Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti
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Results<br />
organizations offered further to their customers. The program was<br />
supposed to involve practically all of Center’s ten units <strong>and</strong> seven<br />
subsidiaries <strong>and</strong> it aimed to impact many stakeholders, including but not<br />
limited to the member organizations, legislation, regional <strong>and</strong> national<br />
government, local subcontractors, <strong>and</strong> other partners. The program also<br />
aimed to contribute to Center’s internal development by providing<br />
mechanisms <strong>for</strong> coordinating cross-functional <strong>activities</strong>, as the initial goals<br />
of the change program also included the adoption of the program<br />
management approach <strong>and</strong> the development of program management<br />
practices in Center.<br />
After the launch decision had been made by the management group, the<br />
search <strong>for</strong> a competent program manager begun. From early on, there were<br />
different views about the position <strong>and</strong> it seemed hard to find a suitable<br />
person. When the unit manager of R&D refused the position due to the lack<br />
of time to devote to the program, some top managers suggested that the<br />
program manager could be found outside Center, among the top managers<br />
of Center’s member organizations. Still, after a lengthy search, a senior<br />
expert from Center’s R&D unit was appointed as the program manager,<br />
although he was not very willing to accept the position. The actual program<br />
work was to be implemented largely in the line organization <strong>and</strong> by various<br />
service development projects, <strong>and</strong> the program manager’s role was<br />
supposed to be rather coordinative, lacking significant authority. Reflecting<br />
this, the program manager was not admitted the title <strong>for</strong> a program<br />
manager commonly in use in other Finnish organizations [Ohjelmajohtaja<br />
in Finnish] but was instead appointed as “the manager of the program”<br />
[Ohjelman johtaja in Finnish] that would not indicate a high-ranking<br />
managerial position in the line organization.<br />
One of Center’s vice presidents was appointed as the program owner to<br />
oversee the program. A coordination group consisting mainly of Center’s<br />
unit managers was established to oversee the development of the program,<br />
<strong>and</strong> a part-time program coordinator was also appointed. During the<br />
program initiation, three focus areas, or sub-programs, were chosen <strong>and</strong><br />
more detailed goals, plans, resources <strong>and</strong> expected outputs <strong>for</strong> each of these<br />
sub-programs were being planned separately. For each sub-program, a<br />
manager was nominated to guide the planning. The core program team<br />
included the program manager, the managers of the sub-programs, the<br />
program coordinator, <strong>and</strong> the manager of the R&D unit. Everyone worked<br />
in the program in addition to their normal duties in Center’s functional<br />
units. Figure 8 illustrates the initial structure of Center’s program.<br />
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