Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth and Innovation

by Dov Dvir and Aaron J. Shenhar

Book Overview

Projects are the engines that drive innovation from idea to commercialization. In fact, the number of projects in most organizations today is expanding while operations is shrinking. Yet, since many companies still focus on operational excellence and efficiency, most projects fail--largely because conventional project management concepts cannot adapt to a dynamic business environment. Moreover, top managers neglect their company's project activity,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591398002
• ISBN13: 9781591398004
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Blanco-Review-06-08

Excellente Book. For every body ineterested in this subject or related with project management should read it. I really recommend it.

A guide to managing your projects

Most projects fail because conventional project management concepts cannot adapt to today's dynamic business environment. This book, which is based on many case studies, provides a new and highly adaptive model for planning and managing projects. Aaron J. Shenhar and Dov Dvir explain how to use their "Diamond Framework" to understand the nature of your projects, and diagnose the gaps between your current capabilities and what you need to do to make your projects succeed. Their flexible model provides valuable information for evaluating and managing projects for the maximum competitive advantage. We recommend this book to managers who want to strengthen their ability to take charge of projects in a more systematic and compelling way.

A very useful model for seeing the gaps and risks in a project.

The authors explain that the usual linear description of project management is not only out of step with modern projects, it also doesn't provide any insight of the risks involved in the project. The Diamond model presented in this book uses a four axis graph that captures the level of Novelty, Technology, Complexity and Pace required by the project. Diamond comes from the shape of the graph if each of these four factors is in the middle. However they almost never are all middling. You are supposed to graph both the project requirements and your team's present capabilities. The gap between the two indicates the risk. It also gives management a target for closing the gap in order to maximize the opportunity for project success. Novelty measures how much about the project is new and how new it is to your team. Technology captures how edgy the technology is. Complexity measures the simplicity of the deliverable (say, a ball bearing) or how complex it is (a regional communications grid). Pace captures the time urgency of the project (time isn't really a factor to it was needed yesterday). I think this is a useful tool and the graph can be a great way to get a quick picture of the project. It can also be a useful management tool and a means for discussion with the project team. Oh, and if the project goes on for an extended time, the diamond's shape will change. So, it should be redrawn with some regularity to keep everyone one the same graph and to be sure that the team membership is appropriate to the latest shape. Quite interesting for project management types. Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

An excellent view at the need for flexibility in project management

Shenhar and Dvir do an excellent job of analyzing four factors that can affect a project (Novelty, Technology, Complexity, and Pace). Each of these factors can have 3 or 4 values. The combination of these values determine the nature of a project and what type of project management style would be most useful to manage it. Using various real case studies (e.g., the Denver airport, Katrina, etc.) the authors analyze failures and successes and how their model would have guided the project manager to use a different management approach. The last chapter, 11 - Reinventing Project Management for Your Organization, brings home some of these concepts. In particular, some of us will like their main lessons, such as "Project management is not about deliverig a project on time, on budget, and within requirements. Instead, project management is about serving a customer need and creating business results to support the company's short- and long-term objectives." And "Project management is not a linear, predictable process." I highly recommend this book if you want to know why they traditional PM approaches seem to fail regularly.

What you measure identifies what you value.

In this book, Aaron J. Shenhar and Dov Dvir introduce and develop what they characterize as "a new approach and a new formal model to help managers understand what project management is all about. This new approach is based on a success-focused, flexible, and adaptive framework. We call it the `adaptive project management approach [APM],' and it differs from [and is preferable to] the traditional approach in several significant ways" that are identified in the first chapter. Rather than replacing the traditional approach, APM builds on it by taking into full account the strategic as well as tactical aspects of project performance in both the short and the long term as well as taking into account, also, the points of view of various project stakeholders, including customers. "To address differences among projects, we present a diamond-shaped framework to help managers distinguish among projects according to four dimensions: novelty, technology, complexity, and pace (NTCP)." By invoking the metaphor of a baseball diamond, Shenhar and Dvir correctly suggest an essential paradox of project management that I have personally observed for many years: projects are conducted within fixed parameters according to established rules (four "bases" 90 feet apart, beginning at "home plate" and proceeding to "first base," three "outs" to an inning "at bat" or "on the field," etc.) and yet projects are usually messy and their results seldom predictable. Hence the importance of having a generous "owner" or benefactor and a capable "manager" as well as talented and skilled "players" who work effectively as a "team." With regard to "keeping score" to determine whether or not the "game" is "won," Shenhar and Dvir suggest that the new success criteria involve at least five dimensions (or metrics): project efficiency, impact on the customer, impact on members of the project team, business results, and preparation for the future. "Each metric may have several submeasures, and it may differ from project to project in detail, intensity, importance, and other aspects." With regard to the specific material provided, Shenhar and Dvir carefully organize it within three Parts: A New Model for Managers, The Four Bases of Successful Projects, and Putting the Diamond Approach to Work. Shenhar and Dvir also include total of 11 "Research Appendixes." Of special interest to me is what they have to say about managing projects for innovation (Chapter 8) and reinventing project management for the reader's organization (Chapter 11). Here is a brief excerpt from each chapter that correctly suggests the thrust and flavor of Shenhar and Dvir's narrative: "The innovator's dilemma [per Clayton Christensen] presents a risk for companies: to follow customer demand based on sustaining progress may cause you to miss the opportunities presented by fast, disruptive change. The project management solution to the innovator's dilemma is to learn the distinction between breakthrough and platform p