The revenues of Levon Corporation became to decrease, and the company’s employees proposed to focus more on the project management approach in order to support the business. In spite of the fact that Levon Corporation had the “project-driven portion of the business” (Kerzner, 2013, p. 502), the executives refused to agree regarding the necessity of the project management implementation in the company. Thus, the executives also did not support the necessity to sustain the business portion that began to erode and promote the project management approach for all parts of Levon Corporation.
The main reason to explain the executives’ position regarding the discussion of the employees’ focus on project management is based on the idea of the executives’ fear associated with the project management principles. Thus, the project management approach can make sales and marketing personnel and certain executives more powerful, and “a shift in the balance of power in the company” can lead to significant changes in the general executives’ roles.
Still, the executives chose to listen to a consultant because he had no interest in discussing the shift of powers and he could clearly “identify the responsibilities of senior management” in addition to identifying the gap between the company’s performance and industry’s trends (Kerzner, 2013, p. 502). As a result, the consultant could say whether the implementation of the project management was necessary for the company’s growth and how it could contribute to the company’s progress.
However, the consultant’s presentation made the executives remain apprehensive because the consultant started with demonstrating the negative changes in the company’s revenues. Furthermore, the consultant ended the presentation with saying that Levon Corporation could not overcome the gap between the business progress and industry leader’s growth even with the focus on the project management approach (Kerzner, 2013, p. 502).
Instead of demonstrating the industry gap and accentuating problems associated with overcoming it for Levon Corporation, the consultant should concentrate on following three strategies to persuade the executives to support the project management recommendations:
- While developing a presentation for the executives, it is necessary to demonstrate the graphs that present data on how project management approaches can contribute to reducing costs and increasing revenues in short and long perspectives (Harrison, 2004, p. 54).
- It is important to present a chart demonstrating how the focus on the project management can change functional responsibilities. However, this approach does not affect the power of the executives (Park, Chinta, & Lee, 2010, p. 83).
- The next approach is the focus on the effectiveness of project management to plan the future growth in the industry (Lock, 2007, p. 112). Project management works with the help of the properly developed schedule, with the focus on completing the concrete objective, with the focus on using available resources, and with the focus on the customer satisfaction.
References
Harrison, F. (2004). Advanced project management: A structured approach. New York, NY: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Lock, D. (2007). The essentials of project management. New York, NY: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
Park, D., Chinta, R., & Lee, M. (2010). New product development project management: Differences between Korean and U.S. small business executives. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 21(1), 83-99.