DownsideEarlier in the book, having
worked our way up the proverbial organizational ladder so to speak, we now come
to the top level of the organization where things get really complicated. Figure 1
shows what our author Gina Abudi has in mind and the text gets rather confusing
if you don't remember what all of these acronyms stand for.[22]
Anyway, the boxes of interest here are the PM COE and the CM COE under the COO.[23]
According to Gina, "the Director of the CM CoE reports directly up to the SVP
of Research and Development (R&D), which is where, in this organization, most
changes originate."[24] Unfortunately,
this Figure 1 does not include the office of the SVP,
R&D.[25] Figure
1: Potential Organizational Structure[26], [27]
Given the highly politicized environments that inevitable exist at the
top levels of large organizations where successful leaders are attempting to protect
their own turf, any serious efforts to redirect such culture has to be tackled
with extreme caution. But one suspects that the organization displayed in Figure 1
is more than ripe for a significant reorganization and downsizing. Why, for example,
shouldn't the CM COE not be embedded in the PM COE? As shown in the listing
of chapters, other aspects of cultural change, such as The Value of Focusing
on the People and Leading Change Across Cultural and Generational Boundaries
then follow in the book in great detail. However, it is not until Chapter 7 that
we get to a discussion and advice on the need for project management as described
in the previous section of this paper.[28]
22.
Ibid, p108
23. Translation: "the Project Management
Center of Excellence and the Change Management Center of Excellence
under the Chief Operating Officer. For those transfixed by acronyms, other
boxes include: CEO — Chief Executive Officer; CHRO — Chief Human Resources
Officer; CFO — Chief Financial Officer; CTO — Chief Technology Officer;
and ITPM COE — Information Technology Project Management Centre of Excellence.
Other boxes are not identified.
24. Ibid, p104
25.
For those transfixed by acronyms, the following are also included in Figure 1.
26. Ibid, p108
27. As is our practice,
before publishing a draft of our review was sent to the author for validation
and checking for errors of fact on our part. In response, Gina emailed this response:
"Please share my 'thank you' to Max for his very thorough and detailed review
of the book and his comments. In particular — tell him nice catch on my graphic
error. We will fix that on the next printing by the way … ."
28.
Ibid, The Change Project, Chapter 7, p181 — see previous section.
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What
We Liked, Part 2
