Session of execution phase and internal problems’ comparison

Next step in the stage of comparison of problems and phases focuses on execution phase.

This phase incorporates routine operations of employees mostly targeted at production activities. During this phase the cooperation within project teams gains its maximum, while the processes get completely fine-tuned. Based on that it can be concluded that main actors at this phase are the members of project teams, i.e. employees of operational level of management and middle-managers. Apart from routine production operations execution stage of project also incorporates monitoring activities held by supervisors of project teams.

All this brings an assumption that execution phase of project corresponds mainly with problems connected with teams’ functioning and information flowing. The results of the third session are represented in the table 6.

Table 6. “Execution phase – internal problems” comparison.

Phase No.

Phase of project lifecycle

Internal problems

3

Execution

Wrong customization of process to any particular situation Coordination problems in inter-organizational workflows Dynamic change problem

63 Management information problem

Insufficient integration of controlling systems Complex and dynamic organizational structure Lack of motivation of members

Dissatisfaction about the job or role in the project Lack of trust and leadership of project manager Conflicts about the management style

Important information is lost because of information compression

Long time of information delivery from sender to receiver If system element or link fails information can never achieve its destination

The complexity and multiplicity of systems of information referring to each department make the audit of them more difficult

Competitiveness of divisions complicates the information tradeoff between divisions and controllers

Diversity of encoders and decoders of information that complicates the understanding of the information by controllers reducing its transparency

Uncertainty in decisions

Execution phase group of problems appears to be the largest one as it includes 24 problems which project teams and processes encounter during the phase when project is being implemented. Within the whole totality of problems in this phase there can be distinguished a couple of problems’ clusters: team-building issues, coordination problems and informational problems’ cluster. Team building cluster includes those problems that occur in interpersonal relationships in a single team. Thus, insufficient knowledge and skills of individuals in the group compromise the certain branch of factors disabling the whole activities. The reason of that may be the wrong appointment of a specialist to the project where he or she is not able to contribute anything valuable. From this point derives dissatisfaction of specialist’s role in the project and creating an inappropriate workplace environment which then leads to ineffective communication, lack of attention to processes and lack of motivation. Wrong appointment issue may also be the result of interpersonal differences in team which then can develop into distaste for colleagues. The

Table 6. Continued

64 most dangerous is the situation when personal distaste grows for supervisors and the specialist finishes in lack of trust and faith in leadership of manager, conflicting with others about management style, loosing authority and responsibility and finally damaging the climate inside the team. All these problems distract team and provides unequal distribution of responsibilities and duties which is the primary reason of information overload of individuals. Partially those problems are caused by mistakes in coordination and control activities of supervisors and managers. These mistakes bring distraction in the working process of the team in the same way. For example, wrong customization of processes to project needs slows down the material flow and idea generations when dynamic change problem neutralizes the developments of previous steps and jeopardizing current and future operations. The group of information problems in most of the cases accompanies identified problems. Thus, management information problem brings a lot of damage to monitoring activities. Monitoring activities themselves can lose their effectiveness because of coordination problems in inter-organizational workflows. Disorder in the reports that follows coordination problems is possible to create breaks in information channels making links in information flow fail and not transfer information. Besides, there always can be the situation when competing divisions in complex organizational structures complicate the tradeoff between divisions and controllers increasing the possibility of disorder emerging. Moreover, complexity of the structures raises another set of problems: the problem of complexity and multiplicity of information systems which makes the audit of their results by managers more difficult and diversity of encoders and decoders of information that complicates the understanding of the information by controllers reducing its transparency. All this leads to increasing of the time when information goes from sender to receiver and to significant compression of the information resulting in loss of important parts. Information problems tend appear in all phases and inflict significant damage, but during the execution project ignoring those problems can be the lethal mistake of managers. In order to achieve this management has to be sure they have all the tools necessary for successful monitoring because insufficient integration of controlling systems does not managers to track, spot and eliminate possible problems which finally at the end of the process becomes the main reason of uncertainty in decisions.

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