Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth & Innovation (Hardcover)

by Dov Dvir (Author), Aaron J. Shenhar (Author)
Key Phrases: blitz projects, personal transportation system, success dimensions, Toy Story, United States, Denver International Airport (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Reinventing Project Management provides [an understanding of how to execute] in a clear, concise and thoughtful manner. --Automotive Design and Production, November 2007

Product Description
Projects are the engines that drive innovation from idea to commercialisation. In fact, the number of projects in most organisations 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, and line managers treat all their projects alike - as part of operations. Based on an unprecedented study of more than 600 projects in a variety of businesses and organisations across the globe, "Reinventing Project Management" provides a new and highly adaptive model for planning and managing projects to achieve superior business results.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (August 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591398002
• ISBN-13: 978-1591398004
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #323,300 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What you measure identifies what you value., August 6, 2007

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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 projects. While investing in sustaining large businesses, what are handled by platform or derivative projects, companies must initiate a few breakthrough projects that are managed separately according to different rules, thereby addressing the potential opportunities of disruptive change." (Page 159).

"Every project effort creates a unique learning opportunity. [In fact, too many to count.] Things change rapidly, decisions are constantly made, and mistakes are made. Lessons can be learned every week and at every milestone, and clearly at project completion. But few organizations have the habit of recording, documenting, and sharing project lessons throughout the company. For example, whenever a project is terminated, there are valuable lessons that must be learned. Yet managers (perhaps because of human nature often tend to avoid discussing or dwelling on any failures; they would rather move on." (Page 212)

Whether or not the "Diamond Approach" (NTCP) is the best approach to take is, of course, for each reader to determine. My own rather extensive prior experience with all manner of projects and their teams clearly indicates that the given approach (whatever it is) must be comprehensive, cohesive, flexible, consistent, and cost-effective. Moreover, each project team must have a strong leader. That said, all project management teams and those who lead them would be well-advised to remember what Peter Drucker observed in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out books that Christensen has co-authored (The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next) and Geoffrey Moore's Inside the Tornado, Crossing the Chasm, and Dealing with Darwin. Also Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson's Enterprise Architecture as Strategy as well as Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement, Adrian Slywotsky's The Upside, and Richard Ogle's Smart World.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Technical Guide with good ideas, November 3, 2007

By	Marker Karahadian (Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Reinventing Project Management is a highly technical guide to Project management in a large organization. The scope of the book assumes that projects can be parsed to fine degree and that the organization would be able to organize within the resulting focus. My experience is that this kind of analysis exceeds the tolerances of most organizations and that employees that get the point of this kind of framework are frustrated when working with those that do not.

The book has a lot of useful material in the appendix. I took way good concepts for assigning projects to employees whose thought process and personalities fit their orientation a project based on the diamond methodology.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent view at the need for flexibility in project management, September 27, 2007

By	Jose Solera (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.