Corporate Culture: A Constraint On Your Project?
By Bob McGannon

You have assembled a highly skilled technical team. After a long search, you have hired an experienced project manager to ensure the project is tightly controlled. Through careful budgeting, you ensure that appropriate funding is available. Do you think you have mixed a recipe for a successful project? Think again - a primary factor that may determine the success or failure of your project is your corporate culture.

Can corporate culture really make that much difference? Think back to the last time you tried to request a special service from - or implement a change in - an organization that embraces processes it has used for years. Did you get very far? Project management professionals can face the same type of resistance to change if they are working with an organization that does not embrace change as part of its culture. As projects are intended to bring about some form of change - a new product or improvement to an existing product, new processes, or enhanced tools - projects are especially threatening to an organization whose culture won't embrace the transformation brought about by the project's product.

Should you find yourself in a position where you face these challenges, the following are a few tips to help guide the project manager through this labyrinth of cultural tradition and emotion.

Introducing New Ideas

Although organizations vary in their acceptance of new ideas, concepts and approaches, each culture usually has a means by which new ideas can be incorporated into the mainstream workings of the organization. The introduction of new ideas is usually accepted when they originate from specific trusted individuals or from senior management. The astute project manager will work with the project sponsor to understand what type of ideas or changes they have introduced into the environment, along with the challenges they had to overcome along the pathway to implementation. In addition, conversations with the project sponsor about others who have successfully introduced change to the environment can be beneficial. Creating processes as part of your communication plan to make allies of these individuals can help significantly as your projects move through requirements formulation to implementation.

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