Increasingly, the organizational context of projects is becoming more complex.
Rather than a simple customer/supplier relationship involving two organizations, projects are being instigated that involve multiple organizations.
Examples are:
There may be one main commissioning authority (or one main customer), but there may be several customers.
Likewise there may be several supplier organizations.
This may result in a situation where the project is ‘multi-owned’, in that more than one organization shares ultimate control over the decision-making process.
Failure to agree the basis for this ‘multi-ownership’ puts the project at risk and increases the chance of project failure.
The guidance to using PRINCE2® in a multi-owned project is similar to the commercial customer/supplier context with respect to tailoring the themes with any reference to ‘contract’ being substituted for ‘agreement’.
However, arrangements catering for multi-organization projects can become extremely complex.
Project Boards, for example, can have more members than can practically make effective decisions.
If no single party holds sway over the others, a consensus has to be built on each decision.
Large consensual Project Boards work very slowly and the pace of their projects is likely to suffer.
Alternatively, Project Managers begin to take decisions that are beyond their remit.
Consideration should then be given to adopting the organizational structures of programme management to assist with benefits management and stakeholder engagement.
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