This final version of this guest paper was submitted on March 11, 2023. It is copyright to Robin Hornby.
Published here April 2023.

Introduction | Secondary Evolution | My Earlier Analyses 
On Closer Examination | External Development | Conclusion

My Earlier Analyses

In an earlier analysis of this concept, I concluded that one of the key objectives for the project manager during project initiation is to achieve this alignment. State 1 in the diagram (Driving Order from Chaos) is a challenge familiar to project managers at the beginning of every complex project. The objective is to have everyone "pointing in the same direction".

This task cannot just be left to the project manager. The project manager may have sufficient influence to bring the project team into line, such as in Alignment State 2, but this still leaves a lot of arrows pointing every-which-way. Additional strategies must be employed to achieve the ideal alignment in State 3 (though maybe a few obstinate cases will always remain!). But left in a largely non-aligned state, the project manager can be overwhelmed by the demands and issues of corporate PM. The result is a feeling of isolation and disempowerment, to the detriment of the project.

My next diagram, Steps to Alignment, illustrates how specific strategies, or drivers, can push the sphere of influence of project management further into the organization. Thus, project awareness and engagement move beyond the project team and eventually result in a collaborative organization. In other words, all the arrows are aligned.

Figure 2: Steps to AlignmentHere, projects are choreographed rather than left to the random and sometimes frantic efforts of a project manager faced with disinterest or non-cooperation. But this can only happen if project responsibilities expand from the project team to embrace the entire organization. And this evolution only occurs as increasingly effective drivers of alignment are adopted, ending in true project collaboration. Without this, the project is denied its greatest support.

Secondary Evolution  Secondary Evolution

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