Essay on Project as a Temporary Organization- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Write about theEssay on Project as a Temporary Organization. Answer: Introduction It has become a common assumption among practitioners and researchers to consider project execution process as temporary organizations (Lundin Sderholm 1995). An observation of matrix organizations, life cycle of projects and projectification processes in the organizations poses challenges to the statement of projects are temporary organizations. Functions of project based organizations also raises questions to the statement. Let us look at project and its dynamics. Most projects are initiated by intact organizations, and they participate in the projects to bring out changes in the situations, enhance or build productive capabilities and provide innovative solutions to problems and issues. By achieving project goals many organizations and communities are enriching their competitive advantage. The constructive outcomes of projects help the organizational members to increase existing capacities and acquire new capabilities. By executing projects the businesses are increasing opportunities for new alliances and bigger business transactions. Because of the complex benefits the project execution brings to the organization, the business community has recognized project management as a distinct discipline and international organizations consider projects as drivers of economy and development. Decades of experiences in project management and project-based companies presents a great opportunity to study temporary organizations and behavior of organizations. Each project has a complex context, dynamic environmental factors, interactions of multiple partners and project outcomes (Harrison Lock 2004). Project management as a science has been assuming that it has a separate existence and many project management theories are attempted to help the practitioners. Before we conclude that projects are temporary organizations we need to examine other organizational phenomenon that is similar to project organizations. The Organizational Observations One fact we must accept that whenever, a project is initiated, an organizational structure that is meant for project execution will dominate and the functional organizational structure takes a back seat or its existence is unrecognized. Most practitioners considers temporary organizations as one that focused on completion of a project that is intended to change , produce or innovate something, and the temporary organization assumes an independent existence. There are three sources of information that we need to look at before passing our judgment. One is the virtual organization, matrix organization and projectification in organizations. PMBOK (Project management body of Knowledge) is an authentic and authoritative source of information for project management, which states that a project is a temporary undertaking to produce a product, service or an outcome. The statement implies the existence of an organization for a limited period of time, hence it supports the standpoint that project is a temporary organization. The experiences in virtual organizations also take similar standpoint, though there is no authoritative guiding body like PMI (Project management Institute). A virtual organization is a network of people that can contribute to a common goal and often uses information and communication technology to communicate and coordinate their functions. It is social organization with no vertical and horizontal structure purposely created, but people somehow organize themselves to meet the needs of the situation and dismantles itself after the completion of the project. Sometimes the participants in virtual organizatio ns work from geographically dispersed places and cooperate with their unique skills (Furst, Reeves, Rosen, Blackburn 2004). The performance of film industry is coming close to project management and the functioning of virtual organization. The communication and interpersonal relationships among the multitude of artists and workers to make the film for the box office is amazing and complex. Though the team for a particular film will be disbursed after the completion of the movie, it is implicit that each participant has roles to play in the future movie projects. In that way, projects are not temporary organizations but have potential for future reconfigurations. A second source of information that helps us to evaluate the statement is the experiences form the construction projects that use matrix organization in controlling its execution. Matrix organizations come into being when the functional structures are superimposed by a temporary structure (Hyvari 2006). In order to give the project manager the benefit of utilizing internal resources and execute the project milestones, matrix organizations are created. Because of dual chain of command, matrix organizations are complex and difficult to be managed. Most matrix organizations have experienced interpersonal conflicts, role conflicts and goal conflicts. In this case too, the temporary arrangement is superimposed on a relatively permanent structure. The third challenge to the notion of temporariness of organization in project management comes from the practices of projectification. It is a practice of utilizing the principles of project management to complete specific tasks in a organizations (Packendorff Lindgren 2014). For example, if a company is intending to build a production plant, some of the people in the organization will be given the task of completing the plant in a given time. The team entrusted to finish the task will utilize the principles of project management to complete the task. On completion of the project team will return to their respective functional roles. Organizations apply projectification to new product development, RD initiatives, construction works, capacity building and skill up-gradation, etc. The business organization uses projectification as tool to develop the business and not a n end in itself; hence, the former statement is not strengthened. Conclusion The three instances mentioned above do not give projects an independent existence; always an interaction between the temporary organization of the project and permanent structure is implied. In fact, often the resources required to the project are supplied from the parent organization. No project is an island; a temporal and organizational linkage exists between a project and its context (often a permanent organization). Instead of arguing whether the project is a temporary organization, we must make a critical distinction between project organization and permanent organization (Hassard Parker, M. eds., 2016). A project organization is determinate i.e. the project participant are aware that their roles and relations will come to a stop after the achievement of the project goals. In contrast, the organizations of a business enterprise are indeterminate, because the organization is expected to continue its function for an unspecified period. Determinate indeterminate paradigm is effective in categorizing project organization, than using the diffuse tool of temporal classification i.e. the terms temporary and permanent to explain the organization life cycle may be terminated. References Furst, S.A., Reeves, M., Rosen, B. and Blackburn, R.S., 2004. Managing the life cycle of virtual teams.The Academy of Management Executive,18(2), pp.6-20. Harrison, F.L. and Lock, D., 2004.Advanced project management: a structured approach. Gower Publishing, Ltd.. Hassard, J. and Parker, M. eds., 2016.Routledge Revivals: Towards a New Theory of Organizations (1994). Routledge. Hyvari, I., 2006. Success of projects in different organizational conditions.Project management journal,37(4), p.31. Lundin, R.A. and Sderholm, A., 1995. A theory of the temporary organization.Scandinavian Journal of management,11(4), pp.437-455. Packendorff, J. and Lindgren, M., 2014. Projectification and its consequences: Narrow and broad conceptualisations.South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences,17(1), pp.7-21.