When you are conducting projects in dynamic environments an obvious way to deal with rapid change is to simply resist it. This could be achieved by:
- freezing the design, and rejecting change requests;
- Reject adoption of new (unproven) technologies or techniques; and
- simply extending the life of existing systems.
In highly dynamic environments, the benefits of this make
static approach are countered by challenges which might include:
- lost opportunities through delayed implementation of new approaches, materials or business objectives that provide significant benefits, despite the challenges;
- reduced business competitiveness, especially when competing organisations offer, or make use of, new systems that are often more effective;
- reduced business compatibility when an organisation falls too far behind best practice, and finds it difficult to recruit staff familiar with their environment. Sometimes technology used on a previous project simply does not exist anymore, and new ones have to be use. An example of this is the submarine case.
We have to be responsive to the external environment at all times. This includes both the technology environment and the investment environment.The project would fail if we had to stay on the plan. I’ve never gone right through according to plan.
Plans don't survive the first shot
An industry with a strong public safety requirement may
be attracted to the ‘make static’ approach. A safety imperative can help
justify funds to test and implement strategies, and this can mitigate the
reliability disadvantages of early adoption; the medical and the aircraft
construction industries are examples.
Conversely, the IT industry cannot easily leverage public safety to justify higher
costs, so it trades reliability for faster delivery of new functionality at
lower costs. Jones argues that technology-product lifecycles are now measured
in months, compared to the car industry, which is measured in years (about
five), and in the construction industry, where “change in product technology is
very limited and products such as steel girders and electrical cable may remain
in the mature stage indefinitely” (G. R. Jones, 2004b, p. 406).
A project manager’s willingness to embrace change should be proportional to the advantage/risk trade-offs involved. Some industries may gain relatively small advantages from change, as compared to industries such as the business or IT sectors, which gain larger advantages for a much lower risk. This trade-off may relate to the maturity of the technologies used. For instance, with longer standing and more highly developed technologies in construction, the advantages gained from using a risky new material may be small and make it hard to justify the risks, especially if the end product needs to last decades. In construction, the risk of public harm rightly drives a highly regulated environment that mitigates the effect of change. So, for industries of high risk and low reward, the resisting change strategy using more traditional project management may remain a superior approach until that balance changes.
Simon Collyer
Simon Collyer
References
Collyer, S., Warren, C., Hemsley, B., & Stevens, C. (2010). Aim Fire Aim - Project Planning Styles in Dynamic Environments Project Management Journal, 41(4), 108-121. doi: 10.1002/pmj.20199
Collyer, S., Warren, C. M. J. (2009). Project Management Approaches for Dynamic Environments, International Journal of
Jones, G. R. (2004). Organizational Theory Design and Change (4th International ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
