5. Origen y evolución de la televisión local en Palencia
6.3. Análisis de la programación propia según sus contenidos
Two interviews were carried out during the summer 2008: one with the person responsible for the project portfolio process deployment at a division of a utility company, Util2008, and one with the Portfolio Manager (within the project office) of the IT division of a financial institution, Fin2008.
Each interview was done at the interviewee’s premises, was taped, and transcribed verbally. This generated 74 and 50 pages of verbatim respectively. The interviews were listened to
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Both Util2008 and Fin2008 are fictitious names to preserve the anonymity of the firms and of the people interviewed.
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multiple times and they were read and annotated manually to identify key findings. Notes and observations were also taken during and after the interviews. Documents including: presentation material, reports, tables, and graphs (for a total 44 pages) were also gathered and analyzed. Because of the limited number of interviews, analysis software (such as Atlas TI® or NVivo®) was not used to annotate the verbatims.
In addition, five pages of notes and observations were taken during the one day when a doctoral poster was presented during the PMI research conference in Warsaw in July 2008. There were interactions, questions, and comments from approximately 40 people (out of approx. 400 people participating in the conference). Formal written feedback was also sent by Dr Jonas Söderlund from Linköping University in Sweden.
4.1.1 Summer 2008 Exploratory Study Findings
The exploratory study performed during the summer 2008 led to: improvements to the conceptual model and theoretical foundation, changes to the research question, some findings on the methodology, an assessment of the suitability of the two organizations as case studies, plus a number of general observations.
Overall, the questionnaire generated sufficient information from the interviewees. On a few occasions, certain aspects had to be further clarified or discussed, but this was to be expected from an interview guide. Changes to the interview guide were made based on the experience gained from the summer 2008 interviews.
4.1.2 Choice of Organizations as Case-Study
The requirement for a dynamic environment for the organizations used as case studies has already been discussed in section 3.2. It became clear that Util2008 had a very elaborate system to aggregate and follow-up project data at the portfolio level. They were also putting in place a very good Project Portfolio Management process. They have also been very supportive to the research and gave access to documents. Unfortunately the initial interview indicated two major limitations to use Util2008 as a case study:
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the planning horizon is very long (between 5 and 10 years) with fairly small number of changes, and106
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secondly, although they have been managing projects for many decades and have reached a high level of Project Management maturity, their Portfolio process is very new. They have less than one year of history. These two issues combined will make the identification of significant events very difficult.Fin2008, on the other hand met most of the requirements as a good case study. They had a dynamic environment and had a sufficiently long history. However subsequent meetings with the project office manager indicated that they were not willing to participate in the doctoral research study at this time.
4.1.3 Relevance of the Research Topic
The research topic was deemed interesting and relevant by both managers interviewed. Most importantly it was validated at the PMI research conference, that the research question is relevant and significant to the community. The poster and paper submitted received the award for best doctoral poster among 12 participants from all over the world. This was very encouraging and a confirmation that this research is worth doing and is likely to generate good publication material. Feedback received was positive and constructive.
4.1.4 Preliminary Findings on the Research Topic
The summer 2008 investigation identified a few findings related the research topic itself. Deviations as Exceptions
Deviations at Fin2008 were treated as exceptions. In an example discussed consultants were brought in to assist the senior management in assessing and re-prioritizing the projects. They did not seem to put in place any special regulating mechanisms in case such events would re- occur. On the other hand, the project environment was assessed by the interviewee as turbulent with many changes affecting their project portfolio.
Clashing Notions of Time
In both Fin2008 and Utili2008, project portfolios were reviewed at regular intervals (quarterly or semi-annually) and were aligned with the financial budgeting cycles. This introduced clashing notions of times. Project Managers typically conceive time as linear. Projects have a start and an end date which might overlap multiple quarters or years.
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Financial Controllers conceived of time as cyclical. Budgets and forecasts are produced on a quarterly or yearly basis. This cycle cuts across portions of projects; some projects might have started before the cycle and some will finish after the cycle. This cyclical notion of time also seems to apply to the management of project portfolios. Portfolio budgets are planned for a given year. In the case of Fin2008, this had consequences on the project managers who only planned for the financial planning period regardless of whether this made sense from a project deliverable point of you. There were not necessarily project requirements to deliver all project results in December but all projects finished in December due to budgetary reasons. This clash of the time notion is discussed briefly in section 1.2.1 but might be an interesting area to study in relation to the dynamics of the organizations.
Separation of Ordering and Executing Functions
In both Fin2008 and Util2008, organizations seem to split the Project Portfolio accountability from the Project Execution responsibility. In the case of Fin2008, the IT division manages projects on behalf of the Business Units and order external consultants to execute the work. In the case of Util2008, one division orders project work from another division even though it is ultimately responsible for the results. This has direct consequences on the management concerns and approaches.
Organizations only Recently Put in Place Project Portfolio Management Practices
In the previous year, both organizations had been putting in place project portfolio management processes, including project selection, prioritization, monitoring and control. There was a clear interest in identifying and putting in place good practices in this area. They saw this as essential in order to properly run their business.