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 />
years. Although we have agreed on some targets now, they may have to be<br />
changed down the road.”<br />
Both in Bureau <strong>and</strong> in Chain the discussions about the program nature<br />
seemed to abate as the programs proceeded from initiation to more detailed<br />
planning <strong>and</strong> to early implementation. To illustrate this progress, the<br />
following quote from Chain shows how the program actors were able to<br />
overcome the early confusion <strong>and</strong> decrease uncertainty:<br />
Q93 (Chain, project manager): “In the beginning, we tried to go through these<br />
issues with people, discussing what was known <strong>and</strong> what wasn’t. The approach<br />
wasn’t very systematic, but it resembled iteration: we tried to increase our<br />
underst<strong>and</strong>ing until there was high pressure to write these things down <strong>and</strong><br />
prepare a project plan. Things tend to get clearer when you write them down<br />
<strong>and</strong> this is what happened here as well: things started to get clear little by<br />
little.”<br />
4.6.4 Origin of the program <strong>and</strong> progress of the initiation process<br />
The fourth factor that seems to explain some of the differences across the<br />
cases is the origin of the programs. Here the origin refers both to the level<br />
in the organizational hierarchy where the program idea was initiated, <strong>and</strong><br />
to the decision making process of how the program was <strong>for</strong>mally launched.<br />
The idea <strong>for</strong> Center’s program had appeared during the yearly planning<br />
process in the discussion of an expert <strong>and</strong> a manager who both had<br />
expertise in organizational development <strong>and</strong> who were both somewhat<br />
familiar with <strong>and</strong> enthusiastic about the program management approach.<br />
Their ideas <strong>for</strong> several potential program topics were taken to Center’s<br />
management group that chose two topics to be implemented as programs.<br />
The other chosen topic was more clearly defined <strong>and</strong> the development<br />
<strong>activities</strong> initiated in this area were soon embedded in the line<br />
organization’s processes. The topic of the case program dealt with more<br />
challenging issues. Since the manager who had come up with the program<br />
idea refused to take over the program owner’s or program manager’s role<br />
due to busy schedules, one of the top managers was nominated as the<br />
program owner, <strong>and</strong> the search <strong>for</strong> a program manager began.<br />
Those involved in initiating Center’s program described how it was hard<br />
to find a program manager, as there were very few people with the required<br />
competence. This search took some time, but finally an expert was found<br />
who somewhat reluctantly accepted the task <strong>and</strong> was appointed as the<br />
program manager (although with a title indicating lower authority, see<br />
section 4.1.1). However, he was not given a clear m<strong>and</strong>ate <strong>and</strong> he also felt<br />
that he did not receive enough guidelines <strong>and</strong> direction from the top<br />
managers. Some also seemed to doubt his skills <strong>and</strong> viewed him to be<br />
unsuitable <strong>for</strong> the position. Adding another challenge, soon after the<br />
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