Do you know whether the most recognized project management methodologies applied around the world have the human factor inherently immersed and integrated in their practices?

28 August, 2019

The truth is … not completely!

ADN

Today’s project implementation methodologies and organizational project implementation practices define Change Management (the work stream responsible for the people side of a project) in a limited fashion and as an switch “on” or “off” in many cases depending on:

The moment or stage that a project is living as if the projects were “automatic” and do not always require people throughout their implementation
The importance that organizations might give to their human resources. Those companies that value the people issues generally have Change Management practices to accompany their projects during the implementation from start to finish.
The costs that an optimal permanent Change Management implies. When these companies see the benefits of having Change management impacting the level of success that their projects achieve, they have no doubts in including it in their project implementation budgets.

It is our opinion that these implementation methodologies as applied to projects have a limited Change Management scope and, more so, some do not even have it in their central knowledge base. It is only included in an appendix. This limited scope can be seen in the scarce number of topics related to the human factor included in their central knowledge base: communications, stakeholder identification and engagement, training, and, in some cases, people related risk management, among others.

Why DNA?

Simply put: Because these methodologies are not viable without the human factor.

Figure 1

In Figure 1, as was proposed by Arthur Andersen several decades ago, we can see that there are two paths leading to an Organization’s Transformation Vision: the path that leads to the process transformation (method) and the path that leads to the human factor transformation (people). When we see these two paths to transformation, we might think that they are independent of each other. However, as can be seen in our DNA proposition (Figure 2), these two components – people and method – are the double thread (the two columns) that make up the DNA and facilitate that transformational projects become a reality.This means that any methodology that is used in managing a project must have Change Management as an inherent, immersed and integrated component from start to finish. Nowadays this is not a practice in many of the methodologies applied worldwide.

Gráfico 2

The individual is the “master” of every transformation. It is he or she, by taking on their responsibility, that can determine the success or for that matter the failure of a project. That is why all project activities have to consider the human factor. This is done by applying the Change Management practices proposed in The 10 Elements throughout the whole project from start to finish. It is not an “on” and “off” switch. It has to be “ON” all the time.