Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture - Al Zeitoun - E-Book

Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture E-Book

Al Zeitoun

0,0
54,99 €

-100%
Sammeln Sie Punkte in unserem Gutscheinprogramm und kaufen Sie E-Books und Hörbücher mit bis zu 100% Rabatt.
Mehr erfahren.
Beschreibung

An incisive and hands-on discussion of how to transform your organization’s project management culture into a strategic capability

In Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture: How to Drive Transformative Change with Project and Portfolio Management, distinguished business strategist and execution expert Dr. Al Zeitoun delivers an exciting and insightful discussion of how to set up your organization to achieve excellence by building an experience-driven culture. The author expands on the proven 10 pillars of success set out in his previous work, Project Management Next Generation: The Pillars for Organizational Excellence, covering each of the 21st century skills your teams need to have to enhance the experiences of stakeholders. He also builds on the principles captured and analyzed in his work Program Management: Going Beyond Project Management to Enable Value-Driven Change.

Readers will find:

  • A thorough design of the adaptable future dynamic and adaptable future organization
  • Comprehensive explorations of the success ingredients to creating a culture of innovation that drives transformative change
  • Practical discussions of how project portfolio management skills have evolved and what the future holds for the role of project and portfolio leaders
  • The human connection necessary for inspiring leaders to achieve balance in the digitally fluent AI era
  • In-depth treatments of the continued evolution of the project impact muscle and project management offices in an agile and fast-moving marketplace

Perfect for managers, executives, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders, Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture will also benefit program and project management professionals, executive sponsors, team leaders, students in project and program management courses, and product team members interested in the future of project and change management.

Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:

Android
iOS
von Legimi
zertifizierten E-Readern

Seitenzahl: 559

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Bewertungen
0,0
0
0
0
0
0
Mehr Informationen
Mehr Informationen
Legimi prüft nicht, ob Rezensionen von Nutzern stammen, die den betreffenden Titel tatsächlich gekauft oder gelesen/gehört haben. Wir entfernen aber gefälschte Rezensionen.



Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Background: What Inspired This Book

Section I: Experience-Driven Innovation with Portfolio of Projects

1 Innovation in the World of Projects

1.1 The Holistic View

1.2 Portfolios of Projects Matter

1.3 The Speed of Innovating

1.4 Managing Transformation Matters

1.5 The New Strategist

1.6 Collaborating Across Diverse Views

1.7 Aligning Stakeholders

1.8 Championing Innovation

Reference

Note

2 Creating Experiences

2.1 The Changing Ways of Working

2.2 Experiences Matter

2.3 Innovation Labs

2.4 Creating a Connected Ecosystem

2.5 Thinking Culture

Reference

Notes

3 Driving Integration

3.1 The Portfolio, Program, and Project Link

3.2 The Portfolio Management Professional

3.3 The Value Focus

3.4 Integrating with Simplicity

3.5 Integrating Stories

Reference

Note

Section II: Essential Skills to Lead Experience-Driven Cultures

4 Project Impact Muscle

4.1 The Future of Work

4.2 Leading Projects

4.3 Impact Matters

4.4 Building Project Muscles

Reference

Notes

5 Effective Experiencing

5.1 Experience-Driven Features

5.2 Continual Adapting

5.3 Social Leadership

5.4 Creating a New Mindset

5.5 Sustaining Creativity

Reference

Notes

6 Human Connection

6.1 The Power of Bridging

6.2 Communicating with Impact

6.3 The Portfolio Success Link

6.4 Experience-Driven Mastery

6.5 The Inspiring Leader

References

Notes

7 Digital Fluency

7.1 AI Has Many Edges

7.2 The Digital Experience

7.3 Innovating with Intelligence

7.4 Creating the New Human

7.5 The New Human Attributes

7.6 Achieving Balance

Reference

Note

Section III: Creating Experience-Driven Cultures with Enterprise Portfolio Management Muscles

8 Building the Experience-Driven Culture

8.1 Success Ingredients

8.2 Tone Matters

8.3 Value-Based Decision-Making

8.4 Building Momentum

References

Note

9 Sustaining Cultural Excellence

9.1 Simplicity of Powerful Culture Ethos

9.2 Resiliency in Leadership

9.3 The Ownership Culture

9.4 Trust Foundation Building

9.5 Sustaining Supporting Behaviors

Notes

10 Enterprise Portfolio Management Muscles

10.1 The Portfolio Management Ecosystem

10.2 The Critical Skills for Portfolio Management

10.3 Aligning the Enterprise

10.4 Decision-Making Excellence

10.5 Portfolio Management Maturity

Note

11 The Adaptable Future Organization

11.1 The Dynamic State of Tomorrow’s Organizations

11.2 The Future Organizational Attributes

References

11.3 The Adapting Value

11.4 Balancing Steadiness with Change

11.5 Co-Created Execution Plans

11.6 Strategic Consistency

Note

Section IV: The Path Forward

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 3

Table 3.1 Acquisition Objectives.

Chapter 7

Table 7.1 Sources of Knowledge

List of Illustrations

Background: What Inspired This Book

Figure A Experience-driven Culture Model.

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1 Holistic View Sample. Credit: KELLEPICS/Pixabay.

Figure 1.2 Holistic Leader’s Stakeholders Strategic Links.

Figure 1.3 The New Strategist. Credit: chenspec/Pixabay.

Figure 1.4 The Leaders’ Priorities Hypothesis.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open ...

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 Future Ways of Working.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open Polling, Apr...

Figure 2.2 The Future Excellence Building Blocks.

Figure 2.3 The Thinking Muscle. Credit: Enio-ia/Pixabay.

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 Portfolio, Program, and Project Linkages.

Figure 3.2 The Certified Professional. Credit: u_4xcm1iw8y9/Pixabay.

Figure 3.3 The Value Focus. Credit: u_4xcm1iw8y9/Pixabay.

Figure 3.4 The Holistic View. Credit: u_4xcm1iw8y9/Pixabay.

Figure 3.5 The Integrating Stories Journey.

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1 Scaling Innovation and Growth.

Note

:

Based on LinkedIn Open Polli

...

Figure 4.2 Future of Projects. Credit: Vilkasss/Pixabay.

Figure 4.3 Building Project Muscles.

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1 Features Development.

Figure 5.2 Continual Adapting Building Blocks.

Figure 5.3 The Need for Adapting.

Figure 5.4 Mindset Obstacles to Overcome.

Figure 5.5 The Attentive Mind. Credit: johnhain/Pixabay.

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1 Bridging Connection.

Figure 6.2 Impactful Communication. Credit: TungArt7/Pixabay.

Figure 6.3 Change Management Muscle.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open Polling, A...

Figure 6.4 Inspiring Leadership. Credit: johnhain/Pixabay.

Figure 6.5 The Inspirational Leadership Competencies.

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1 AI Edges. Credit: geralt/Pixabay.

Figure 7.2 Empowering the Human Experience.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open Pol...

Figure 7.3 Components of a Knowledge Repository.

Figure 7.4 Three Critical Intangible Components of Intellectual Capital.

Figure 7.5 The New Human Qualities.

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1 Football Team Adapting. Credit: BorgMattisson/Pixabay.

Figure 8.2 Decision-Making Quality.

Figure 8.3 Building Momentum.

Chapter 9

Figure 9.1 Building Powerful Ethos.

Figure 9.2 Sustaining Value Creation.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open Polling, ...

Figure 9.3 Member of the NASA Team. Credit: geralt/Pixabay.

Figure 9.4 The Trust Currency. Credit: Breedstock/Pixabay.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 Successful Organizational Portfolio.

Note

:

Based on LinkedIn Ope

...

Figure 10.2 Critical Portfolio Management Skills.

Note

: PMI’s Standard for P...

Figure 10.3 Future Projects Alignment Attributes.

Figure 10.4 The Aligned Enterprise.

Figure 10.5 Possible Maturity Levels.

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1 Project Management Best Practices Activities.

Figure 11.2 The Generic Value-Added Chain.

Figure 11.3 The Growth of Knowledge Repositories.

Figure 11.4 Overlapping of Methodologies.

Figure 11.5 Creation of Business Value.

Figure 11.6 The Co-Created Execution Plan.

Figure 11.7 The Momentum Creator.

Note

: Based on LinkedIn Open Polling, Apri...

Part 4

Figure S4.1 Experience-Driven Culture Compass.

Figure S4.2 Pain points emanating from all forms of management and leadershi...

Figure S4.3 New types of projects are emerging, requiring us to think of new...

Figure S4.4 The types of metrics used to evaluate project success have evolv...

Figure S4.5 Numerous factors influencing the selection of a project methodol...

Figure S4.6 The other side of the pain points coin is a continuum of forces ...

Figure S4.7 Future Concept for a Project Sponsor Track.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Background: What Inspired This Book

Begin Reading

Index

End User License Agreement

Pages

iii

iv

v

xiii

xiv

xv

xvii

xviii

1

2

3

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

231

232

233

235

236

237

238

239

240

241

242

243

244

245

246

247

248

249

250

251

252

253

254

255

256

257

258

259

260

261

262

263

264

265

266

267

269

270

271

272

273

274

275

276

277

278

279

280

281

282

283

284

285

286

287

288

289

290

291

292

293

294

295

296

297

298

299

300

301

302

303

304

305

306

307

308

309

310

311

312

313

314

315

316

317

318

319

320

321

322

323

324

325

326

327

328

329

330

331

Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture

 

How to Drive Transformative Change with Project and Portfolio Management

 

Al Zeitoun

Bethesda

Maryland, USA

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for:Hardback ISBN: 9781394257010

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © ai-generiert-mann-technologie

 

 

 

 

To

 

the memory ofmy dadfor instilling in me the passion for cultures and systemsmay his leadership legacy continue to inspire generations to come.

 

Dad, this book is for you as I know you would have loved to write it.

Preface

Academia and researchers have written about corporate cultures for decades. What we are now discovering, as you will read in this book, are the impacts that various activities can have on cultures. There are several types and definitions of a corporate culture based upon the products offered, markets served, and core values established by senior management. As a simple definition, a corporate culture is the set of beliefs and behaviors established usually by senior management as to how employees should interact during the execution of business transactions.

Cultures normally include combinations of management’s expectations, established business core values, and ethical considerations. Good cultures that are supported by the employees increase productivity and collaboration among the employees and provide them with career advancement opportunities.

The tools and techniques that program and project managers are expected to use could have a positive impact on the culture and possibly cause transformational changes. Examples include Agile, Scrum, hybrid methodologies, and the growth of digitalization. It is still uncertain the impact that artificial intelligence practices will have on the corporate culture.

For years, executives established a corporate culture and allowed each project, and even each functional unit, to establish its own culture knowing it might conflict with the corporate culture. When discussing projects, this was allowed knowing that the projects would eventually come to an end and the project-conflicting cultures would disappear. Today, companies are establishing one corporate culture that also satisfies most of the projects as well.

As discussed in this book, activities involving innovation can seriously impact cultures. Establishing one corporate culture is usually easier if the organization supports continuous rather than part-time innovation that focuses on process improvements, better materials, higher levels of quality, lower manufacturing costs, and faster time-to-market. The downside risk with continuous innovation is that workers may ignore business as usual activities.

Despite good intentions by senior management, there are always certain types of projects that can create issues with cultures. Projects involving innovation and creativity are such examples. Let us consider an innovation project that has four phases:

Innovation project ideas

Innovation project selection

Innovation project execution

Innovation project commercialization

Virtually, all companies encourage their employees to identify innovation opportunities. Companies like Google and 3M ask employees to spend a certain amount of time each day or week to work on new innovative ideas and have established policies whereby 20–30% of each unit’s revenue each year must come from new products introduced within the past four to five years. Failure to do so could impact salaries and bonuses. Some employees may resist this type of innovation pressure that might remove them from their comfort zones. There is also the risk of distracting workers from core tasks.

Selecting innovation ideas for execution is usually performed by senior management. Unfortunately, their decision may be to provide most of their support for ideas that are applicable to ongoing businesses that can favorably impact short-term cash flow and profitability rather than new businesses based upon radical innovation practices that are accompanied by financial uncertainties. This can protect executive salaries, bonuses, and retirement plans but could impact long-term success.

Executives may also select only those potential projects that fit the company’s core values. The core values can include target markets, age and sex of the consumers, product selling price, and marketing and sales force experience with the possible new product.

The execution of innovation projects, especially those involving radical innovation, can take quite a bit of time because of the risks and uncertainties. Employees may resist working on some radical innovation projects if they fear that they may not be able to return to their previous functional position at project completion. There may also be a fear of losing career advancement opportunities.

There is a growing trend in companies that radical innovation project teams should remain together for the commercialization of the project. This can create cultural disagreements with existing production organizations if new equipment and facilities must be purchased, new suppliers must be brought on board, and new quality standards must be met.

It is almost a certainty that innovation project management practices and the other activities discussed in this book will have an impact on cultures. The question, of course, is how much of an impact?

All of the topics discussed above, and more, appear in Dr. Zeitoun’s book. If your organization wishes to achieve sustained transformational innovation success that other organizations have found, then this book is a “must read.”

The future of organizational excellence may very well rest in the hands of the inspiring future leaders. These leaders must be able to create a culture that enables driving change, and making strategic business decisions, as well as, portfolio decisions.

2 August 2024          

Dr. Harold Kerzner

Senior Executive Director for Project Management

International Institute for Learning, Inc. (IIL)

Background: What Inspired This Book

Overview

This book is inspired by the fast-changing world that has become the norm. With speed comes a responsibility to have the right scaffolding in place to ensure that the structure is supported as we go through the building process. The scaffolding in this book is the Culture. When Peter Drucker stated that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” he did not miss the mark.

Organizations continue to struggle in this decade with creating the supportive culture that makes the best use of the dynamic mix of process, people, and technology. These three classic attributes of transformation have matured over time, yet their integration, and linkages to creating the right supportive and adaptable work environment has missed the mark.

For the sake of this book, Experience-Driven Culture will be the intentional approach we choose to design an organization that creates the inspiring environment for workers, partners, customers, an extended group of stakeholders. The assumption will be that these cultures work well for organizations on the path of transforming and that execute this transformation work in the form of portfolios or projects and programs.

It is the goal of this work to be a practical guide to help learners and practitioners implement the ideas and principals shared in establishing a strong foundation for that type of culture. They are then equipped to proceed on the path of standing up a solid structure in the form of an organization and ways of working design that benefits from that strong foundation.

The Big Picture Model

As an attempt to summarize visually how the elements of this book will connect to create this culture, Figure A highlights four building blocks that are necessary to foundation of the proposed culture. This will also support the various hypotheses that will be validated with experiences, case studies, various publications, LinkedIn research, and relevant interviews.

Figure A Experience-driven Culture Model.

TIP

TIP The recipe for creating an experience-driven culture requires a balanced mix of four building blocks.

The Book’s Sections

The first section, Experience-Driven Innovation with Portfolio of Projects, will cover the importance of innovation in the world of projects and the ways for creating experiences that matter. This section will also tackle the importance of achieving integration across the execution landscape of projects within a portfolio. Most of this section elements will map to Block 1: the Innovation Drive.

Section 2, Essential Skills to Lead Experience-Driven Cultures, is a core section to creating these future cultures and tackles the building of the clear and visible impact muscle, the ways of creating effective experiencing, establishing the human connection, and the role of the ongoing changing and maturing digital fluency. This section crosses Block 2: Adaptive Ways of Working and Block 3: Human-2-Human.

The third Section of the book, Creating Experience-Driven Cultures with Enterprise Portfolio Management Muscles, addresses the critical role of portfolio management in building this Experience-Driven culture, the foundational elements of sustaining that culture, and the relevant portfolio management muscles. Most of the elements of this section map to Block 4: Enterprise Project and Portfolio Muscles.

The Path Forward section is focused on best practices for creating the consistency of excellence in these created cultures and then sustaining that creation.

Section IExperience-Driven Innovation with Portfolio of Projects

Section Overview

This section describes the fundamental linkages between innovation and portfolio management. The value of portfolio management in achieving the value outcomes of organizational change is critical. A few initial tools to aid leaders in creating experience-driven innovations will be highlighted. Prioritizing with excellence is supported by a few case studies across global organizations.

Section Learnings

The relationships among portfolios, programs, and projects to understand how they align to deliver value.

Why do portfolios of projects enable the achievement of a competitive advantage?

The qualities needed to develop the innovation leaders of the future.

How the different team members’ views could create the foundation for innovating with the right projects?

Using stakeholders’ alignment and innovation labs to speed innovation and build a culture that champions innovative ways of working.

Empowering the linkages across portfolios of programs and projects with simplicity and integrating stories.

Keywords

Strategist

Transformation

Ways of working

Experience

Ecosystem

Value focus

Simplicity

Stories

Introduction

The world of work continues to mature to adapt to the demands of both scaling and sustaining future growth. The execution of work in a consistent portfolio-like manner is increasingly valuable in creating the connected rigor management teams can understand, visibly see, and empower their decision-making process. The way of leading in this dynamic environment requires a new breed of leaders capable of creating cultures that are experience-driven.

Experience-driven in the context of innovation projects, looks at the return on experience (ROE) in every project interaction. This muscle is becoming highly critical to learn and develop. This section highlights the challenging and rewarding journey of building cultures that invest in creating such a commitment. Reimagining how innovation is done in future is becoming a continuous improvement scenario. You will learn how to innovate faster and set the foundation for rewarding experiences across the portfolio of projects.

Building the necessary experience-driven capabilities requires commitment, time, and energy in exploring what it takes to adjust and build fitting ways of working. Many great global organizations have managed to get their teams moving in that direction, without even committing a name to this movement. It became natural to their leaders given the demands that were placed on their research and development units and other organizational entities dedicated to innovation.

Across the film industry, there are unique examples to showcase how a possible culture shift creates outcomes and ROE that are beyond what was envisioned. Sports and athletes also teach us about shifts created ahead of major competition or transformation projects. As the world welcomes newer generations, like Gen Alpha entering the workplace, it is going to become more of a critical business priority to ensure that we are budling those experience-rich cultures. Some of these movies and sports-related examples will be referred to in this section and other sections of the book.

There will be eight hypotheses that you will see starting in this section and will be elaborated on and tested throughout the book. They cover many of the points that are critical for creating such experience-driven cultures. They get into the areas of people, processes, technology, behaviors, values, and practices. A few of these will be repeated across the book’s sections as they cross multiple learning outcomes and connect to one or more of the four building blocks of the experience-driven culture model shown earlier.

Several global case studies starting in this section will be analyzed to propel us into the design of these cultures and highlight the angles of innovating using portfolio mindset. As a future leader, you will need to fully immerse yourself in a future of continual learning in order to adjust these experiences to the needs of your critical stakeholders at that point of time and maturity. As the leader of a portfolio, you have to make it a priority to operate as a strategist. This means being capable of slowing down to go faster, which is a concept that you will find discussed in a variety of ways throughout the book.

1Innovation in the World of Projects

This first chapter is focused on the understanding of the typical innovation in the project ecosystem. It is intended to highlight foundational innovation success principles that help the leader to design experience-driven future work environments with the diverse stakeholders’ views and inputs in mind. This is intended to enable setting the stage for the Experience-Driven way of innovating to be built as a natural muscle for operating in such a project economy of today and into the future.

In a world that demands excellence in innovation and in delivering digital transformations, where digitalization continues to scale, the return on experiences (ROEs) that we create could directly contribute to the aspirational growth targets and the achievement of the most impactful missions.

Key Learnings

Understand the value of how developing a holistic view successfully supports innovation.

Explore a case study that looks at the critical people and behavioral shifts.

Understanding the new strategist leader and its impact on successful transformation.

Learn from a movie example how to develop the critical views that expedite your movement toward being an impactful, experience-driven conductor.

Start addressing how this work’s hypotheses link to driving innovation and aligning around the dynamic needs of customers and stakeholders.

1.1 The Holistic View

What makes committing to continual innovation challenging is sometimes linked to the short-term lens that organizational leaders possess. For impactful and sustainable innovation, the focus needs to be holistic in order to see the potential over the horizon. The commitment and investment required to incubate ideas that ultimately could create the next unicorn is a difficult one. This is where being holistic comes in.

One of the critical reasons why holistic view matters is the fact that we can see beyond what is in front of us or what is obvious. It requires us to be obsessed with the problem. It is the commitment to slow down to go faster. By thinking holistically, we uncover every angle that has a strategic impact on where the innovation projects could take us and the surrounding assumptions and constraints that could hinder their success. Holistic also means that we consider the entire ecosystem that will be the birthplace for these projects.

1.1.1 Developing the Holistic View

Understanding innovation portfolio interactions complexity and finding ways to simplify it is critical. Having a holistic view has continued to be one of those most talked-about capabilities for leaders involved in managing portfolios of programs and projects. In describing an affective project manager, this quality is usually listed among the top ones. Yet, although commonly mentioned, it is seldom well practiced, nor properly invested into.

Ways to describe this capability could be big picture, end-to-end thinking, stepping outside the box, and seeing beyond the obvious. Developing the holistic view is an intentional practice. It requires us to first recognize its importance and then dedicate relentless focus to building it.

As highlighted in Figure 1.1, the abovementioned ways of describing the holistic view could be highlighted by the picture in the figure, especially the balloons floating on the top of that busy city that seems to have been built at the foot of a mountain range or something similar. Being in the balloon allows the leader to see holistically. By stepping away from the details on the ground, the leader can see the effectiveness of the city design, or the lack hereof, and could see opportunities to innovate solutions to problems that might not have been seen before, while you are so close and are in the midst of the many busy landscapes of high-rise buildings. This capacity of stepping away and zooming out sounds simple, yet it becomes more and more challenging in today’s busy and noisy work environments.

Figure 1.1 Holistic View Sample. Credit: KELLEPICS/Pixabay.

The figure also shows the importance of sharpening the focus from multiple angles. Having multiple balloons reflects viewing a given scenario from different angles and possibly creating a mix of objective ideas for the beginnings of innovation. This will remain an increasingly important power in the future of work.

1.1.2 Connecting to the Movies

Strategy for executing change is difficult. In Remember the Titans, Denzel Washington had to exercise being holistically strategic in building a true integration culture that was lacking, yet necessary for inspiring a joint view of success for that true story Virginia school football team.

Figure 1.2 shows the stakeholders that Denzel (Coach Boone) had to work across and align as a true holistic leader should. The figure reflects the potential complexity in maintaining the strategic clarity for the football team across such diverse body of stakeholders. Denzel had to continually adjust his lens and update what the next strategic move looked like while reflecting that in necessary big-picture directional changes.

Figure 1.2 Holistic Leader’s Stakeholders Strategic Links.

The sample of key stakeholders shown is all part of Coach Boone’s portfolio. Handling each of these stakeholder entities was almost like an individual project for him. Building an integrated culture and overcoming racism required a natural cascade of consistent behaviors in his interactions with the players and others in the stakeholders group.

As an example, the players’ grouping required him to exercise discipline and resilience on the path of building a strong team. He had to overcome personal limitations and biases and find creative ways to build critical trust and bonds among the players. This is an example of an experience-driven culture where the players had to experience what it takes to live in the world of another player of a different skin color. These rich experiences enabled the building of a well-knitted team.

Coach Boone had to maintain a holistic view that drove his season’s success and supported the critical integrator role that was required to break down the team’s and other stakeholders’ silos.

Tip

Invest in developing a holistic view that enables the teams to experience better understanding of how their roles contribute to innovative outcomes across the portfolio.

1.2 Portfolios of Projects Matter

Although most organizations understand the importance of viewing their business in the form of a portfolio, not many excel in applying the principles of portfolio management and seeing this as a strategic competency. This assumption could limit the organizational ability for achieving the balanced use of resources across the portfolio. It could directly affect the scaling of innovation if we miss out on including the right projects in the portfolio mix. If handled positively, designing and executing against the right portfolio becomes a natural organization muscle that is to be matured over time and that brings the data, people, and technology in alignment with critical choices and their associated priorities.

In an interview with Mary Palmieri, with Amazon, Principal PM, AI Content Thought Leader, she shares the following views about building the portfolio management muscle:

It’s almost business fundamentals you’re looking at then, it’s what levers can you pull to drive top line and bottom-line growth and how can you improve operations and performance to move quicker and better. I mean that’s just like about iterating the view of success.

Talking about portfolio management the same way, like the Project Management Institute (PMI) away, which is a portfolio of initiatives projects, is a best practice because you do need to all be speaking the same language and getting alignment on the inputs and the outputs. For maturing Key Performance Indicators KPIs, I think it’s diving deep into the use case and really getting present to what you’re trying to accomplish.

On my own program, I’m owning the content acquisition program, so I’ve almost had to define a language for the organization on what it means to acquire content, how to measure the success of digital assets and content management, and all that stuff that’s almost like it’s a new language. I think there’s the common business framework, but then it’s like you’re in your own little country, you’re making up your own little tribal language that you and your team need to start speaking, and you also need to educate senior leaders on that language.

Tip

Portfolio management is a strategic muscle. Executives have to grasp its language to ensure that strategic choice-making becomes an attribute of the organizational culture.

1.3 The Speed of Innovating

Clock speed is the norm in industry today. This means that the demand for fast innovation and creation is only increasing. The good news is that computing capabilities and the advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and other simulating capabilities are all contributing to our ability to adapt facts and predict what’s coming.

Time is not our friend when it comes to major climate and environmental changes, which places more pressure on the critical importance of innovation.

As in our article, Kerzner and Zeitoun (2023), even though the hot topic of AI based on large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, is gaining major attention, the concept of AI itself was first proposed by British mathematician, Alan Turing, in his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” We reached a state where the education of AI that we achieved, coupled with the massive amount and higher quality of data, got us to a point of impact creation on initiatives delivery that is meaningful and disruptive.

To support the future of project management and the new ways of achieving excellence, AI-enabled project work:

Creates efficiencies that were not possible previously

Levels the playing field where the basics of planning and executing projects can easily and quickly be covered

Expedites the onboarding of project teams to get them to perform faster and more smoothly

Creates a heavy focus on understanding the customer’s definition of project business value

Enhances the quality of decision-making and turns the supporting processes to a highly data-driven approach

Opens the door for new skills and roles for the project managers and teams of the future

1.4 Managing Transformation Matters

In this section, I will use an example of a case study to highlight what an organization could experience as it goes through transformation. As in any successful transformation, it should combine a good balance between people, process, and infrastructure/technology to ensure a balanced and efficient progress of the transformation program toward achieving its benefits to the organization.

Case Study

Honicker Corporation1

Background

Honicker Corporation was well recognized as a high-quality manufacturer of dashboards for automobiles and trucks. Although it serviced mainly U.S. automotive and truck manufacturers, the opportunity to expand to a worldwide supplier was quite apparent. The company’s reputation was well known worldwide, but it was plagued for years with ultraconservative senior management leadership that prevented growth into the international marketplace.

When the new management team came on board in 2009, the conservatism disappeared. Honicker was cash-rich, had large borrowing power and lines of credit with financial institutions, and received an AA-quality rating on its small amount of corporate debt. Rather than expand by building manufacturing facilities in various countries, Honicker decided to go the fast route by acquiring four companies around the world: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta companies.

Each of the four acquired companies serviced mainly its own geographic area. The senior management team in each of the four companies knew the culture in their geographic area and had a good reputation with their clients and local stakeholders. The decision was made by Honicker to leave each company’s senior management teams intact, provided that the necessary changes, as established by corporate, could be implemented.

Honicker wanted each company to have the manufacturing capability to supply parts to any Honicker client worldwide. But doing this was easier said than done. Honicker had an EPM methodology that worked well. Honicker understood project management and so did the majority of Honicker’s clients and stakeholders in the United States. Honicker recognized that the biggest challenge would be to get all of the divisions at the same level of project management maturity and use the same corporate-wide EPM system or a modified version of it. It was expected that each of the four acquired companies might want some changes to be made.

The four acquired divisions were all at different levels of project management maturity. Alpha company did have an EPM system and believed that its approach to project management was superior to the one that Honicker was using. Beta company was just beginning to learn project management but did not have any formal EPM system, although it did have a few project management templates that were being used for status reporting to its customers. Gamma and Delta companies were clueless about project management.

To make matters worse, laws in each of the countries where the acquired companies were located created other stakeholders that had to be serviced, and all of these stakeholders were at different levels of project management maturity. In some countries, government stakeholders were actively involved because of employment procurement laws; in other countries, government stakeholders were passive participants unless health, safety, or environmental laws were broken.

It would certainly be a formidable task to develop an EPM system that would satisfy all of the newly acquired companies, their clients, and their stakeholders.

Establishing the Team

Honicker knew that there would be significant challenges in getting a project management agreement in a short amount of time. Honicker also knew that there is never an acquisition of equals; there is always a “landlord” and “tenants,” and Honicker is the landlord. However, acting as a landlord and exerting influence in the process could alienate some of the acquired companies and do more harm than good. Honicker’s approach was to treat this as a project and to treat each company, along with its clients and local stakeholders, as project stakeholders. Using stakeholder relations management practices would be essential to getting an agreement on the project management approach.

Honicker requested that each company assign three people to the project management implementation team that would be headed up by Honicker personnel. The ideal team member, as suggested by Honicker, would have some knowledge and/or experience in project management and be authorized by their senior levels of management to make decisions for their company.

The representatives should also understand the stakeholder needs of their clients and local stakeholders. Honicker wanted an understanding to be reached as early as possible that each company would agree to use the methodology that was finally decided on by the team.

Senior management in each of the four companies sent a letter of understanding to Honicker, promising to assign the most qualified personnel and agreeing to use the methodology that was agreed on. Each stated that its company understood the importance of this project.

The first part of the project would be to come to an agreement on the methodology. The second part of the project would be to invite clients and stakeholders to see the methodology and provide feedback. This was essential since the clients and stakeholders would eventually be interfacing with the methodology.

Kickoff Meeting

Honicker had hoped that the team could come to an agreement on a companywide EPM system within six months. However, after the kickoff meeting was over, Honicker realized that it would probably be two years before an agreement would be reached on the EPM system. Several issues became apparent at the first meeting:

Each company had different time requirements for the project.

Each company saw the importance of the project differently.

Each company had its own culture and wanted to be sure that the final design was a good fit with that culture.

Each company saw the status and power of the project manager differently.

Despite the letters of understanding, two of the companies, Gamma and Delta, did not understand their role and relationship with Honicker on this project.

Alpha wanted to micromanage the project, believing that everyone should use its methodology.

Senior management at Honicker asked the Honicker representatives at the kickoff meeting to prepare a confidential memo on their opinion of the first meeting with the team.

The Honicker personnel prepared a memo including the following comments:

Not all of the representatives at the meeting openly expressed their true feelings about the project.

It was quite apparent that some of the companies would like to see the project fail.

Some of the companies were afraid that the implementation of the new EPM system would result in a shift in power and authority.

Some people were afraid that the new EPM system would show that fewer resources were needed in the functional organization, thus causing a downsizing of personnel and a reduction in bonuses that were currently based on headcount in functional groups.

Some seemed apprehensive that the implementation of the new system would cause a change in the company’s culture and working relationships with their clients.

Some seemed afraid of learning a new system and being pressured into using it.

It was obvious that this would be no easy task. Honicker had to get to know all companies better and understand their needs and expectations. Honicker management had to show them that their opinions were valuable and find ways to win their support.

Review Questions

What are Honicker’s options now?

What would you recommend that Honicker do first?

What if, after all attempts, Gamma and Delta companies refuse to come on board?

What if Alpha company is adamant that its approach is best and refuses to budge?

What if Gamma and Delta companies argue that their clients and stakeholders have not readily accepted the project management approach and wish to be left alone with regard to dealing with their clients?

Under what conditions would Honicker decide to back away and let each company do its own thing?

How easy or difficult is it to get several geographically dispersed companies to agree to the same culture and methodology?

If all four companies were willing to cooperate with one another, how long do you think it would take to reach an agreement and acceptance to use the new EPM system?

Which stakeholders may be powerful and which are not?

Which stakeholder(s) may have the power to kill this project?

What can Honicker do to win their support?

If Honicker cannot win their support, then how should Honicker manage the opposition?

What if all four companies agree to the project management methodology and then some client stakeholders show a lack of support for use of the methodology?

1.5 The New Strategist

Looking back at the Honicker case study mentioned above and reflecting on the three transformation pillars confirm that transformation matters:

People:

There were gaps in alignment on the purpose of the transformation across the four companies. There were also signs of leadership weaknesses, in addition to ego issues on the part of one of the companies that could jeopardize what is in the best interest of all companies combined. The commitment and motivation for the transformation were lacking.

Process:

The change management aspects of this integration of companies around a common system and achieving a joint focus were underestimated.

Infrastructure/Technology:

With the gaps in readiness across the four companies in maturity and commitment, one would assume that their further system and digital capabilities would vary tremendously. This is also coupled with the laws in the different countries that could have an impact on data regulation adherence and other legal aspects that would hinder the fast movement toward achieving the transformation outcomes.

In addition, at the center of the success of the transformation is a new form of a leader in our organizations, the Strategist. With successful transformation and advances in technology and LLMs, and as AI understands the physical world better, the leader will adapt and will have more time to think again for a change and become the new strategist.

Having such a form of a leader would have tremendously contributed to the possible success of the Honicker coloration transformation. This kind of a leader would have been able to articulate a connected strategic vision that inspires all four companies’ leaders and teams. The leader would have been able to anticipate the human dimension complexities better and could have positively empowered the core selected team on behalf of each company.

It is important to mention that this new strategist view of tomorrow’s leaders comes with a high expectation of intense collaboration across organizational boundaries and groups of stakeholders. Similar to the classic analogy of the music conductor, as seen in Figure 1.3, the new strategist plays a role in the transformation excellence of tomorrow’s organization.

In the world of transformation, this also includes the right fitting processes, as in the orchestra plans coming together, which is what a conductor needs to ensure in order to create the expected harmony, including all the prep leading to the final initiative. And then finally the technology as in the case of the conductor, as in real-world transformation, sensing how to bring the different instruments in and when, to create the magical anticipated outcomes at the other end.

1.6 Collaborating Across Diverse Views

The Honicker case used in this chapter exemplifies the diverse views of the four companies and their leaders and teams. It was likely a missed opportunity on behalf of Honicker management to make the most out of proper collaboration across these diverse views. In a highly digital universe ahead, it is more critical that the utilization of diverse views, backgrounds, and expertise are mixed together in a pot that produces the secret sauce of the experimenting cultures of the future.

Figure 1.3 The New Strategist. Credit: chenspec/Pixabay.

This is especially more valuable since Honicker management has realized and was already looking at each one of the four companies as a project and that their task was to integrate these four projects within an integrated portfolio of these companies. To a great extent, Honicker had already realized that the project economy was upon them and that the ideal use of diverse views was to focus on the four projects, their stakeholders’ alignment, and the steady movement on the strategic objectives behind the integration of the four companies.

In an era of high experimentation, the value placed on where we spend our time comes at a premium. It is no longer acceptable that we don’t do proper stakeholders’ analysis, planning, and clear communications strategy and plan for how we work across stakeholders’ groups. The strength of a newly transformed organization lies in its ability to capitalize on all the pieces of its portfolio, especially the diverse views of the holistic sum of people’s views. As was highlighted in the background section and in the overall Experience-Driven Culture Model, the Human-2-Human building block is critical in creating this necessary experience.

One of the eight hypotheses that are driving this work is: Leaders’ top priority is adapting to customers’ interests.

To investigate this and other hypotheses, I have conducted open LinkedIn research within my network and indicated to the willing participants that their responses will provide input to this work. Most of the hypotheses received between 400 and 900 impressions. The number of votes on the driving questions was typically a small sample of about 25 votes. The intent of these questions was to get an overall pulse of the professionals on culture, portfolio management, project management, people, digitalization, and ways of working topics.

Figure 1.4 The Leaders’ Priorities Hypothesis. Note: Based on LinkedIn Open Polling, April 2024.

For this hypothesis on customers, the question used was: In your opinion, where will leaders in the future organization increasingly spend their time?

The distribution of the answers is shown in Figure 1.4.

It is becoming increasingly valuable in this experience-driven organizational culture, the degree of focus on how to build agility and adaptability. This has been a steady muscle to grow since the time of the COVID pandemic and has only connoted to increase in importance with the number of uncertainties that surround our organizations and the demands of the markets and customers where we operate.

Tip

Adapting to customers’ demands could benefit from an international collaboration across diverse views of stakeholders.

1.7 Aligning Stakeholders

As was highlighted in the Honicker Corporation case study, management and the core team that was established have not succeeded in aligning across the key stakeholders. Getting to that alignment is a core capability of successful cultures. Honicker management could have capitalized on the early stages of this transformation initiative to ensure alignment on the reasons behind the transformation and uncover the risk appetite of each of the four companies. It is also critical to identify which stakeholder group has the highest likelihood of influencing the change and building the needed momentum to increase their interest in the transformation initiative.

In the interview with Mary Palmieri, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, she highlights multiple elements about the importance of culture in innovating and accomplishing the work of transformation initiatives. A number of the points she makes highlights the importance of aligning across stakeholders’ groups:

I do think the culture is crucial for delivering success.

I think you always have to reward risk taking because I believe that’s the difference making. I’ve found, in at least innovation programs, it’s the willingness and the ability to take risks, and it’s almost a mindset of not being afraid to fail.

I think it’s important for any company to create a safe space for innovative minds to try things and they could be calculated risks.

I think that’s the biggest challenge for sure is to get the organization there.

I think it’s about aligning to what their vision and objectives are.

I would almost argue nowadays every company should have an innovation program like it’s a mindset, it’s a skill set, and it’s more creative.

I feel like there’s the engineers’ group, there’re finance people, and others that should be like an innovation team whose job is to talk to customers, whether it’s internal stakeholders or external consumers or whomever.

The project teams should do the analysis and continuously identify problems to solve that align with the greater organizational mission.

Tip

In the right fitting culture for executing on organizations’ complex initiatives, it is crucial to align across key stakeholders.

1.8 Championing Innovation

As a final key priority point in this chapter, it is critical to remember the fundamentals around the importance of the champions. Such as in the case of programs seeking to achieve value, having the right champion for innovation is critical. Innovation is a major organizational commitment. It does require us to embed creativity in what we do and how we do that. It also requires a gut check when it comes to the risk-taking muscles of the organization. A cross-executive team understanding of the delicate balance between opportunities and threats is essential, and the champion brings that clearly forward.

In the interview with Mary Palmieri, she continues by highlighting some important attributes for the innovative cultures of the future. Mary indicated attributes and examples that are a string direct reflection of how to thrive in building the innovation mindset and how to support and champion the consistent growth of this innovation muscle.

I think the top three attributes are:

Just being open-minded and having the ability to think outside the box very often. This is especially the key in larger organizations, where we’re a cog in a wheel, which is great operationally, yet when you need to come up with new product solutions or program ideas, there needs to be that flexibility or innovative mindset.

I think the culture also needs to be data driven, so really putting the appropriate mechanisms in place to measure success and getting into the practice of defining success and working iteratively.

Then lastly, the talking to customers thing, just really interviewing your customers, understanding your customers, and learning the data around your customers.

Speaking of customers, you have to balance what the customer is telling you and what the problem is with what they really need. It’s a chicken and an egg thing you need to achieve that product-market fit to win, yet they’re going to tell you what that is.

We were pitching an AI-driven marketplace in 2016 when only 9% of the beauty industry was online, way above their heads right, but now AI is a thing people are coming around. We’re the experts on that, but we had to meet them where they were, so it’s like that in every situation, you almost have to meet the customer, meet the stakeholders, meet whenever where they are, and then level them up slowly but surely. Sometimes it’s like little crumbs, like breadcrumbs; it’s like when you’re first meeting a partner, you’re not going to let all the little mystery out at once!

Tip

The innovation champion plays an instrumental role in connecting the organization around what is critical to innovate: mindset, data, and customers’ deep understanding.

Reference

Kerzner, H. and Zeitoun, A. (2023). Cracking the excellence code, the great project management accelerator, series article,

PM World Journal

, Vol. XII, Issue XI.

Review Questions

Parentheses ( ) are used for Multiple Choice when one answer is correct. Brackets [ ] are used for Multiple Answers when many answers are correct.

How do you best describe the holistic view of portfolio leaders?

Choose all that apply.

[ ] Able to see beyond the obvious.

[ ] Are liked by many people.

[ ] They possess big-picture understanding.

[ ] Capable of end-to-end thinking.

What supports new ways of achieving excellence?

( ) Tackle as many priorities as possible.

( ) Ensure tighter governance.

( ) Create a heavy focus on understanding the customer’s definition of project business value.

( ) Focus mainly on implementing agile practices.

The Honicker Corporation management invested properly in stakeholders’ management.

( ) Yes.

( ) No.

Which of the following provides a good analogy for the role of the new strategist leader?

( ) Being at the center of solving every portfolio issue.

( ) Ensures the team follows directions without any deviations.

( ) Creates a connected team similar to the music conductor analogy.

( ) Strong central leadership.

Which of the following is the building block in the experience-driven culture model that most supports the importance of stakeholders’ alignment?

( ) Enterprise Project and Portfolio Muscles.

( ) Human-2-Human.

( ) Innovation Drive.

( ) Adaptive Ways of Working.

What are the findings that most support leaders’ top priority in better connecting to what is critical for transformation success?

Choose all that apply.

[ ] Ability to say “yes” to new demands.

[ ] Ensuring that scope of transformation is frozen early in the program lifecycle.

[ ] Thinking again for a change.

[ ] Adapting to customers’ demands.

How do you summarize key attributes of innovation champions?

Choose all that apply.

[ ] Being open-minded.

[ ] Data-driven decision-making.

[ ] They spend their time thinking.

[ ] Deep customers’ understanding.

Note

1

Kerzner, 2022/John Wiley & Sons.

2Creating Experiences

Leaders create experiences. These leaders are lifelong learners and value building an environment where experience adds to that learning of the teams and the organization. They know that experimentation does not hurt and that they could this way learn continuously about customers, users, partners, and other stakeholders across the ecosystem.

Creating experiences is the focus and cornerstone of the fitting future cultures in their quest for transforming and leading the digital revolution. This is what enables organizations to think, invest strategically, and create a well-connected open and sustainable future environment. In this chapter, creating experiences is tackled in multiple ways, covering the changes in how we work, how to embed experience into the DNA of the organization, build an appetite for innovation, connect across the ecosystem, and most importantly develop a culture that supports thinking and reflecting to scale the learning with speed.

Key Learnings

Understand the changing dynamics in how we will continue to adapt our ways of working into the future.

Learn how to develop experiences that matter.

Explore the principles of innovation labs and how that mindset drives effective experiencing.

Understand the possible approaches to building a connected system of people and solutions.

Develop the thinking culture that differentiates organizations on their path to excellence.

2.1 The Changing Ways of Working

Cultures benefit from having a way of working that fits the purpose of the organization. Over the recent years, the topic of ways of working and new ways of working has dominated the business discussions and the communities of program and project managers. There is an element of this related to how and where we work, being in an office, remotely, or in hybrid mix. Then there is the element and a debate over the years across project, product, and program teams around classic ways of working versus the agile ceremonies for working, or the most commonly used hybrid of both formats.

What has become very evident is that fit matters more than anything else. In studying one of the experience culture hypotheses, my LinkedIn community was pulsed regarding the following hypothesis:

Creating ways of working that fit is a future leader’s strategic focus

The question used was: What do ways of working in the future look like?

The results of pulsing this question confirmed the importance of choosing a fitting way of working, even at the expense of the growing interest in being a hybrid organization, or the widespread enthusiasm about the possibilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping organizational design and affecting our work ways and the efficiencies of achieving outcomes. Figure 2.1 reflects these results.

Tip

In building the right supportive culture for innovation, choosing the fitting way of working ensures that the innovation teams are in their flow.

Figure 2.1