This article from the August 27th edition of The Economist discusses how Cisco is using project management tools and virtual technology to attempt to rapidly restructure the organization. As has been the case with most (maybe all) large organizations that I have seen, its matrix structure grew unwieldy. While the matrix (i.e., having different functional and business reporting structures with some interaction between the two) is great in theory, it is very difficult to pull it off in practice. Typically, different parts of the organization focus on their individual incentives (not surprising) and so intra-organizational coordination becomes difficult. The article claims that Cisco is using project management tools to overcome these problems. It would be interesting to learn more about what they are doing and to see if it will work.
Economist Story on Cisco
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Every project needs direction, management, control and communication but also a different organisational structure from operational management. This structure should be flexible and is likely to require a broad range of skills for a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteNo one wants to manually write down everything in relation to their project no matter how easy it may appear. It's not always easy to deal with a project because of the sheer logistics involved like budget, employees, meetings, billing, clients, etc. It may not appear to be much on the outside, but once you get into it, there are many things that must be taken into account.
ReplyDeleteto operate organization smoothly it is useful.
ReplyDeleteProject Management Software