It may be time for some organizations to rethink organizational concepts, relationships and structures for managing major programs and projects. In recent weeks, I have become familiar with a global program involving teams of administrative, diplomatic, financial, legal, program, project and technical participants, for projects being planned and deployed on a global basis. At the same time, I have studied some recent thinking in the US Department of Defense (DoD) related to “system-of-systems” and “Network-based” counter-terrorism approaches. It has now occurred to me that these DoD concepts are applicable in the program and project management world. Once again, the PM world can use some ideas originating among military thought leaders.
The Growing Importance of Networks – and Network Thinking
Most of us now have global networks of professional colleagues, co-workers and friends. We belong to professional organizations, or sub-networks of those associations. We network on the basis of personal or professional interests, technical matters or projects. The scope, reach and importance of such networks have been growing significantly in recent years, based on the worldwide web and the globalization of economies and communications technologies. Each person in any such network also belongs to other networks, such as on a program or project, that might include another team or teams working on different activities, tasks, or sub-projects.
Read more at PM Forum.