Managing Complex Projects and Programs: How to Improve Leadership of Complex Initiatives Using a Third-Generation Approach

Chapter 6Modern Problems with Traditional Management Models

The Two-Party Fully Governed Project Oversight Model

We observed in Chapter 2 that traditional first-generation project management systems were first adopted by organizations as a seemingly natural extension of Industrial Age management principles. We noted that these systems could provide a highly effective means for pursuing new organizational initiatives. Indeed, project management professionals and organizational executives generally agree that the project management principles, practices, tools, and techniques developed as part of first-generation project management systems have proven invaluable to organizations that have pursued their operational and strategic goals via projects and programs.

Over the years, many organizations have found that their project management needs could be satisfied by traditional first-generation programmatic systems. These systems were well-understood and commonly appreciated; they seemed to promise that any organization’s projects could be pursued and managed with predictable professional consistency using repeatable standard practices. In most of these organizations, projects were defined and managed using a first-generation programmatic process that flowed something like this:

A governing committee of stakeholders or executives (often line function leaders) with responsibility for defining their organization’s strategic direction would identify specific goals they wanted to achieve ...