Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

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planning. Information seeking activities include, for instance, organizing
workshops and meetings with representatives of the parent organization,
and requesting information through questionnaire surveys or by personal
contact. The next two quotes illustrate these activities:
Q23 (Bureau, project participant): ”There were different kinds of instructions
and forms for data gathering that we filled out [in different units] and then we
gathered up to analyze them.”
Q24 (Chain, sub-program manager): ”The managers and superiors of local units
have been involved in the planning phase of these projects… We need their local
expertise, so even though they are not official members of the project groups, we
have different kinds of workshops with them.”
Resource seeking activities are about looking for personnel resources for
the program work. They may aim at finding new participants to the
program, for example, by selecting new project managers, or they may refer
to utilizing the line organization’s resources in the program work in other
ways. For instance, experts from the parent organization’s support
functions, such as Human Resources or Communications, may be invited to
support the program work upon need. The following quotes illustrate
resource seeking activities:
Q25 (Chain, communications expert): ”We realized that this will require a lot of
resources from the Communications department. We concluded that a full-time
PR specialist is required and I was able to convince one person to take over this
task.”
Q26 (Bureau, program manager): “We have utilized the secretary services of the
line organization, as well as other support services.”
The next set of boundary activities is directed outwards from the program
(Category III in Figure 12). Informing activities are about informing others
in the parent organization about the program’s existence, the rationale
behind it, the goals and practices of program work, and the early results
and effects of the program. This communication may be formal or informal
and it can be directed at any group or individual within the parent
organization. Examples of informing activities are given below:
Q27 (Center, program manager): ”We have had these discussions with the CEO
and the vice president, but we don’t have any official, regular reporting
systems.”
Q28 (Chain, sub-program manager): ”In the beginning, we informed people
about the existence and participants of this [project], we had discussions, we
prepared some communication material, and we also held a briefing session.”
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