NSS in enterprise wide project management technologies: The case of MOfficetm

One of the key roles of a project manager is to co-operate and negotiate with functional managers for resource as he seldom has the authority to command resources. Project deviations from its original objectives is also very frequent in large Enterprise wide Project Organisations due to the inherent risks, but also lack of clarity in objective statements, communication among actors in the project, inadequate structure and control methods. Once detected adjustment issues have to be discussed and changes have to be negotiated, approved, implemented without compromising the project organisation. Large ranges of Project management tools are offered to assist the project organisation in achieving a beneficial change as defined by quantitative and qualitative objectives. Traditionally these tools were limited to scheduling and cost control features with techniques such as PERT or CPM. The current trend is toward Structured Project management techniques that provide a framework for the project management tools to operate. They assist in the definition of project elements (scope, time, etc) and on the distribution of pertinent "just in time" (JIT) information to the right level of the project structure. These spacial and temporal dimensions are expanded to co-ordination of knowledge that is needed to make project management actors proficient in their tasks. Therefore the tools are only useful if they enhance the project actors understanding and ability to manage changing project outcomes. The motivation for such stand is well supported by thematic papers in the up-coming October 1998 PMI Symposium (PMI98). A large number of topics covered in the programme deal with tools that can cope with the requirements imposed by the increasingly complex and dramatically changing environment. The claim of this paper is that the suitability of such tools can be tested in "critical bottleneck situations" that are often related to managing change. More specifically, aside the traditional - ost, time and quality factors the most advanced technologies aim at processes such as "Review / Approval / Inspection," managing pending issues and risk management. Because negotiation is present at each phase of these change processes the idea is to test the tools from that perspective as the ultimate criteria.