Impact of Culture and Cultural Change in Project Management - Coursework Example

Impact of Culture and Cultural Change in Project Management Name Institution Impact of Culture and Cultural Change in Project Management Over the years, business environment has become a complex system with intense competition as a result of many players (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). In order to gain competitive advantage, companies have implemented different methods of attaining its objectives such as project management. In the tough economy and with stiff competition, project management is considered a competitive way of managing businesses. Project management provide companies with the chance to decentralize its activities into projects which minimizes the size of the operations which are run into smaller entities for easy monitoring and control (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). Project management involves managing unique business endeavours with limited duration that entail coordinated activities that are destined to attain business goals and objectives. Culture and cultural change are said to influence project management. This is due to the fact that projects are implemented by people with different mind-sets and in an environment that influence whatever it does (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). This essay will highlight the impacts of culture and cultural change in project management. It will highlight how culture is relevant to project management and how it can be managed to ensure effective project management. When working with internal and external stakeholders, companies should pay attention to issues such as corporate culture, relationships as well as history (Yazici, 2009). Organisation culture is termed as the beliefs, values and norms that employees share together. Organisation culture sets a company apart from another as employees tend to communicate and interact differently. When the organisation culture is implemented, employees are expected to adapt to specific type of communication and formalities in the culture. Adaption of the culture may affect project manager’s productivity and performance (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Organisation cultures do not remain uniform or static. They tend to change and evolve with time and thus it is right to assume that all cultural systems have continuous, incremental changes interposed by more radical changes. For instance, factors that may present sudden change in organisational culture include merger and acquisition and adoption of new technology among others (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). How change takes place in an organisation is attributed to the fact that cultures are strengthened by shared beliefs, values and assumptions that shared by all the employees (Burke, 2003). Culture change in an organisation involves change of people’s way of thinking and their behaviours. The way in which the culture change of an employee is conjured has a huge impact on the results of each person. According to Morrison, Brown and Smith (2008), culture is a set of events happening in the workplace that impact how new ways of doing things are presented. Culture change is influenced by the role of both the leaders and followers. For culture to change in an organisation to be effective, one must understand the right pressure to apply since too much pressure can result to unimaginative consequences that affects several facets of an organisation (Belassi et al., 2007). Organisational culture consists of values, beliefs and practices that are created by a group of people and are passed to new members (Fong and Kwok, 2009). Values are assumptions that are developed through shared learning and experiences while practices are experiences in an organisation such as programs, policies, responsibilities and work design. The rate of project management success is attributed to many factors such as effective organisation culture. Culture has a huge impact on the success of project management. Culture and cultural change come into play on project management in different areas such as process orientation, governance, training and roles and responsibilities among others. Many businesses have established good processes which are followed by all employees (Fong and Kwok, 2009). Process orientation is a huge factor that determines the overall project and project management success. If an organisation has a good and scalable project management process put in place, projects are likely to be successful. It will be easier for the project team to create and follow a work plan and can be able to handle risk and scope of change (Kuo and Kuo, 2010). Organisation culture may be in form of governance. Many organisations have an effective process in place but nobody follows them. This may be due to a problem with management governance (Brown, 2008). Governance is termed as management function that ensures that employees follow what they are intended to do. When the management structure is involved and concerned about projects, and if the management ensures that the project management process is followed, there will be success. When the management support is jumbled and project managers are doing their own things, the project will fail. Training is an integral part of organisation culture. The way a company deals with training is an aspect of organisational culture (Brown, 2008). A number of organisations do not train their project managers effectively. Such organisations do poor training which leads to project managers not having the right skills to manage an entire project. Project success is partly attributed to organisations doing a good job of training their project managers in order for them to gain more skills and knowledge in project management (Brown, 2008). As described earlier, culture is a set of beliefs, practices and values followed by a group of people. Organisational culture is responsible for ensuring delegating roles and responsibilities in an organisation. In an organisation with effective culture, employees know their day-to-day roles and responsibilities and what is expected of them (Andersen, Grude and Haug, 2004). For a project to be successful there is need for proper delegation of responsibilities among different stakeholders such as employees, active sponsors, managers and interested clients among others (Andersen, Grude and Haug, 2004). If an organisation does not delegate duties and roles effectively before a project starts, the probability of finishing it successfully is very low. Culture is perhaps one of the biggest factors that play a role in ensuring whether a project will be executed successfully (Andersen, Grude and Haug, 2004). If an organisation is often faced with difficulty of completing projects successfully, it means that project managers are working within a culture that is not supportive of their efforts. It is well known that organisational culture change has the ability to create job insecurity and threats to employees (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006). When culture of an organisation changes, employees pass through a process of stressful destabilization due to the change of these they were used to. Adapting to culture change is very difficult in an organisation. Changing an organisational culture is an on-going process that requires constant monitoring. Organisational culture change means a change in beliefs, values, practices and the behaviour of employees in an organisation towards a desired work environment (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006). The changing factors in the business environment have called for change in organisational culture of different companies with the aim of gaining competitive advantage. Unfortunately, many projects are suffering from change in culture. Execution of projects requires project managers and employees to be involved. The collaboration of project stakeholders is critical (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). If the roles, tasks, responsibilities and relationships between project stakeholders are not effectively demarcated due to culture change, conflict could arise which may lead to ineffective project execution. Organisation culture in project and project management is reflected in how tasks are realized, how people interact, and how people are guided towards achieving objectives and goals (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). Organisation culture affects how project managers think, feel and respond to challenges in project execution. In addition, it also affects how decisions are made and how people are chosen for specific roles. It also influences the level of commitment of project stakeholders and the project planning process. Project managers are responsible for allocating resources to project and assigning different tasks to different employees (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). Culture influences project manager’s perceptions and beliefs on how they view project’s outcomes. The most important organisation culture issue is top management support. The lack of top management support is a huge challenge to project execution (Andersen, Dysvik and Vaagaasar, 2009). Effective organisation culture ensures that CEO and senior managers dedicate some time to assess plans of projects, assist in solving management problems and follow up on results. Top management is responsible for developing proper scheme for project selection and screening (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006). Senior managers decide whether projects should be executed and institute project priorities. Effective cultures establish effective management support and ensure that there is collaboration between project management and top management. Successful project execution entails a shared responsibility between project manager and senior manager (Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006). In order to ensure successful project execution, it is important to ensure effective cultural change management (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Cultural change may lead to employee resistance and may affect how employees interact during project execution. Cultural change may affect project manager’s leadership ability. Project managers with inadequate commitment to cultural change may undermine project management. Behaviours of project managers that are inconsistent with cultural change initiative may be a huge obstacle for company’s growth (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Resistance is experienced during the change process. In order to ensure success, companies must work at defusing resistance early by maintaining persistence. This can be done through effective communication (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Communication between employees at all levels should be a priority in any cultural change initiative (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Employees and managers must be told about the changes that would occur in an organisation since it can be a sensitive topic to ignore. Face-to-face communication should be used to clarify ambiguities and encourage employee engagement. Employee’s fear may be addressed through effective communication between managers and employees (Belassi et al., 2007). Employees can easily listen to their managers rather than their peers. Managers should make sure that their message is received and understood by employees even if it means frequent repetition of message. Another way of managing cultural change is through establishing competent and effective leadership (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). A culture change often takes time before yielding tangible results. Leaders must have the ability to motivate their followers through the process of implementing cultural change. The skills required by managers and leaders to manage cultural change include courage, flexibility, patience, vision, strong employee focus, and good human relation skills (Yazici, 2009). In addition, cultural change management should involve training and development of managers and employees. In order to reduce resistance, all the employees and other stakeholders should undergo on-going coaching and training and consequences for not supporting the change process should be put in place. Training will equip the employees and managers with necessary skills and knowledge of why the cultural change process is required (Morrison, Brown and Smith, 2008). Training will also ensure that employees feel that they are involved in the change process and this will ultimately minimize resistance. In conclusion, poor project performance is partly attributed to culture and cultural change. In this competitive business environment, companies have implemented different methods of attaining its objectives such as project management. However, execution of projects is influenced by the values, practices and norms shared by employees. Culture and cultural change come into play on project management in different ways. For instance, organisation culture issue such as top management support impact project management. Senior managers should work in collaboration with project managers in order to ensure project success. In addition, delegation of roles and responsibilities in an organisation should be in such a way that employees’ tasks are properly defined. Culture influences project manager’s ability and commitment to properly allocate resources in project work. Without effective organisational culture, projects are bound to fail. To ensure success of projects, organisations must ensure effective cultural change management. For instance, effective communication should be established in order to effectively convey messages of change initiatives. In addition, effective leadership and training and development are able to eliminate employee resistance which leads to effective cultural change management. References Andersen, E. S., Dysvik, A., Vaagaasar, A. L. (2009). Organizational rationality and project management. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 2(4): 479-498. Andersen, E. S., Grude, K. V., Haug, T. (2004). Goal directed project management: effective techniques and strategies. (3th ed.). London: Konan Page. Belassi, W., Kondra, A. Z., Icmeli Tukel, O. (2007). New Product Development Projects: The Effects of Organizational Culture. Project Management Journal, 38(4): 12-24. Brown, C. J. (2008). A comprehensive organisational model for the effective management of project management. South African Journal of Business Management, 39(3): 1-10. Burke, R. (2003). 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The Role of Project Management Maturity and Organizational Culture in Perceived Performance. Project Management Journal, 40(3): 14-24. Read More