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Project-Driven and Project-Dependent Organizations

June 3, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Miscellaneous

Project-Driven and Project-Dependent Organizations
By Dr.Russell Archibald

Two broad classes of organizations can be identified: First, those project-driven organizations whose primary business is in fact made up of projects. Examples of this class include architect/engineer/constructor, general contractor, and specialty contractor firms; software development firms who sell their products or services on a contract basis; telecommunications systems suppliers; consultants and other professional services firms; and other organizations that bid for work on a project by-project basis. Growth strategies in such organizations are reflected in the type, size, location and nature of the projects selected for bidding, as well as the choices made in how the required resources will be provided (in-house or out-sourced) to carry out the projects, if and when a contract is awarded or the project is otherwise approved for execution. NASA is a project-driven organization, for example, and its executives have stated that their entire annual budget is based on projects.

The second class of organizations—those that are project-dependent for growth—includes all others that provide goods and services, and not primarily projects, as their mainstream business. Projects within these organizations are primarily internally sponsored and funded. Examples include manufacturing (consumer products, pharmaceuticals, engineered products, etc.), banking and financial services, transportation, communications, governmental agencies, computer hardware and software developers and suppliers, universities, hospitals, and other institutions, among others. These organizations depend on projects to support their primary lines of business, but projects are not their principle offering to the marketplace. Many of these sponsors of internally funded projects are important buyers of projects from project-driven organizations.

Dr. Russell D. Archibald, PhD (Hon), MSc, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA, PMP, is one of the six founding members of the Project Management Institute. Now semi-retired, he has many years of management experience in engineering and operations with a variety of major US corporations in Europe and South America as well as the US. He has made major contributions to the understanding of project management, is author of the best selling 2003 book “Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects” (published also in Russian, Chinese, and Italian), has trained more than a thousand program and project managers and project specialists around the world, and has consulted in project management to clients in 14 countries on 4 continents. E-mail: russell_archibald@yahoo.com. Website: www.russarchibald.com.

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