Managing Project Baseline Changes

The company I work for is made up of many functional groups located around the world. The information technology group is responsible for providing a reliable and robust computer environment through which the company can run its global operations. The information technology group recently initiated a project to upgrade its software distribution system to a more current version. The current system is outdated and no longer supported by the manufacturer. The upgrade would allow them to regain technical support as well as leverage information within a recently deployed Active Directory, allowing for increased automation during software deployments.

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How Organizational Change Impacts Projects

Heraclitus wrote, “There is nothing permanent except change.” This is especially true in business today where change is a continuous process and is needed to remain competitive. However, even though change is common practice in most organizations, for many, change is by no means a smooth process. Change can interrupt the flow of business and cause pain for stakeholders of the business. The problem is amplified for project managers and project teams who are not only the leaders of change within the organization, but are also impacted by change. Organizations that are able to recognize the impact of organization change on projects and implement strategies to reduce the impact will streamline the process and ease the pain of change for all involved.

Stakeholder Management in Construction Projects

Many believe effective stakeholder management is one of the most important aspects of successful project management. In an article written by Jergeas, Williamson, Skulmoski, & Thomas (2000), they surveyed three companies who manage construction projects in the oil and gas industry.

In the article the authors discuss the confusion around identifying stakeholders and compare some industry definitions of stakeholders. They provide a high-level outline of the process they underwent to deliver the survey and compile the results. Ultimately they were able to consolidate the responses from the three companies and compile a succinct list of some of the problems that project managers create by ineffective stakeholder management. In addition, they provide some tactics for effective stakeholder management. Although the company sampling is too small to compile a complete list, the information received from the sampling provides an excellent start to identifying the issues and associated with managing stakeholders.