Enterprise Process Vs Project Supervision Process

All attendees of "Project Management... by the Numbers" understand that every project is a project within another project(!). In other words, every project we manage is really a section of another bigger project. So, what's the difference between a business process and a project management process?

Let's begin the answer having an example...

The CEO of the organization believes the project is to bring a new product to advertise. Let us call the product the Wireless Internet Waffle Iron (WiWi).

The CEO knows he/she has a process to obtain the WiWi though his company. This includes identifying the best possible WiWi and all the way to sustaining the WiWi when it is sold to the consumer.

The company includes a published plan based on stages because of this process (for instance; Stage 1 - Ideation, Stage 2 - Assessment, Stage 3 - Feasibility, Stage 4 - Development, Stage 5 - Commercialization, Stage 6 - Sustainment), to get the WiWi from one stage to another.

Most often, the process progresses by passing the duty of the project from one group to the next along the way of each stage. It can make sense that Engineering manages the conceptual work and Marketing manages the marketing.

For this reason process, the CEO passes the project to his direct reports with confidence that the project can now be managed on time, on budget and that the Wireless Internet Waffle Iron will be exactly as envisioned.

Working with my clients, I've identified this scenario hundreds times through the years and it is an easy task to recognize this as a "business process" as this is how the business (company) views the work as a project.

Now, back to our scenario...

The WiWi project is running behind schedule because the assessment stage took longer than planned and the project is running over budget as the feasibility stage had not been properly analyzed up front. Now you (another project manager in line) have been assigned the development stage and so are expected to bring the project back on time and schedule and also manage all of the work the development stage requires.

All this time the CEO continues to possess confidence in his people and processes that the WiWi project will be promptly, cost and objectives. You're backed in the corner with this (can't allow CEO down) and also have to cut corners because they did during the feasibility stage.

After some major frustration, several all-nighters plus some creative reporting, you breathe a sigh of relief and can pass the project with all of its problems to another group in the process line. Unfortunately, the WiWi continues to be over budget and running even later.

What we have described above is really a classic business process that's recognised incorrectly as a project management process. The difference is that the business process sees the product as the project, not the stages and even the tasks as individual projects.