ELEMENTOS DE CORTE – DIAMANTE NATURAL

Project management is one of the tools used to assist in the strategic planning of ADP. Project management is a concept in which knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques are applied to tasks and activities in order to meet a defined goal using the five

processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and control and closing (PMBOK, 2008). The project management field has been adopted by organisations as a way of addressing the challenges facing them today such as escalation of costs, pressure from stakeholders, changing environmental conditions, lack of borrowing power with financial institutions, bureaucracy, traditional structures, rapid change of technology, and an integrated effort of complexity that is brought about by modern times (Kerzner, 2009). The concept appears to possess solutions for organisations to manage the complex world by providing them with techniques.

The fundamental challenge is the apparent lack of strategic leadership that would ensure that strategy is implemented through project execution.

It is with this in mind that the development of the discipline of project management will be explored to give a picture of its origins, together with the role leadership played in the infancy of project management in ADP. Leadership had a major role to play by introducing project management to ADP in 2004.

In the last twenty years (Kerzner, 2009; Lewis, 2001), project management's profile has risen significantly to the extent that its value to the organisation is no longer a matter of choice. As Kerzner (2009, p. 47) argues: "Today, several companies foolishly think that they still have a choice." Project management organisations such as the Association of Project Managers (APMA) in Europe, Project Management International (PMI) in the USA, and others in Canada, Australia, and Russia have been formed to organise the profession and set standards. ADP has adopted the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) as the cornerstone of project management, with the aim of

enhancing effectiveness and success of project implementation through project life cycle models aligned to PMBOK. How embedded this philosophy of management is practised and understood in ADP still remains to be seen, as this research will unravel and the reader will judge. What role leadership plays in its success will be tested in the process to determine whether the success of project management has any relationship to the leadership factor.

Maravas and Pantouvakis (2012) express concern regarding PMBOK in relation to (a) an excessive control focus, (b) insufficient flexibility in the context of an evolving business strategy, (c) ineffective co-operation between projects within the programme. These

issues are traced back to the two flawed assumptions underlying programme

management; namely that (a) programme management is in effect a scaled-up version of project management and (b) a ‘one size fits all’ approach to project and programme management (Maravas and Pantouvakis, 2012).

ADP chose PMBOK as the main methodology in project management, over its main rival called, “PRINCE2” (an acronym for Projects in Controlled Environments, Version 2). This system is found predominantly in Europe while PMBOK is found predominantly in

America. Much debate centres round which system is best or indeed which system should an organisation use.

Matos and Lopes (2013) concluded, after much debate at a conference in Lisbon, that project management has become an indispensable tool. Which methodology to use, PRINCE2 or PMBOK, is simply an individual choice as both have been deemed effective and functional (Matos and Lopes, 2013).

The periods of project management development are explained by Kerzner (2009, pp. 47- 68), who describes the periods in the following manner:

“The 1960s were a period of informal project management, where the authority of the project manager was minimised. Projects took place in functional disciplines. This was a period in which there was recognition of management techniques and organisational structures that could adapt to change. Understanding of human behaviour in project management was insignificant.

The 1970s saw the complexity of projects growing to the extent that it required project management to be structured in order to formalise the project management processes. It was a period in which executive management were sceptical of the revolution created by project management because they feared it would require substantive organisational changes. Other fears within functional management involved relinquishing power, lack of visibility from top management as project managers took centre stage, and the

"disruptive nature" of resource utilisation created then”.

The 1980s were a period of technological revolution, whose increase is emphasised by Kerzner (2009, p. 55), who argues that "Technology as expected has the fastest rate of change, and the overall environment of a business must adapt to rapidly changing technology". This situation required the use of project teams to act as temporary management systems to meet urgent solutions.

Kerzner (2009, pp. 47- 68) further describes the 1990s and the first ten years of the new

millennium as follows:

The 1990s were a period in which project management became a necessity rather than a choice. Project life cycles were developed for programmes. These became

corporate tools for implementing projects together with methodologies developed to integrate business processes. Benefit realisation processes were developed. Authority became decentralised, with the project manager's authority increasing significantly as organisations adopted structures that suited project management principles. Recognition of project management as a profession gained momentum. The 2000s were a period in which multinational companies needed multinational project management to cater for the competitive and survival needs of companies and organisations. Programme management was developed where managing a portfolio of projects became necessary, as the majority of tasks were approached as projects. The first half of the 2000s saw the development of portfolio

management, which looked at investments, governance, alignment of projects, and a strong allegiance to benefit realisation of projects, all in an attempt to showcase the effectiveness of managing through projects.

My research demonstrates how the 2010’s have developed regarding leadership of strategic change in an Arab organisation.

The Information Technology (IT) success and failure profile report compiled by the Standish Group in 2011 is used to show the impact of leadership on a project’s success rate as perceived by IT executive managers. It was noted that 31.1% of projects were cancelled or were never completed (Standish Chaos Report 2011, p2-10). The report emphasised that leadership was important and further suggested that close to two thirds of the success of projects rests with leadership. While the Standish Group in 2011 implied that other factors such as finance can lead to the failure of a project, they

nevertheless place leadership as an important factor of success. Police managers play a critical role in the success of police projects and this research will attempt to determine if managing an IT project is radically different to managing a police project.

Although project managers can contribute to the failures of projects, the environment in which these projects function is defined by the organisation's leadership, which is

responsible for the organisational structures, resourcing process, appointments of project managers, entrenching a culture of project management and taking strategic decisions for operational issues, as Steyn (1999) argues: "Management must lead the overall efforts and foster an environment conducive to teamwork." Kerzner (2009, p. 3) states that, in projects, work should flow horizontally as well as vertically within the company, and this requires that line functions talk to one another horizontally in order to perform tasks smoothly. Therefore culture and environment will be factors in this research. Project management as a way of managing is not easy for senior management, especially if the organisation has been traditionally managed, as Meredith and Mantel (2000) argue: "Moving from a non-project environment to one in which projects are

organisation presents senior management of a firm with an extraordinarily difficult

transition." To overcome this challenge, organisations have reorganised to accommodate project management by adapting organisational structures such as functional, matrix, project, and mixed structures, all in an attempt to make a success of projects within organisations.

This research seeks to explore the current knowledge on the role leadership plays in the management of projects in ADP. It endeavours to showcase how leadership and project management have evolved over the centuries and the purpose they have served during that period, as well as their relationship. The aim is to interrogate the role and type of leadership required in project implementation and the impact thereof both at project level and at top management level regarding the effectiveness of project execution in ADP. Related to the role of leadership in project management is the question of understanding how the link between strategy and operations within project execution is affected by the presence or absence of leadership. As projects are executed at an operational level to address strategic requirements, the role leadership plays regarding project successes and failures requires some investigation.