181
9
Creativity and the Organizing Process
INTRODUCTION
e organizing process involves identifying and setting up the
infrastructure to eectively and eciently manage a project. Its focus
is on providing a backbone for a project that ensures communication,
coordination, and information occur in a manner enhancing individual
and overall performance of a project.
BENEFITS
ere are many benets attributed to the organizing process. It provides
a means for all stakeholders to communicate with each other, make
tangibles (e.g., supplies) and intangibles (e.g., tribal knowledge, arti-
facts) available, oer a common operating rhythm for all stakeholders,
and enable opportunities to resolve conict in a manner that minimizes
disruption.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE
Failure to perform this process has tremendous impact downstream
on a project, especially during the executing, monitoring and control-
ling, and closing processes. Lack of communication, coordination,
and information aects decision making, determining and assessing
cost and schedule performance, and satisfying the customer require-
ments. An inecient application of resources, for example, increases
182 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
rework, which oen means additional costs and schedule slides.
An ineective application of resources can mean that the deliver-
ables do not meet the customer’s wants and needs, which results in
dissatisfaction.
DELIVERABLES
e organizing process has several project management deliverables (see
Figure9.1), including:
• Control room
• Forms
• Management plans
• Newsletter
• Organizational structure
• Project manual
Preparation
Verification
and
Production
Concentration
Illumination
Incubation
- Control Room
- Forms
- Management Plans
- Newsletter
- Organizational Structure
- Project Manual
- Reports
- Repository
FIGURE 9.1
Organizing process and deliverables.
Creativity and the Organizing Process • 183
• Reports
• Repository
IDEAL STATE
Ideally, project managers have carte blanche to set up an infrastructure
to complete their project. ey have all the nancial and in-kind support
needed to succeed: sucient tools and information, latitude to build an
organizational structure giving the autonomy they seek, locations to
establish a project library, and the opportunity to develop and publish a
uniform set of procedures, forms, reports, and other documents to ensure
eective communications and coordination.
In reality, however, more oen than not, everything in the previous
paragraph is a dream for many, if not all, project managers. e norm is
not having enough time, money, and support to establish an infrastruc-
ture that runs and supports a project eciently and eectively. e time
and eort to set up a good infrastructure is considered, by some stake-
holders, wasteful because tangible results are oen not readily apparent.
Additionally, project managers oen have to compete with their colleagues
for the very same resources. Not surprisingly, many project managers take
a minimalist approach toward building a supporting infrastructure, iron-
ically at great cost.
CONTEXT
ere are several contextual factors that project managers face during
the organizing process. Here are just a few: e customer and other key
stakeholders want to keep the cost baseline for their projects as low as
possible to maximize protability. ey view time to build an ideal infra-
structure as too costly and as oering marginal return. Due to limited
resources, project managers and other key stakeholders nd they have
to suboptimize, that is, sacrice certain time, cost, and quality goals and
objectives for their project. Under such circumstances, project managers
usually have to cut the infrastructure to achieve other goals and objectives,
thereby impeding eciency and eectiveness.
184 • Creative, Ecient, and Eective Project Management
CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS
Most challenges and constraints in this process revolve around time and
money. Both time and money are insucient to put in place an ideal
infrastructure. For example, obtaining data and information to populate
a repository can entail considerable labor, eort, and expertise that some
stakeholders may deem unnecessary or overkill. Additionally, time
and money may be initially available, but as the project’s performance
degrades, which it oen does, resources and attention are taken away
from the organizing process to concentrate on bringing a project back
ontrack.
Some common creative challenges and constraints confronting this
process are shown in Table9.1.
TABLE9.1
Organizing Process and Challenges and Constraints
Challenge and Constraint Example
Hierarchy Having little autonomy in draing the content of
management plans
Lack of data and information Not being able to nd the necessary data and
information to populate a project repository
Lack of sharing Prevailing sense of suspicion existing among
stakeholders, thereby inhibiting a willingness to
share anything with anyone else on a project
Lack of tools Not having the ability to share data, information,
and tools due to a lack of common technology
standards
Poor communications Having certain shareholders who refuse to
participate in team meetings, especially if a
certain person or representation from another
organization is present
Poor coordination Having two or more stakeholders not
coordinating with each other when putting
together an organization chart for a project
Team composition imbalance Having too many people from a specic
discipline (e.g., engineering) dominating team
composition, thereby skewing decision making
Too much and too little training Oering training on a tool (e.g., project
management soware) that exceeds the level of
competence required to perform work
Creativity and the Organizing Process • 185
CREATIVE ABILITIES
At rst, creativity does not appear to play an important role in organizing
a project. Nothing can be further from the truth. Creative abilities are
necessary to come up with the most appropriate organizational structure,
deploy resources in a manner that increases eective and ecient perfor-
mance, and compile and display information to users. Ultimately, creative
abilities are necessary to build an infrastructure that enables projects to
succeed.
Some relevant creative abilities required for this process are shown in
Table9.2.
GROUNDWORK FOR CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT
Putting in place the groundwork for organizing a project requires under-
standing the needs and wants of stakeholders, such as a customer, steering
committee members, and the project team. e infrastructure should
enable project performance, not the other way around (i.e., stakeholders
participating to serve the infrastructure). Some project managers oen
forget this important point.
Some actions that project managers may take to lay the groundwork for
a creative environment are shown in Table9.3.
TABLE9.2
Organizing Process and Creative Abilities
Creative Ability Example
Being a linear thinker Developing process owcharts to incorporate
in the management plans for a project
Being precise Detailing the exact content required to
complete forms, requesting tools, data, etc.
Synthesizing components Integrating all tools and the repository for
reporting purposes on the project
Verbalizing Producing narrative reports to describe
progress
Visualizing Producing report templates with graphics
(e.g., trend chart) to reect status to specic
stakeholders
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