This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Multi-Project Management and Organizational Effectiveness I -- Every organization is dependent on projects. From its strategy, which could be considered the “meta-project” against which it tracks its performance and growth over time, to its portfolios of “improvement projects” and product development projects that keep it effective and competitive, to its day-to-day delivery of unique efforts for which customers or clients pay, projects are the source of every organization’s ability to sustain itself over time.
Every organization has constraints limiting what it can accomplish. With a finite source of time and attention available from the human and other resources that make up the organizational system, it behooves it to assure an appropriate answer to the question, “What should I/we be working on today?” This question, asking about the most effective use of limited resources, combined with a similar question, “How should I/we organize and perform the mass of work facing me/us?” which addresses the efficiency piece of the equation are the basis for the science and art of project management. These are the critical questions for which project management is meant to provide answers.
Most writings on project management focus on project management related to the delivery of individual projects. While it’s necessary -- and nice -- to be able to deliver a single project as promised, it’s not sufficient to assure the ability of an organization to address its multiple needs.
Watch this space for more thoughts on the subject.
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