Just want to reflect on a few journal articles I’ve taken a look at recently in relation to business strategy and project management.
A research piece entitled ‘How to Kill a Team’s Creativity’ by Rajesh Sethi, Daniel C. Smith & C. Whan Park, reveals the misconceptions in the idea that within a project team should be a diverse range of people from contrasting skills sets with a cohesive bond within the team in order to achieve successful innovation. Their finding revealed that as ‘social ties intensify’ within a team actually suppresses people’s ability to be forthright in their opinions and leads them to be too willingly concurrent in order to maintain those relationships. It also causes people to feel too comfortable and familiar with their environment thus reducing the level of risk-taking required in order for creative ideas to flow. While more ideas can be generated with a more diverse team, too much ‘cross-functionality’ can cause problem-solving to be increasingly harder as well as being bogged down with too much information which prevents the project from being driven forward. Essentially the key thing I take from this theory is the need to balance a ‘happy medium’ within a business team, both in terms the range of skill sets and character profiles as well as the level of social familiarity amongst the circle, which I believe can only be successfully obtained through regular, constructive (by this I mean not dictatorial) monitoring by the project manager, as opposed to a more laissez faire ‘hands off’ approach.
The next article entitled, ‘Cost Effective Service Excellence: Lessons from Singapore Airline’ by Loizos Heracleous, Jochen Wirtz and Robert Johnston, explains how this particular aviation business managed to achieve the ideal aim sought after by most, if not all companies, throughout its 30 year history. Sounds obvious but they attribute their success to fact that in a service- orientated culture the customer is the most important factor, an ethos often forgotten by many companies which become too internally focused. Any proposed innovation is carefully analysed on the balance of expected customer benefits with an awareness of the wider context that consumers don’t just compare their service to that of other airlines but subconsciously evaluate against many other industries on many factors. One example they give is when customers pick up a phone and call their reservations, they won’t come away saying ‘you have the best telephone service system out of all the other airlines I’ve called’, they will be comparing them to any time they have had to phone a company hotline to make a booking or enquiry (i.e. car rental, hotels etc). Singapore Airlines business model is founded on five central ‘pillars’ which form the overall company values: Ø Ingrained profit consciousness across the entire employee network- thus reducing a sense of hierarchical structure in the sense that even those employees lower down on the system feel part of and can contribute to delivering the company ethos.
Ø Strategic Synergies- forming business alliances to related operations such as catering, aircraft maintenance and airport management. This diversification within the company leads to strategic co-operation in terms of reliability of key inputs, high quality, transfer of learning (in sense that allies can learn from each other) and cost-effectiveness.
Ø Total innovation- focuses 40 % of resources on training, 30% on review of process & procedures and 30% on creating new product & service ideas. However they believe in being a leader in terms of customer service and a follower in areas that are less visible from the customer’s point of view (i.e. believe in using proven technology rather than the latest technology which would not only be more expensive but carry a higher implantation risk.
Ø Rigorous service design- department undertakes research, trials, time & motion studies, mock-ups assessing customer reaction, whatever is necessary to ensure that a service innovation is supported by the right procedures. Belief that underpinning continuous innovation & development is a culture that accepts changes as a way of life (use of educated risk).
Ø Holistic staff development- Quoted that training in SIA is ‘almost next to godliness’ in the sense that everyone regardless of how senior undergoes a training and development plan. Camaraderie and team spirit are encouraged through employee leisure activities & societies with belief that this then rubs into the service the crew delivers in the air.
Many vital lessons to learn from when running a business: coherent innovation, happy committed employee, as well healthy profit margins. The article finishes with the reminder that SIA’s competitive advantage has been sustained for so long due to the fact that ‘while it is easy to copy single elements, it is much harder to reproduce an entire, self-reinforcing system. ‘
From crisis to control: New Standards for Project Management (Michael Stanleigh)
This business journal underlines the importance of the alignment between projects and overall corporate strategy. A study showed only 2.5 % of global businesses achieve 100% project success, and in the IT sector results revealed that 71 % of all projects are either “challenged” due to late delivery, are over budget or deliver less than the requirements or are “failed” because of being cancelled before completion or because the project developed is never used. The article outlines four key strategies to prevent this from happening:
ü Most importantly ensuring that all projects are strategically aligned with their organizations core strategies. This is achieved by first reviewing lessons from projects carried out previously, to determine by certain things did or didn’t succeed. Next determine a set of criteria by which all projects can be prioritized, demonstrating how each project’s successful execution will support the corporate/ and or departmental strategic plan.
ü Create a culture that supports a project management environment by forming a cross-functional steering committee to develop the approach and process for creating corporate change, of greater structure around the management of projects and planning methodologies. Essentially it’s been proven that spending time in the initial phases will save time during the execution phase of the project.
ü Implement strategic project management best practices- there should be a process by which previous and current projects are evaluated and reviewed in order to retain a sense of knowledge from one project to the next to prevent financial loss by the same mistakes being repeated. A “Project Close- Out” meeting should take place as soon as possible after a project is completed where reflective questions should be asked such as ‘What were the successes to ensure other projects follow a similar path ?’, ‘What were the challenges, issues, risks , etc that we could anticipate in advance of further projects and prevent?’
ü Create a project-measurement system which aims to provide the senior management team with relevant information needed to make decisions affecting project completion. Project success measurement criteria should include:
· Ability of the project to be managed specified quality criteria.
· Ability to meet regulatory requirements.
· Number of resources used versus the number of resources they thought they would use.
· Ability of the project to meet its defined targets.
· Ability of the project to meet all deliverables.
· Successful management of all major issues.
· Customer post-surveys indicate satisfaction with the product or service delivery from the project.
· A successful and problem-free launch
· Business case was proven through the rate of return.
The ‘take home’ points of this article were the need for forward planning prior to any endeavour to evaluate how it will generate added value to the business rather than potentially pouring large amounts of money into a project that has no real focus within the long term.
Taking by Storm: A Breakout Strategy (Thomas Lawton, Sydney Finkelstein and Charles Harvey)
‘Taking by storm is perhaps the purest form of breakout strategy. The intention is to win market share as quickly as possible through the launch of a value proposition so compelling that sales, revenues and free cash flow all move upwards before existing and potential rivals wake up to the fact that something special is happening’. This article describes companies that have changed the competitive landscape by offering new products or services that aim to carve out new market spaces (‘blue oceans’) or take over parts of markets previously occupied by established suppliers.
It outlays the five practices that are required in order to successfully achieve this:
Ø Create a workable vision by understanding needs and aspirationsØ Face customers with a value proposition that covers all the important bases.
Ø Align what you do with what the customer really wants.
Ø Balance the people and process sides of business to deliver on your promises.
Ø Liberate through leadership, the energies and support of all key stakeholders.
One of the key players in this idea is that of internet search engine phenomena Google who epitomized the two hallmarks of breakout strategy: speed and surprise. They saw the potential for internet search long before mainstream players did and thus moved quickly to develop a one-stop search engine, with user friendly interface, sophisticated software and a range of different but related features such as Google Finance, Maps, Images & Video, Books, and online shopping, propelling them to the forefront of their market before competitors had any time to react.
Clearly a business tactic for the true risk-taking entrepreneur, but one which, when got right, can potentially be pure gold.
Stimulating the Potential: Creative Performance and Communication in Innovation Team (Jan Kratzer, Roger Th. A J. Leenders & Jo M. L. van Engelen)
This research paper looks at the connection between the levels of communication within a team in relation to the effectiveness of project development.
In terms of the frequency of communication, studies show that high levels of communication frequency can create ‘mutual production blocking’ and can lower group standards through causing a sense of complacency. Centralized communication (where all ideas etc have to be ‘passed through’ a central person), which is traditionally seen as one of the important ways to co-ordinate work teams is proven to inhibit the creative performance in terms of decision-making as it causes a senses of domination by individuals within the problem solving process with other members being reduced to ‘free-riding’. Dominators are prone to information overload, whereas dominees do not receive or receive too late the information necessary for their part of the product development task, thus having a negative and unbalanced effect on both parties. Both excessive and centralized communication can lead to the formation of sub group ‘cliques’ within the team causing communicational barriers preventing the sufficient flow of information.
The conclusions of this study is that for the highest level of creative performance, frequency of communication must be kept low and computer driven communication should be utilized as it provides an accessible and transparent channel for the flow of information, with face to face meetings & discussions kept to a minimum in order to avoid the familiarity which causes sub grouping. While I agree that project teams should be continually ‘refreshed’ by the means of the newer ‘spider network’ management structure which enables the flexibility of group rotation as opposed to the traditional fixed hierarchical system, from my own experience I don’t believe the findings of this article to be credible as it is all proven through quantitative statistics which I don’t feel can effectively measure creative output. It is my opinion that when dealing with creative strategies, a more hands on, face- to-face approach is instead crucial, in order to maintain a suitable level of cohesion within the team. However these should be kept to a routine schedule so not to run the risk of becoming increasingly excessive.
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