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Project Management
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Defines project management as primarily a Japanese invention later adapted to American ends. Looks at what this system of teamwork & labor division has to offer American business interests.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Defines project management as primarily a Japanese invention later adapted to American ends. Looks at what this system of teamwork & labor division has to offer American business interests.
Paper Introduction:
INTRODUCTION
The Japanese industrial expansion since World War II has been considerable and has been noted by other industrialized nations around the world. Japan began from a position far behind the West, with her infrastructure devastated, and since has achieved a position of economic preeminence, challenging the United States and other industrialized nations for world leadership in innovation and industrial production, especially in high-tech industries of great import on the international scene today and into the future. The U.S. has recently started giving Japan greater attention in order to discern the management styles used in Japan and to emulate them to the greatest degree possible, and the increase in Japanese investment in the U.S., with the opening of a certain number of Japanese manufacturing
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Before considering the nature of the Japanese personnel system, itwould be well to consider some of the ways in which Project Managementdeveloped in the Japanese context. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.Van Buskirk, W.R. . to date and that the Japanese may show the way inthis. Themajor steps in the Project Management process can be defined in a hierarchyin the following order: Identification of the problem; definition of theproblem; planning; organizing; resource allocation; scheduling; trackingand reporting; and phase-out. The computer installationitself slowed down operations and created bottlenecks and reductions inefficiency. Project management techniques today are widely used in manyindustries, including construction, banking, marketing, health care, sales,transportation, R&D, academia, law, public service, and manufacturing. The problem can exist at different levels,either different levels of management or among the employees. There mayalso be problems in scheduling, communication, and controls, and in eachcase the sources of those problems can be identified and the problemsprevented from developing. The U.S. His analysis also shows thatthe concept of Project Management can have a wider application than it hasbeen given in the U.S. Inherent in the use of quality circles is the belief on the partof management that there is value in contributions of employees, and thisin turn fosters a sense of worth in the employee which bodes well for thecompany as a whole. It is not the sameas a task force. Specific steps were taken to improve communications within theProject Management environment, and these are indicated by Laird as a pro-active communications strategy built around three key elements. It can be seen how the work team and the personnel policies notedabove by Van Buskirk and Adams (1989) fit with the goals and structure ofProject Management. Software has been created to make the variousfunctions of Project Management work effectively for the organization.Olsen looks at each of the important elements of Project Management anddiscusses how they should be shaped for the most effective implementationof the program. He offers fourteenprinciples for the transformation of Western management to a form that willbe more competitive and more responsive to the environment. The second was that the company made sure the client couldalways reach the people working on the project directly. The third wasthat the company revamped its lackluster newsletter to focus more on theclient (2 ). Van Buskirk and Adams find that there are major differences betweenpersonnel systems in the U.S. He says that Project Management is the onlydiscipline that focuses on getting things done and that this hascontributed to its success and adoption by a variety of organizations. The authors note the benefits that accruesfrom Project Management: 1) it helps managers identify ill-conceived and directionlessprojects; 2) it increases visibility with a road map for participants to worktoward; 3) it promotes teamwork and communication across departments; 4) it enables managers to be proactive rather than reactive; and 5) it enables managers to predict costs and to make informeddecisions.The authors conclude that Project Management as a method of guiding acompany in the production of a series of profitable projects can behelpful, but it will not alleviate the risk from any product developmenteffort and it requires cross-functional communication, identification ofinformation interface points, activity sequencing, and a focus on gettingfuture work dome with quality and efficiency. has recently started giving Japan greaterattention in order to discern the management styles used in Japan and toemulate them to the greatest degree possible, and the increase in Japaneseinvestment in the U.S., with the opening of a certain number of Japanesemanufacturing companies in the U.S., primarily to produce Japanese cars,has spurred even more interest. and those in Japan, and these can be relatedto how Project Management has been adapted in each country. The firstwas a look at the way the project was conducted to identify "communicationsmilestones" where the project manager could report meaningful progress tothe client. JAPANESE PROJECT MANAGEMENT Malcolm Wheatley examines the application of Project Management inJapan. The problems were exacerbated by the fact that the projectmanager was no longer responsible for the project after installation. Van Buskirk and Adams note the following positiveimpacts of the Japanese personnel system on Project Management: 1) a predictable career path for project managers 2) the production of generalists 3) reduced internal conflict 4) reduced formalization in project controls 5) predictable close out of projects 6) "low bid" strategies in acquiring projectsThere are also negative impacts occurring primarily when Japanese companieshave to complete a project in a culture foreign to them, and the ability tofind project managers capable of handling the complexity of the project andcoping with an alien culture at the same time is an ongoing concern: One Third-world client was quoted as saying that the Japanese are excellent team players, He only wished that their team spirit could include host nationals (Van Buskirk and Adams, 1989, 35). It is important in Project Management to takeparticular pains to indicate the role of the project manager and the linemanager. Theneed to control project requirements is related to the goals of the projectand to the need to avoid problems. Adams. He also says that this will be a difficult taskand sets out to prove it through examples. "Management Control in an Engineering Matrix Organization: A Project Engineer's Perspective." IM (March/April 199 ), 8-13.Badiru, A.B. The Japanese personnel system reflects thisfact, for it seems to have been designed to be part of Project Managementand will serve well under that sort of management approach. Japanesefirms engage in collective decision making on a regular basis, whilemanagers in the West often make decision alone. Thisdivision of responsibility has been seen as creating certain problems interms of authority. INTRODUCTION The Japanese industrial expansion since World War II has beenconsiderable and has been noted by other industrialized nations around theworld. Matrixorganizations can actually create behavioral problems when people do notunderstand or refuse to accept their structure. "Personnel Policies and Project Management in Japanese Companies: An Empiracal Study," Project Mangement Journal, December 1989, 31-35,5 .Wallace, Ron and Wayne Halverson, "Project Management: A Critical Success Factor or a Management Fad," Industrial Engineering (April 1992), 48- 5 .Wheatley, Malcolm. Eric Olsen (1992) analyzes the way Project Management can be used tocontrol project requirements through the use of software designedespecially for that purpose. Van Buskirk and Adamswrite: Japanese personnel policies can best be viewed not in isolation but as a network of interacting policies which together serve to harmonize the goals of the company and its culture (Van Buskirk and Adams, 1989, 33). CONCLUSION The management principles utilized in Japan derive from and reflectthe style of the culture itself, and indeed the American system does thesame with respect to American culture. Members of the circle meet on a voluntary basis toidentify and solve problems in their department and to keep thosedepartments more productive. Los Altos, California: Crisp, 1989.Laird, Steven. The appointed matrix manager is responsiblefor scheduling, cost, and technical performance. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1991.Patchin, Robert I., The Management and Maintenance of Quality Circles. This caseillustrates the difficulty of achieving managerial success in atechnological environment, for when the computer system was installed,system problems only increased. Japanese firms will take onmarginally profitable projects simply to keep their work force busy.Continuous training is a second element in the Japanese system, and thesecompanies tend to involve their employees in a course of continuous in-house training throughout their working lives. Project management can serve here because no matter how excellentthe technology may be, it requires human actions to adopt, implement, andmanage. Another important factor ispersonal influence, a category that includes the attributes of service to amanager, including diplomacy, respect, rapport, leadership, sense of humor,level-headedness, and other personal attributes needed to perform the job(8-13). Traditional procedures for measuring the progressof a project, evaluating performance, and taking control actions areinadequate for technology management, where events are more dynamic (165-167). Project engineers lackline authority and do not participate in such things as personnel review.Yet, they are often closer in their working relationship to the personneland so are more aware of behavioral problems than are line managers. While Wheatley says the prospects ofProject Management are promising in Japan, he shows that Project Managementactually mirrors certain successful Japanese business methods, notably theemphasis on organization rather than investment. Badiru (1993) discusses Project Management as the process ofmanaging, allocating, and timing resources to achieve a given foal in anefficient and expedient manner. . They examine Project Management systems and howeasy or difficult they may be to use, a question they say is essential.Some vendors have addressed the ease-of-use issue, and some have not, andthose who have are using different techniques to try to make the softwaremore useful and accessible. They state that a matrix organization is a project-typestructure superimposed on a functional structure. Peters and Waterman (1982) consider the ways in which the teamconcept has been used in American business as an adjunct to systemsthinking. Line managers can beparticularly troublesome. He finds that the best way to control each element is toshape that element properly in the first place, gathering the best people,selecting the best software, and managing change as it occurs (35-38). Steven Laird (1992), a Partner in CaJen Company, here offers anassessment of the importance of communications in customer relations andhow communications can be used to overcome poor customer relations. In order to control a project,the manager has to be able to measure performance with regard to schedule,performance, and cost. They relate the idea to something they call chunking, whichmeans breaking things up to facilitate organizational fluidity and toencourage action in the organization. The data theyoffer was gathered from a research project funded by the U.S. The authors see this working best when theorganization itself also has a fluid conception: Teams that consist of volunteers, are of limited duration, and set their own goals are usually found to be much more productive than those with the obverse traits (Peters and Waterman, 1982, 127). Homewood, Illinois: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1983.Peters, Thomas J., Robert H. In normal management,the sharing of resources often leads to conflict and requires carefulnegotiations to see that projects get the necessary resources to meetobjectives throughout their project life (3). "The Quality Factor." Management Today (October 1992), 88-9 .----------------------- 1 Each of these functions is part of controllingproject requirements, for each function needs to be clearly defined andalso to be controlled so that they provide the function needed and do soefficiently and effectively. Project Management is a techniquedeveloped around principles derived from Japanese management and thenadapted to the American model, and it seems as well to be a method that isnow being adapted back to the Japanese circumstance. A work force committed toconstant learning is a major source of technological sophistication andflexibility. The needs of theindividual are considered by the company, and all companies emphasize thatwhile manpower needs may be pressing enough to override individual wishesin a given case, strong emphasis is to be given to responding to employeewishes. His ninthsuggestion is important in terms of systems thinking: Break down barriers between departments. People. Anything culture bound tends to be particular rather than universal, and therefore many aspects of the management system found in a country are not easily transferable to another culture (Ozaki, 1991, 97).American managers who have been trying to adapt Japanese methods toAmerican companies have found this out. One concern was that the project managerrarely saw a client after the installation of the system, which seemed toremove the human element from customer relations. The real issue is thecomplexity of the flow of information, paper, and communications. PROJECT MANAGEMENT Wallace and Halverson (1992) discuss the concept of ProjectManagement and whether it is a truly useful tool or only the latest fadbeing used by managers today. & J. Anderson and Fleming state that meeting technical, cost, and schedulerequirements begins with choosing the team. Van Buskirk and Adams (1989) find that the Japanese have used ProjectManagement extensively in terms of their personnel systems. Patchin (1983) states that a quality circle is a groupof five to ten people who work together all the time. Project Management: From Idea to Implementation. The small group is valuable becauseof its flexibility. Project Management is to be used whenbuilding a team working toward a single goal, when you can define exactlywhat needs to be done, and when you can then manage the interrelated tasksto achieve that goal. Schedule, cost, and performance are theoperating characteristics of a project, and these same factors can be thebasis for project control, or the process of reducing the deviation betweenactual performance and planned performance. Gradual promotion takes place over a period of many years, and thepolicy gives management time to assess the ability of a given manager onthe basis of criteria other than short-term performance ratings. Japan began from a position far behind the West, with herinfrastructure devastated, and since has achieved a position of economicpreeminence, challenging the United States and other industrialized nationsfor world leadership in innovation and industrial production, especially inhigh-tech industries of great import on the international scene today andinto the future. "Project Management in the Adoption and Implementation of New Technologies," In Management of New Technologies for Global Competiveness. Project Management involves determiningthat a given goal constitutes a project and then dividing the workforceinto units assigned to a given project. The small group is the most visibleof these devices, and these are considered to be the basic organizational;building blocks of excellent companies. The fact that the Japanese have soeasily adapted Project Management to their situation reflects the fact thatJapanese cultural elements fit better with Project Management than doAmerican cultural elements. must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in ways that may be encountered with the product or service (Deming, 1986, 24). He notes that a surveyreveals that the Japanese have accomplished what they have without placingan emphasis on computer-based design equipment. Management is divided between theproject manager and the line manager, with the project manager responsiblefor the project as a whole and the line manager responsible for day-to-dayoperations tending toward the goal of completion of the project. The Japanese haveacquired software from the British to facilitate this process, and theconcept is thus making a full circle and at the same time marryingprinciples from both sides of the Pacific into a new paradigm of teamworkand division of labor. "A Strategy for Better Project Communications." Canadian Manager (Summer 1992), 2 .Ozaki, Robert S. space program in the early 196 s,and its use has expanded to government, the military, and industry.Project Management differs from other management principles in two ways: 1)it focuses on a project with a finite life span, whereas departments orother organizational units expect to exist indefinitely; and 2) projectsfrequently need resources on a part-time basis, whereas permanentorganizations try to utilize resources full-time. Ozaki (1991) states: If and when human capitalism is transplanted to other soils, it will predictably undergo modifications of itself to suit the specific constraints and requirements of different cultures. Wheatleybelieves that Project Management software has a role to play and thatdesigners of such programs will need to find a way to address the needs ofthe Japanese market and to make the Japanese businessman understand theneed and see the benefits. C.N.Madhu (ed.) Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books, 1993, 165-182.Deming, W. The long-term benefitsoutweigh the difficulties (48-5 ). . A quality circle is defined as a small workteam marked by the voluntary participation of members of a natural workgroup in a structured program of training, communication, and problemsolving. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986.Eric Olsen, "Do It Better!," Success (March 1992), 35-38.Haynes, Marion E. One work team concept that has been adapted from a Japanese model isthat of the quality circle. An engineering matrixwork flow diagram shows the flow and direction of tasks in theorganization, and project engineers allocate the work required to therespective functional areas. The Japanesesystem is marked by lifetime employment, involving a virtual guarantee ofemployment from hiring until retirement at age 55 or 6 , and this is takenquite seriously by all Japanese managers. Wheatley discusses the question of managing projectswith software and to the design of that software for greatest efficiencyand for greatest appeal to potential customers (88-9 ). Itwill be the line managers who deal with such behaviors, however. Department ofEducation and carried out by the faculty at Western Carolina University,and it involved extensive cooperation from the Engineering AdvancementAssociation in Japan and the Project Management Institute in the UnitedStates. Fleming. . Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence. Human Capitalism: The Japanese Enterprise System as World Model. Whathe is describing is a Project Management approach utilizing sophisticatedand customized software for human resource professionals. The work team concept is a concept of empowerment aswell as innovation. The objectives that may define this goalcan be expressed in terms of time, cost, or technical results, but toachieve these results, says Badiru, proven management approaches must beused. Twelve Japanese companies from the engineering constructionindustry cooperated in the project. An examination of the concept and how it has beenapplied in different situations will show how the Japanese model now in usemay offer something more for American managers to learn. PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND WORK TEAMS While the Project Management approach was developed in the U.S., itwas later modified in part based on the Japanese model of work teams,showing that the Japanese were already tending toward this same idea.Deming (1986) has been an important theorist in this field and offers anumber of suggestions related to systems thinking. Haynes (1989) states that Project Management developed as adiscipline for use in managing the U.S. Edwards, Out of the Crisis. ReferencesAnderson, Cindy Carpenter and Mary M.K. Artemis is one Project Management software product that has beensuccessful in Japan. Anderson and Fleming (199 ), for instance, note how a matrixorganization structure has been adapted to Project Management inengineering companies and that this has much to do with the managementcontrols used to cope with behavioral problems resulting from acquiringpersonnel from another line function to work temporarily in a project ormatrix function. They indicate the latest trends in ProjectManagement software and the ways in which it is being used by managers--Project Management is a strongly computer-based system which may center ona variety of different specially designed software--and they find thatProject Management requires a certain approach that is enterprise-wide andthat runs in an environment of mixed computing platforms and with databaseson distributed networks. Job rotation is another feature for new employees, so theworker learns from several lateral shifts from one department to another,giving the employee a generalized understanding of the entire company anddeveloping employees who identify with the company's overall well-beingrather than the well-being of a specific department. Japanese management has been given a good deal of attention inrecent years because of the competition Japan is posing for the UnitedStates in manufacturing and trade.
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