Structuring chaos
Passage from «Some Essays About Management»
essay
3

Earlier we’ve told about a
project as a certain system
we manage

That is why –
the project is a whole set (hierarchy)
of all project participants
and relations between them (structure)

Now we’d like to dwell at length on how project is born,
how it’s stood out from its surrounding and
how it’s organized

Why is that important?

Because besides an objective of the project,
there are many project participants and stakeholders
of different levels
who are also to be worked with

Or there are many important and principal contractors
and partners who influence considerably the project
success and effectiveness

Or
it may require gathering
of a great number of bits of different knowledge domains
(planning, construction, supply, for example, etc.)

A really difficult thing in such projects is –
to organize all participants and stakeholders

Lack of such organization hardly lets passing
from project initiation to its planning,
needless to say that it also complicates moving
to the project objective

Well, let’s get it one after another

1
Project «birth»

What is the reason of project initiation?
Of course – project objective

It’s exactly the fact that there is an objective
provokes the process
of reality structuring

The surrounding reality keeps on being the chaos –
a super-intricate dynamic system, until project birth

And so, such chaos provokes a need in some result

And this need of surrounding world
converts lastly into an objective [of the project]

In surrounding environment the defined objective
provokes exigence to create a certain system,
a certain mechanism intended to reach the desired objective

Finally, thanks to all of that, separate persons
start to team up
in a distinct and organized entity of people –
exactly to what we name a project

The objective is the very pivot which holds all participants
in project borders and keeps stable
the project as a mechanism

The project objective is
a backbone factor
which enables the «birth» of the project as a system

2
Limiting chaos

Well, now we are in need
of a working system

The first step in this direction is
to outline borders
of the project, of all participants and stakeholders entity,
people whom we are going to manage

Why do we always underline people as project
participants, and no companies?

It’s just because in our understanding
we always work
with certain people only

Where a certain man works is not principal for us.
It’ important that he is taken within our project,
it’s to him whom we’ll collaborate with,
but not always with his company

We outline on our own the borders of our project
where we decide whether include or exclude somebody

We say these people are included in the project,
and we’ll do manage them,
but those people are not

Why is that so important to manage
project borders consciously?

‘Cause project borders represent the very filters
which influence directly the thing of how
we visualize the project itself

Those are the very filters
we create artificially
for ourselves and for all project participants

By means of borders and filters
we consciously enlarge
or artificially reduce the number of people
we are going to manage

3
About project structure and hierarchies

We’ve outlined project borders
and now we face a super-complicated task –
to organize the project,
i.e. people who develop and implement it

There are two ways of organization
when creating a working mechanism –
structure and hierarchy

We need structuring all people taking part in the project
by standing out diverse elements,
by connecting them and
by bringing accurate and clear hierarchy in their relations

In result we reach two basic goals of management:
― by means of structure, we distribute all functions
and tasks, which lead to the project objective,
between all those who are responsible
― by means of hierarchy we get a mechanism of
management and coordination of all participants
within the project

What’s the use of structuring?
What are structures
needed for?

It depends on that greatly –
how our project and our system, as people entity, will move

The structure specifies behavior of all project stakeholders
Achievement of the project objective depends
on whether it’s correct and adequate

Our task is to structure all participants in such a way
that all functions and tasks would be distributed
and assigned to diverse elements

In the capacity of such elements we mean
people or groups of people,
naturally

What is the logics of these elements standing out?

It’s very simple –
if there is a function or a task, therefore, there must be a separate
specialized element
for it

It’s important that such elements are
stood out artificially
according to the project requirements

A typical mistake – if «natural» borders, for example,
employees of the same department, are taken as a basis

The technology of these elements fixation in the project
is mutual arrangements, which makes the ground to keep
in the project all elements we need, such as technologies,
council of experts, logistics workgroup, etc.

These elements are bricks in the structure of our project,
components of mechanism handling all necessary
functions and moving us to the project objective

But these elements standing out doesn’t let us say:
«We’ve created the structure of our project»

We’ve prepared only building materials –
bricks, which we’ll use
to build our structure

And now we need mortar to bring them together

How to establish relations between
separate elements of our structure?
And what should these
relations be like?

Relations. They bring mutual restraints on behavior of
objects [project elements], which restrain behavior of
elements and make them depend one on another

New relations in our project let creating new opportunities
and implementing some functions and tasks
which are unavailable to implement
with separate project elements only

The basis for emergence of such relations,
i. e. the technology of how to create them is –
concluding of mutual
arrangements
between all stakeholders

…Mutual arrangements
about subject of relations, about rights and duties

That’s arrangements exactly that represent
a framework
holding the project, cement piecing broken
elements in a whole

How to shape arrangements?

First of all, it’s necessary to reveal interests
of project participants and stakeholders
and to propose smth. to all of them within our project

These arrangements let to distribute rights and duties,
to fix all functions and processes and to form project hierarchy
(to stand out levels of decision-making for the first)

Relying on these arrangements we create all relations
we need between project elements

From the standpoint of relations shaping, it’s important
to have fixed
(legitimate) arrangements

In result – our project
(as entity of people and interrelations between them)
is organized

No arrangements –
no relations
We do have fixed arrangements –
and the structure of the project does appear

Relying on these relations we form
communication channels

Channels which let through not only information
in our project, but – what’s more interesting
for us as managers – managerial influences

A little remark:
legitimate arrangements equal relations,
when here these relations equal
any number of communication channels,
formed on the basis of these relations (arrangements)

Why are relations so important?

They are important for
management
They make our project manageable

Management
is based on communication
Transmission of any managerial influence is available
when there is a communication channel –
direct or by mesne

That’s why we’d like to underline it once more :
arrangements and relations make the project framework,
and communication channels specify organizational
design where our project elements are ordered
according to certain hierarchy as well as communication
channels, designed for information transmission,
including managerial influences, are adjusted

What principles does the project structure
have to be based on?

a)
Maximal information flow – information exchange
should be instant and have the least number
of mediatory stages

b)
Minimal distortions of any information, especially
– in case of managerial influences

c)
Rapid transmission of information which can be
reached by large number of direct
communication channels

d)
Centralization within the project when one of project
elements (subject of management) has a maximal
number of relations and communication channels for
effective implementation of his managerial functions

e)
Flexibility within the project when there is
a possibility to replace one element with another
on a management or junction position

Everyone should define all by oneself what type of structure
would be optimal and appropriate for him in his project

Anyway, the key instrument
or technology of project organization is the
ability to provide
arrangements

The ground for project organization technology is –
providing the environment for arrangements making
(communication grounds)
and managing the process
of arrangements making itself

At the expense of arrangements
we can change borders of the project,
concentrate on elements we need,
and come to mutual understanding

Thanks for Your attention!
P.S. You got to know the passage of our book «Some Essays About Management»
The book is available in whole on the page «Vision» of our site www.kommandcore.com

Lively management of projects