management Cultures

Traditional project management (TPM), which is the most widely implemented and documented approach to project management in organizations, has a set of values and behaviors that were borrowed from the construction and engineering industries that laid the foundation of all the key models, such as scope, schedules, and so on. These values and associated behaviors are:

• Closed. Project management is undertaken by experts who don't need input from users. The project manager owns the project -- the team, the budget, the scope, and so on.

• Distrust. Project team members and stakeholders need to be motivated, monitored, and questioned at all times. If you don't monitor closely, people will slack off.

• Dishonesty. The true status of the project is to be positively presented. Not asking for help is viewed as strength, and telling management want they want to hear is quietly encouraged.

• Lack of courage. This includes not standing your ground as a professional and selling out the team and/or stakeholders by agreeing to unrealistic expectations; asking for help and assistance is seen as a sign of weakness, as is admitting uncertainty and mistakes.

• "Technical fun." The project is justified on the belief that great technology will automatically generate benefits. The more impressive the technology, the most impressive the curriculum vitae. In addition, benefits analysis and realization belong to the users, not the project manager.

Agile project management evolved in leading business and IT areas as an alternative to the perceived bureaucracy and implied values and behaviors of TPM. Agile project management values and behaviors are:

• Open. Project management involves full participation and ownership by relevant stakeholders (including sponsors), and the process of participation is facilitated by the project manager. The project manager owns the process, not the project, and its outputs and outcomes.

• Trust. Project team members, sponsors, and stakeholders are professionals. They can be trusted to work hard and be committed to the project and the organization. If trusted, they will personally commit to work as hard as required and not betray the trust given to them.

• Honesty. All people impacted by or involved in the project have a right to be told the truth, and inflating benefits and under estimating costs are not acceptable.

• Courage. Undertaking projects requires courage in many areas -- telling the truth, asking for assistance, admitting uncertainty and mistakes, which are all signs of strength and acting professional.

• Money. Projects consume shareholders', citizens', and corporate money, and this requires a fiscal and ethical responsibility (i.e., a duty of care to be shared by all team members, project manager, sponsor, and stakeholders). Benefits realization is the responsibility of stakeholders, but project managers must engage the stakeholders and sponsor in ensuring that the benefits realization is planned and funded.

After 35 years of project management consulting, teaching, and mentoring, my colleagues and I have come to understand that most people involved in projects, project management, and project governance have become "victims" (or, at least, passive participants) of a culture, including its values and behaviors.

The Hidden Challenge

The ineffective implementation of project management or the implementation of inappropriate project management models (i.e., project management models that are not aligned with organizational culture) will increasingly become a strategic issue. Clearly, project management is central to the identification and implementation of change (e.g., new products, new services, new processes, and new technology), and an organization's ability to execute change has become a competitive differentiator.

I welcome your comments on this issue of the Cutter Edge and encourage you to send your insights on the market in general to me at rthomsett@cutter.com.

-- Rob Thomsett, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium