Economic Stimulus, Meet Project Manager
JB | Feb 20, 2009 | One Comment | Print
I’ve received some very interesting feedback in the comments section and via e-mail to my recent article where I questioned how the legislative process might benefit by applying principles of business analysis. As a specific example, I used the recently passed economic stimulus package.
Today, I’d like to bring your attention to a similar article I found that is written from a project management perspective. The author is none other than Gregory Balestrero, CEO of the PMI. As you might expect, his emphasis is more on making sure that the initiatives included in the package are rolled out as quickly and effectively as possible. Per Balestrero:
First, get the people who know how to manage complex change initiatives — these are not career politicians but are experienced project professionals — who can manage change portfolios… that can get results.
Second, emphasize the competency of project management …, like they have begun to do in many of the governments around the world. But they should not allow “pockets” of excellence to prevail. On the contrary, the governments should leverage the pockets of excellence to develop an enterprise discipline in project execution.
I’d encourage you to read the article through, but don’t stop there. The comments, to me, are every bit as interesting and informative.
Of course, reasonable people can (and do) disagree as to whether the stimulus legislation – or any other legislation – is the right thing to, but in these articles, that isn’t the point.
The interesting thing to me is the discussion on the portability of project-related skills and how other sectors such as government/legislative could benefit from better application of the principles and practices project professionals such as analysts and PMs use daily to solve business problems.
“Gantt” photo by videoaktiv.
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Filed Under: Business Analysis
Jonathan, thanks for posting another article with a link to a great information. All said, the operations to be executed under stimulus must adhere to a well-defined agenda and translated successfully into operation such that the overall objective is achieved. As we go higher up the hierarchy, the specific problems get muddled in more generic definitions so that majority of problems of a class are identified. If managers fail to identify them, the solution looses the core objective. This is one of the reasons why majority of the solutions fail to deliver the 100% expected results. Similarly, the vice versa must also be adhered while formulating solutions. As I see, this becomes the core expectation of core project professionals in any domain.