Over the past few months the subject of ‘organisational excellence’ came up in conversations with other professionals. There has been a debate, the subject has been intriguing and slightly controversial.
My interest has been in the exploration of the principles underpinning the subject and, more importantly, in the evaluation of those principles relevant to the project management profession. I did a little bit of research and in the end I came to the conclusion that the topic of organisational excellence is complex and elusive.
Below you will find a very personal attempt to explore the modern domains of Organisational Excellence and to place project management in this context. The article covers:
- The outset
- The definitions
- The three domains for organisational excellence and their levers:
- Strategy
- Operations
- Engagement
- Project management and organisational excellence
- Recommendations.
I hope you will find this reflection interesting and thought-provoking.
The outset
Looking at how organisations are set up for excellence, we may get a variety of situations.
Organisations may fall short with (or not be able to sustain consistently) project management practices. In the long run their inability to sustain good project management practices will be detrimental to the delivery of business objectives, they will succumb to competition, to stagnation, to public scrutiny or will be overwhelmed by events. On the other hand, in other organisational arrangements, good project management practices that lead to successful projects may not reach the fabric of the organisation, are not supported by an effective structure of the organisation, do not embed and do not elevate the quality of the organisation. These mediocre enterprises will have inefficient working practices, inconsistent delivery, lack of engagement and clarity. This will demotivate staff and this results in the always extremely damaging staff disengagement, staff turnover and loss of implicit knowledge. Potential for excellence will be affected.
The definitions …
But what is ‘excellence’? The attraction in the definition, as given on the right here, is in its brevity. To me, this definition points sharply to important facets.
If ‘excellence’ is a ‘quality’, can this be innate in an organisation? Can excellence be improved or taught to the staff? Secondly, if an organisation aims to be outstanding or extremely good, which is the benchmark? What is a measure of being good, compared to mediocrity? And, more importantly, ‘outstanding’ in what respect? Can a profitable, money-making organisation be also excellent in respect to the treatment of its staff and in its responsibilities to the wider society?
I am often surprised when I see references to quotes of philosophers and great figures of the past, sometimes dating back more than two thousands years ago. I like when I see quotes from those times: it is a testimony that there are things that last more than …. the last model of the iPhone! I particularly like the quote below, which I think fits nicely also our modern times:
Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
Aristoteles
Excellence does not come as a present for Christmas, cannot be bought on Amazon or promoted simply via a post onto the company’s intranet. It requires critical thinking, vision, effort, workforce engagement, determination and perseverance.
I quote below a more practical definition from a specialised organisation, operating in businesses’ quality improvement (ASQ):
Organisational excellence is defined as the ongoing efforts to establish an internal framework of standards and processes intended to engage and motivate employees to deliver products and services that fulfil customer requirements within business expectations.
ASQ.com
In this definition we have the reference to important elements that are key in businesses and organisations, as standards, products, procedures, products, stakeholders, expectations. But excellence can be still difficult to define and to grasp, can be hard to build, complex to sustain and prone to deterioration… Luckily, there are many business models out there that have developed the subject further, into practical, applicable areas and domains for intervention (see later in the article).
Three domains and their levers
I think that we can simplify the list of the domains down to three key ones, as Strategy, Operations, Engagement. They represent defined and workable areas that anyone in a modern business can easily relate to. Depending on sector or field, in each domain we may be able to distinguish further elements, all important levers for excellence.
Strategy
All organisations nowadays embrace the paradigm Vision – Missions – Goals. A vision statement focuses on the future and what an organisation wants to ultimately become. A mission statement focuses on today and what an organisation does to achieve it. A vision and mission combined together offer a broad, overall sense of the organisation’s direction. To work toward achieving these aspirations, organisations also need to create goals, as narrower aims that should provide clear and tangible guidance to managers and employees as they perform their work on a daily basis.
What is the key for excellence? Certainly a strategic leadership , as in the leaders’ “ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility and to empower others to create strategic change as necessary” (Ireland, Hitt & Hoskisson, The Management of Strategy: Concepts & Cases. Evans Publishing Group; 2008).
A strategic leadership will establish balanced organisational controls, will manage effectively the resource portfolio, will sustain an effective organisational culture and will emphasise ethical practices in the organisational processes – all key levers for excellence.
An ‘excellent’ leadership will be open to innovation, will be analytical and diligent in its enterprise risk management, will be strategic in its learning, in the hiring of staff and in the communication, and it will also be decisive. What is more, an excellent leadership will be open to continual improvement and evolution to follow the changes in society.
Operations
Intelligent and efficient operations will be essential for those organisations striving for excellence. Key elements will be careful planning and responsive metrics, the latter integrated into dashboards that will serve operationally, tactically and strategically.
There will be an applied risk management with a culture of business continuity, resilience management and continual improvement. As mentioned above, the promotion of ethical practices will also be important.
Engagement
It is important to restate here the value of an effective stakeholders management. [I covered the topic in an earlier article on this blog (link).]
To achieve excellence, a strong connection with all organisation’s stakeholders is essential, whether these stakeholders are service providers, suppliers, customers, project beneficiaries, advisors, opinion leaders, sponsors or investors.
A corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda is now perceived as a must (link). For example, the European Business Excellence Model (EFQM, a tool for integrating quality in organisations) has introduced CSR in the model in 2002. Excellent enterprises have CSR agendas aligned with their business purpose, with the values of the organisations’ key stakeholders and with the needs of the communities in which the organisations operate (link). Although it seems that this alignment is still hard to achieve (with organisations struggling in making CSR an internalised management ideology – link), a robust CSR agenda is something to aspire to.
An organisational culture of excellence is possible only if there is a strong connection with the workforce, across all possible geographical, cultural or generational gaps. There should be genuine inclusion and integration of “neuro-diverse” staff and a culture for psychological safety for the teams and the individuals (link).
Project Management & Organisational Excellence
How would project management fit in? Most of the organisations today have their operations centred on project delivery, whether this is for new products, services, change, policy production etc. It is inevitable that the quality of the project management influences the organisation’s success and profile. On the other hand, project management practices are influenced by the ethos, the operational arrangements and the business organisation. The development and the growth of good project management practices will depend on the latter, as a “culture media” for growth.
There are various articles and sources available on the subject of excellence in project management. There are many experts and consultancy providers offering various measures and tools to elevate the PM practices. As an example, the APM (Association for Project Management) has an interesting publication in which some models for the improvement of project management are reviewed. Of the models presented, one is of particular interest for me, the Project Excellence Model.
In this model, there is the categorisation of projects in five interesting groups, as Product, Tool, System, Strategy and Total Project Management. Each group has important characteristics to consider. There is also a clear stipulation for the need of a distinction between ‘project success criteria‘ and ‘critical success factors‘, with the former as pertinent to the project itself (= project results) and the latter related mostly to the organisation.
The ‘results‘ are not only related to the narrow domain of project quality, budget and schedule, but also expand to canvas the appreciation by the wider stakeholder communities (as project recipients, project team, contractors etc). The ‘success factors‘ look at the broader picture of the organisation, as in: leadership and team dynamics (e.g. the way the project manager runs the project and how tasks and responsibilities are divided), policy and strategy (what are the project goals and how are they accomplished combining the interest of stakeholders into an end-product), stakeholder management (how does the project interact and cooperate with various stakeholders and external parties), use of resources, quality of the contracting relationships and general project management approach (how does operational control and scheduling of the project take place). In my view this way to look at excellence in the PM practices has some merit, linking nicely the project performance to the fabric of the organisation. How this can be done in practice… I am not too sure. (It would be good to hear for any practical experience….).
Recommendations
The industry, sector or field in which your organisation operates will have the specific dimensions for organisational excellence. It is not possible here to make a general recommendation. I would however emphasise the role provided by the project management in delivering consistently in projects, contributing to establish the conditions for the organisation’s resilience and excellence. I have also mentioned the role of the organisation as a “culture media” for excellence, boosting the quality in PM. PM practices and the organisational structure are therefore intertwined.
What is my take on the possible way for an organisation to foster excellence in PM? For an organisation to foster excellence in PM, it is important that:
- projects and programmes are properly categorised and each category analysed for specific issues, risks, skills and process requirements;
- stakeholder engagement is considered within the project performance review (social component);
- there is strong connection of PM with the organisation’s strategy and leadership, with effective and distributed knowledge management, a frame for projects’ performance assessment and for organisational learning;
- there is nurture for the connection between the project teams and the organisation vision and mission, and
- there is a formal framework for project excellence, whether this is a standard model or one developed internally.
What is excellence for you? In this article I have tried to explore the modern domains of Organisational Excellence and attempted to place project management in this context. It is very difficult to be prescriptive as the subject is complex and in constant evolution, but I made some recommendations based on the literature and personal experience. Models for project management excellence will be key in the improvement of the practices. In turn, an organisation must be receptive and it should provide a suitable environment to embed these practices for future benefit. I hope you have found the reflection interesting and thought-provoking and I will be glad to receive comments and feedback.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager, GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
Project Management Discussion Group 