Customer Reviews

The Rise of the Project Workforce: Managing People and Projects in a Flat World

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In the summary to the book, it boldly states that "economically speaking, the world is flat again. Globalization, projectization, fragmentation of the enterprise--including outsourcing--and real-time collaboration across the planet have enabled companies to reduce costs, leverage a global talent pool, and execute challenging deliverables with a dispersed yet incredibly connected project workforce." Integrating the popular notion of "flat world economics" made famous by Thomas Friedman in his bestselling book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century", Melik outlines and develops what is basically an Internet based, online workflow system that could be used to manage a mobile, project based workforce.

This is important to keep in mind, because after reading the preface, perusing the table of contents and the general impression the book and its title invoked in me, gave me the impression the book was going to be written and themed in a similar vein as Friedman's book, but focused on the project workforce aspect. Instead, the majority of the book reads like a software requirements specification with bulleted lists, flowcharts, charts, wireframes, and constant allusions to the implications of a "flat" world, which by now has become a platitude.

In all fairness, the system he outlines in his text if it could be implemented in its entirety and most importantly, gain full cultural adoption and buy-in by the organization that implements it, would be an excellent system. The key to this system, which I'm in complete agreement with, is the need to automate the everyday workflow processes throughout the enterprise, such as time sheets, T&E expenses, billing, invoicing, etc. Furthermore, as Melik acknowledges, these processes need to be aligned with regulatory requirements and compliance, especially as he notes in Chapters 4 and 5 with SOX, labor laws, and contracts. This adherence to regulatory requirements and compliance, while simultaneously keeping agile, adaptive and responsive to the fast paced realities of the flat world is where it will be most difficult for companies. I'm currently with a company experiencing this very painful situation.

The book acknowledges that it would be unrealistic to convert to a enterprise level, Project Management Workforce overnight as outlined in the book, and advocates a sound approach of phased implementations that incorporates user adoption and company deployment incrementally. The final chapter gives a good example of the kind of business case for building company adoption, and Melik provides a step-by-step illustration of building a business case, with a fairly comprehensive table identifying stakeholders and the kind of issues and concerns each would address.

Now to the weakness of the book.

First, I would have liked more elaborations into the problems you would encounter trying to implement the Project Management Workforce in the real world, because the majority of companies have yet to embrace the "Hollywood Model" of bringing together the best human resources necessary for a project, then disbanding and forming other teams to other projects. Most companies are still struggling endless to hire the right talent for the right position. Typically, they will over hire when the demand is high, then lay off when they need to show quarterly profits to their shareholders. In addition, most companies have yet to even embrace implementing a sound project management system and processes within their organizations. The notion of a PMO has just recently come on, and the ones who have, have yet to implement it properly! How hard would it be to have such companies, which are the majority, to embrace such a radical transformation? Some real world case studies would have helped.

Second, the first part of the book elaborates on the notion as mentioned earlier about the emergence of the flat world and its implications on the global economy, quoting luminaries such as Thomas Friedman, Tom Peters, Andy Grove, etc. as a way to heighten the importance of the rest of the book and its system and to add a cutting edge legitimacy to its projectized workforce system. Not that such issues are not important, but the fact that these ideologies have already been regurgitated in industry trade magazines related to IT for the past decade or so ad nauseum, and the way Melik constantly sprinkles "flat worldness" throughout the book, make the notion trite and kinda of annoying to see repeated throughout the text. The project workforce system he outlines in this text would be a pretty good one, but there is nothing earth shattering about it and the majority of the book reads like a functional specification for a system the author is no doubt selling (The company selling the system is called Tenrox). Nothing wrong with that, but I felt hyping up the system using Friedman's ideology made the book promise more than it delivered.

In conclusion, this book was a very useful read and in fact, helped me to write a comparative proposal of two enterprise portfolio management system my current company is looking to adopt, by giving me some additional guidelines on what a good enterprise project portfolio system would have and the features to look for. But I feel it promised more insights and elaborations into "The Rise of the Project Workforce" ala Friedman's flat worldness then it delivered. Had it just stuck to outlining the functional specifications of a project workforce system, my expectation would have been more in check, but I have to admit the marketing of the book may have influenced me more to buy it, so in that regard it was well done.

-Don Kim

Melik's book pick's up with practical advice for managers where books like Friedman's The World is Flat leaves off. Popular books about global trends have left managers with little practical advice and Rudolf Melik wrote The Rise of The Project Workforce to fill this gap.

The author identifies four important dynamics that have contributed to fundamental changes and challenges for management: globalization, increased regulation, a flattened hierarchy (fewer levels of management with empowered workers) and a fragmented enterprise. Perhaps this last item is the most important theme in the book. The "fragmented enterprise" refers to the outsourcing or in-sourcing of highly specialized work based on a case-by-case consideration of costs and capabilities. These create temporary, on-demand relationships critical to the business operating in this kind of environment. But Melik goes on to argue that traditional systems stunt company growth in this environment and shows us how to address this.

His book is logically organized into three parts. The first part describes the "flatness" of world and, in many ways, it does this in a manner that is more detailed and focused on the manager's areas of concern than Friedman's book. Then specific tools, such as software and best practices, are described that will help the manager navigate this environment and flourish in it. Finally, the book get's into specific implementation details for managers that want to use these tools. The last section of this book may be the highest payoff for the manager. It is full of detailed workflows, examples, and supporting data. Melik organizes his thoughts with charts and graphs for the visually-oriented thinker and it is easy to find specific topics quickly. If your organization uses project teams, a geographically dispersed workforce, or just wants to improve traditional management processes, then this should be the book for you.

The Rise of the Project Workforce by author Rudolf Melik provides practical advice for managers learning how to manage human capital in the highly integrated world described by Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat. Helpful methodologies are presented for every aspect of managing project based work, with the material being very well organized for the reader. The author explains how the use of technology, an essential component of any project workforce solution, can be used in each aspect of your project workforce processes to help you achieve better results. The material also serves as a great reference tool for the reader.

Rudolf does a great job of de-mystifying a complex subject - how to face the very real challenge of managing a workforce that crosses countries, time zones and cultures in today's fast moving business environment - the flat world - while delivering high quality projects on time and on budget. This book is a resource that needs to be on a project manager's reading list.