PMI’s Voices on Project Management Blog has moved

I’ve been a regular contributor to PMI’s Voices on Project Management blog for many years.  Its old home was hidden in the depths of www.pmi.org.  Following PMI’s purchase of www.projectmanagement.com (the old ‘Gantt Head’), the ‘voices’ have moved to join a number of other themed blogs on the site.

The site is open to everyone, you need to register to post comments and download, but reading is free and unrestricted.

 

My first post in this new location is Influence Without Authority. You can read the post at http://www.projectmanagement.com/blog/Voices-on-Project-Management/11149/  and then explore the rest of the site.

The Functions of Governance

We have published 3 papers recently that clarify and differentiate the functions of management and the functions of governance.

The widely accepted ‘functions of management’ developed by Henri Fayol and published in his 1916 book Administration Industrielle et Generale, are summarised in: WP1094 The Functions of Management. Fayol’s ‘functions of management are:

• M1 – To forecast and plan,
• M2 – To organise
• M3 – To command or direct (lead)
• M4 – To coordinate
• M5 – To control (French: contrôller: in the sense that a manager must receive feedback about a process in order to make necessary adjustments and must analyse the deviations.).

These functions are to be contrasted with my Six Functions of Governance:

• G1 – Determining the objectives of the organisation
• G2 – Determining the ethics of the organisation
• G3 – Creating the culture of the organisation
• G4 – Designing and implementing the governance framework for the organisation
• G5 – Ensuring accountability by management
• G6 – Ensuring compliance by the organisation

The mapping of the relationship between the functions of management and the functions of governance are set out below:

Mapping of the functions

Management functions are assumed to be hierarchal with the governance inputs cascading down to lower level functions.

These functions of governance were initially proposed in my ‘advisory article’: The Six Functions of Governance. Published in PM World Journal Vol. III, Issue XI – November 2014; download from here.

A more focused discussion paper has been published today in WP1096 The Functions of Governance.

Conclusion

Governance is the action of governing an organisation by using and regulating influence to direct and control the actions and affairs of management and others. It is the exclusive responsibility of the ‘governing body’, the person, or group accountable for the performance and conformance of the organisation (in a commercial organisation, the Board of Directors).

But in many situations, particularly associated with the governance of project and programs, the governing of organisations is far from effective. The amount of time and effort devoted by the ‘governing body’ to compliance and accountability, and the amount of resources wasted by ineffective and ‘competing’ management groups, can be significantly reduced if the organisation’s objectives, ethics and culture are sound.

Six core functions of governance are defined to bridge the gap between the ‘objectives of governance’ defined by Cadbury and others and the practices of governance defined by organisations such as the AICD. Hopefully discussion around the core functions of governance sparked by these papers will encourage improved governance performance.

Sources of Power

No sooner had we published WP1095  Power and Authority than one of our regular correspondent pointed out we had missed the concept of ‘structural power’.  Whilst originally seen as being relevant to the discussion of power differences between sovereign nations, the concepts also apply to organisations where the characteristics of a situation can affect or determine power. Important structural sources of power include knowledge, resources, decision making and networks.

Knowledge as Power: Organisations are information processors that must use knowledge to produce goods and services. Intellectual capital represents the knowledge, know-how, and competency that exist in the organisation which can provide an organisation with a competitive edge in the marketplace. Within an organisation, the concept of knowledge as power means that individuals, teams, groups, or departments that possess knowledge that is crucial in attaining the organisation’s goals have power, but only if they use the power to advance the interested of their organisation – hording knowledge to the detriment of the organisation is destructive and self defeating. Outside the organisation, the situation is reversed; protecting the organisations intellectual property is vital to maintaining its competitive power in the market.

Control of Resources as Power: Organisations need a variety of resources, including money, human resources, equipment, materials, and customers to survive. The importance of specific resources to an organisation’s success and the difficulty in obtaining them vary from situation to situation. The departments, groups, or individuals who can provide essential or difficult-to-obtain resources acquire more power in the organisation than others, as do external suppliers in a market where the particular resource is scarce.

Decision making as Power: The decision making process in an organisation creates more or less power differences among individuals or groups. Managers exercise considerable power in an organisation simply because of their decision making ability. Although decision making is an important aspect of power in every organisation, cultural differences make for some interesting differences in the relationship.

Networks as Power: The existence of structural and situational power depends not only on access to information, resources and decision making, but also on the ability to get cooperation in carrying out tasks. Managers and individuals that have connecting links with other individuals and managers in the organisation and beyond will be more powerful than those who don’t. The power generated by social media networks is a phenomena that is still emerging and is not well understood.

An additional ‘power source’ is ‘peer pressure’ – the power held by a group over its individual members.

The White Paper has been updated to include these concepts and can be downloaded from: WP1095  Power and Authority