Adapting To a Project Based Planet Old School in Trouble Saturday September 01 2007 by IPFrontline Hoboken NJ August 2007 Our spherical world has been declared flat once again And if your company has any age on it at all you ve likely found that your old way of doing business fits about as well as the suit you wore 30 pounds ago Not only have many operations scattered to the four corners of the globe the attitudes of the workforce have undergone a similar shift People no longer expect to follow a predictable hierarchical career path They now expect to take part in numerous quick forming quick dissolving teams that implement a series of short term projects that together make up their long term career In short everything has changed And if you re trying to force yesterday s rigid business practices to match up to today s dynamic project based world Rudolf Melik says you re doomed to failure After all talent is the biggest differentiator between businesses these days and how you manage it will determine your destiny Our established ways of getting work done of accounting for this work of monitoring compliance and of analyzing work in progress for intelligence that will help us do future work faster better cheaper and smarter are through says Melik author of The Rise of the Project Workforce Managing People and Projects in a Flat World Wiley 2007 ISBN 978 0 470 12430 7 34 95 They are no longer enough Today s companies will have to learn how to function in a short term project based business world Unfortunately for many companies this skill set is not yet their strong suit That s where Melik s new book comes into play The Rise of the Project Workforce helps organizations realize the tools technology and software that is required to operate in a flat world The book explains how project management workforce management and workflow concepts tools and technologies combined with accounting payroll HR and CRM customer relationship management applications result in a business critical enterprise system that improves productivity reduces compliance and overhead costs and yields a substantial revenue increase Companies face numerous challenges in their quest to adapt their business practices to the brave new flat world Melik addresses seven of the most prevalent Workers have a whole new set of expectations The generations that will make up the flattened world s workforce grew up and are growing up in an era where technology rules where information is just a click away and in which they can easily do multiple things at once They have shorter attention spans and frankly they don t want to be stuck behind a desk all day bogged down in spreadsheets and emails They ve also seen the long term jobs of their parents outsourced or downsized and this has changed their attitudes about work notes Melik Today s young workers do not view their careers as a couple of long term stints with different companies or in different positions but as a series of short term projects that will keep them interested and allow them to develop their skills over time They re the first generation in the new business world s Project Workforce and any company that can t understand their priorities and work parameters will be left behind Current business systems on their own don t match up with the operations needed in a flattened world Modern versions of business automation tools such as ERP CRM and project management software are simply not designed to plan schedule manage audit and optimize work that gets done in a flat world These systems want to impose a certain rigidity within business processes and fail to address the dynamic interplay and constantly shifting relationships between projects and people which occurs naturally in the flat world and characterizes today s business says Melik Companies end up trying to force fit these rigid solutions to their project workforce needs That is why so many ERP project management and workforce management systems are so heavily customized and why so many revert Rapidly accelerating globalization has changed all the rules At the start of this shift organizations moved simple tasks like assembly and manufacturing to developing countries where this work could be completed more economically In globalization s current wave organizations are outsourcing knowledge work as well At first only large multi national corporations outsourced operations but that is quickly changing In the current wave all organizations even those with just a few employees are outsourcing and conducting business globally says Melik The Internet fast networks and a globally connected workforce are the driving forces behind this trend And while globalization offers many opportunities for those who do it right it takes only one mistake for a company to end up in a huge mess The safety ethical and strategic challenges imposed by going global will act as huge obstacles for any company without the proper tools in place to ensure operations are being constantly checked and balanced Companies must learn to operate as fragmented enterprises The conventional company has its entire workforce under one roof It is easy to reach out to people who work on projects and external parties are mainly suppliers with discrete deliverables that do not collaborate with the company s workers on a frequent or constant basis Today s work is defined by atomized segments that are delivered by specialized workers both inside and outside the company The fragmented enterprise of today assigns work to internal or outsourced teams based on costs available talent the nature of work and customer expectations It is much harder to communicate collaborate and coordinate with a highly dispersed workforce that operates in multiple geographies and time zones and yet companies have no choice but to do so to tap into the global talent pool they need The government is watching with an eagle eye As organizations have become more fragmented they also have become subject to greater regulatory scrutiny Today s businesses must achieve and maintain compliance with regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley which directly impact project execution and workforce management In order to meet new regulatory standards companies need more thorough and expansive systems for assigning tracking and managing accountability for the work being done The good news is these controls protect everyone workers customers suppliers effectively all of the organization s stakeholders The
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