Perspectives Management An Approach to Project Management

Transcription

1 X Perspectives Management An Approach to Project Management Alf Westelius In this chapter I discuss management accounting and control projects and problems that arise when the project manager has not identified and understood a number of key persons with other goals and views. The project manager s ability to place other people s perspectives in focus and to consciously attempt to understand and handle them I choose to term perspectives management. In order to produce positive effects on the individual and organizational levels a management accounting and control system needs to be appropriate, understood, and accepted. To achieve this, the project manager needs to attend to the development of understanding and acceptance in addition to developing a technically functional system. Generally the development of understanding and acceptance appear to be given too little attention in the projects. The project manager views his role as that of the expert, and the patterns of communication are characterized by information gathering rather than by dialogue. The projects are successful in the sense that they produce results using relatively little time and posing low demands on resources, but they do not question the goal or the effects of the system developed.

2 X:2 Advancing Your Business Managing Management Accounting and Control Projects The past few years my research topic has been the management of management accounting and control projects. The projects I have chosen to study include attempts to modify the principles of management accounting and control, not just changes in accounting software when the principles are left unchanged. The projects have been conducted in large Swedish companies in manufacturing industries. Project failure (or impaired success) is often caused by the failure to identify and understand key persons who have other views, goals or opinions than the project manager explicitly or implicitly assumed. It may seem obvious that a project manager should identify and understand key people, but in reality the task is far from trivial. The project manager s way of placing other people s perspectives in focus and consciously attempting to understand and handle them I term perspectives management. Below I explain my view of perspectives management and discuss observations I have made in projects. What I Mean by Perspectives Management Everyone s views depend on their own conditions (förutsättningar) and situation. Börje Langefors indicates this in his infological equation I = i(d, S, t) 1 by stating that information (I) is the interpretation the individual makes of data (D) given the frame of reference (S) he has and the time (t) he spends on interpreting the data. The infological equation is a general description of how we interpret what we perceive. By perspective I want to stress that I am talking of someone s views on something. In the case of a project the interesting issue is what views different persons come to form regarding the project and what it aims to accomplish. Interpreting perspectives management as how one attempts to understand and handle other people s perspective on that which one attempts to accomplish is analogous with other something management terms.

3 Perspectives Management X:3 Risk management highlights risks and proposes that risk aspects of what one is doing should be identified and explicitly managed. Cash management places liquidity aspects in focus and proposes that they should be identified and explicitly managed. Perspectives management is not a matter of striving for uniformity that everyone should think in the same way. Instead it is a question of noting, understanding and handling similarities and differences. Just as cash management and risk management, perspectives management is a way of viewing tasks and situations. Regarding all three it is possible to picture different degrees of consciousness and practice in a given business setting. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that it is possible to find examples of excellent perspectives management as well as poor or even completely neglected perspectives management. In the literature on project management it is often stated that the project manager should secure the competence needed to perform the project in the project team, in reference groups and steering committees and through informal contacts. It is one thing to succeed in securing the competence needed for the project to produce a result in the case of management accounting and control a new costing model, for example. It is another, and more complicated one, to manage the project in such a manner that the concrete result produced also has good chances of being gainfully employed: that the costing is understood, is accepted and is used in the organization. 2 Part of this may be to enlist representatives of different perspectives in the project organization, but this is not necessarily sufficient. Another way may be for the project manager to personally identify and contact a substantial proportion of those affected. Yet a way may be to make the project visible in the organization and to open up fora in which the project s goal, development, consequences, etc. can be discussed. Differences in Perspective within and between Groups The management accounting and control projects I have studied typically have been dominated by people from the accounting function in

4 X:4 Advancing Your Business the companies. At the same time the management accounting and control is intended to affect the behavior of people in the line organization. An issue of perspectives that then needs to be handled is possible differences between accountants and non-accountants. Accountants in general may interpret a set of data that is based on a certain set of principles of management accounting and control in a similar way, while interpretations made by production managers, for example, may only show limited similarities with those made by the accountants. (The interpretations within the group of production managers could well be similar.) (Cf. the Venn-diagram below.) Accountants Production Managers Figure 1. Interpretation of a report. The figure illustrates the interpretations of a specific report, but it could just as well illustrate opinions on business activities, on the use of management accounting and control and accounting data, or on which goals are worth prioritizing. In none of the cases it could be expected that the accord between groups would be complete. As a consequence, if I, as project manager, design a solution that I and my functional colleagues perceive as good, there is no guarantee that it will also be perceived as good by users from other functions or on other positions within the organization. Furthermore, the diagram could illustrate the differences between individuals within one of the groups, since the groups are not as homogeneous as we for convenience assume when we create classifications such as accountants or production managers Two production managers may well make different interpretations or hold different opinions on an issue. If I, as project manager, then talk with one of them to hear his views and in that way cover the project manager perspective, I should be aware that I risk making an unwarranted generalization.

5 Perspectives Management X:5 Roles in Relation to the Management Accounting System Not forgetting that differences between individuals may be important, it is useful to make a first crude grouping of stakeholders according to the roles they may take in relation to the management accounting system when it is in operation. There will be people whose business activities are described according to the principles (regardless of whether the principles deal with costing, accounting, budgeting or something else.) In the figure they appear as those described (at the bottom). In the upper part of the figure information users are depicted. An example of an information user is a product manager who uses product costing to determine whether a certain order will be profitable or not. Manager of information users Information users Accounting system owners Accounting system operators Those described Figure 2. Roles in relation to the management accounting and control system The roles are not mutually exclusive. A person who is described can simultaneously be an information user, e.g. the foreman may both have his business activities described by the accounting and use this accounting as a basis for assessment of whether work activities ought to be possible to perform more efficiently. It is, however, common that there are people described who are not simultaneously information users and vice versa.

6 X:6 Advancing Your Business A group closely related to the information users are their managers; people who may not themselves directly use information from the system but who may want their subordinates to base their actions on such information to some extent. In the middle of the figure there are two more roles: accounting system owners and accounting system operators. The accounting system owners are those who view the system of management accounting and control as their responsibility a CFO who feels responsible for the existence and design of the management accounting and control system, or a chief executive who is deeply engaged in introducing a (new) form of management accounting and control. The operators are those who handle the accounting system who provide it with input, who control the processing of the data and who take out reports and other output. Even operators who have strictly technical tasks in relation to the accounting system can be viewed as belonging to the accounting system operator group. The model above shows roles in relation to the product of the management accounting and control project: the implemented principles of management accounting and control. Nothing guarantees that the different groups have their say in a project. The model below (taken from Soft Systems Methodology 3 ) describes important roles in relation to a change ( ). (A management accounting and control project may be viewed as a part of a process that aims at change.) O A C O - Owners, those who can stop the change A - Actors, those who perform the change C - Customers, those who are affected by the change Figure 3. Roles in relation to the change. The actors (A) are those who perform the change. Those who belong to the project organization (project team, steering committee, etc.) can normally be viewed as actors in this sense. Their degree of activity may vary, but they normally have a possibility to see to it that their perspective is taken into account in the project. O, (Owners), are in this model

7 Perspectives Management X:7 people who can stop the change. They could be high-level managers, but also key people at lower levels who through active or passive resistance have power over the success of the change. The third (and regarding management accounting and control the largest) group is C (Customers). Customers are all those who in some way are affected by the change. All the people who take the roles of Figure 2 above (roles in relation to the management accounting and control system) can be expected to be affected by a change of principles of management accounting and control. Possibly technical operators may form an exception. The others can, although to differing degrees, be viewed as or view themselves as affected by the change. This is a difficulty for the project manager who attempts to practice perspectives management actively. It is no trivial task to identify all those who can be viewed or may come to view themselves as affected by the change and it may be difficult to truly perceive the different individuals perspectives on the change. To not only perceive but also to handle the perspectives may, for example, be to find out which people view themselves as winners and which as losers, and to try to make certain that people do not unwarrantedly view themselves as losers. This could entail adjusting the design of the management accounting and control, adjusting the process of developing the system, or simply communicating to resolve misunderstandings. Project Success Results on Three Levels Above I have talked of project success without specifying what I mean. The ultimate aim of management accounting and control is to influence people s behavior in such a way that the profitability of the company is strengthened. It can be difficult to assess whether a management accounting and control project has led to such results. The results of a project may be viewed on three levels where influence on the profitability of the company forms part of the topmost Effect level Information level Technical level Figure 4. Three levels of results

8 X:8 Advancing Your Business (see Figure 4). At the lowest level, the technical, we may place things such as whether the project has resulted in anything concrete at all, for example in new principles or the implementation of such principles in a technically operational computer program. Examples of results on the information level are whether or not the principles are intelligible to those who are to use them, and possibly also that the economic description of the business operations derived according to the principles is regarded as providing a reasonable picture of the operations described. Examples of results on the effect level are whether the users view themselves as aided by the new principles and whether the information they derive through the application of the principles actually affects their behavior. The lower levels can be viewed as prerequisites for success at higher levels. Figure 5 provides a picture of indicators of success and how they interrelate. Information quality Use Individual impact Organizational impact System quality User satisfaction Figure 5. Indicators of system success and their interrelations (from DeLone and McLean, ). At the far left there is a technical factor (system quality) and an information factor (information quality). The other four belong to the effect level. The model says, for example, that use depends on system quality as well as on information quality and user satisfaction. Effects on the organizational level depend on effects on the individual level. The further to the left in the model, the easier it is to measure the factors. The further to the right, the more difficult it is to determine whether what we want to see as effects of the change in management accounting and control are indeed due to these changes and not results of other factors, not described in the model. This may lead a project manager to focus on the leftmost, most easily identified factors, and place less emphasis

9 Perspectives Management X:9 on those to the right, which are anyway more difficult to determine. If we content ourselves with attending to the two leftmost ones we run the risk of judging success on the basis of people who are not critical links in the chain towards the right we can come to assess success without paying attention to the users perspectives. A system of management accounting and control is a kind of information system. In order to be successful to produce positive results on the individual as well as on the organizational level it needs to be appropriate, understood, and accepted. By appropriate I mean that its description of the business operations provides a reasonable representation given the purposes this representation is to fill. It is, for example, quite possible to design costing principles that provide a reasonable picture of the current costs of production without providing any indication of how a change of production volume or a standardization of components would come to affect the costs. If this product costing is to be actively used by designers to lower production costs or by salesmen in price negotiations, that costing design is less appropriate. Thus, to assess the appropriateness of a set of principles of management accounting and control, knowledge of the needs the principles are to fill is needed. That the principles are appropriate given the needs is not sufficient if those who are to use the information are unable to interpret the data they receive. Those who are to use the principles of management accounting and control need to understand them in order to interpret them correctly and to realize to what degree data produced according to these principles are applicable in each specific case. Management accounting and control has en element of decision support system. A user can choose whether or not to utilize the decision support system. Likewise a potential user can choose to base his decisions and actions on information he derives from the application of the principles of management accounting and control, or he can choose to disregard such input. To produce results in terms of influence on behavior, accounting principles thus also need to be accepted by their users. In addition, they need to be accepted by people who provide input to the system. Else there is a substantial risk that the quality of the input is low, which in turn has consequences on the output; the appropriateness decreases.

10 X:10 Advancing Your Business Factors Influencing Project Managers Propensity to Pay Attention to Other People s Perspectives A factor not promoting project managers interest in other people s perspectives is that the project goals are more clearly stated on the task than on the person level. (In Figure 6 clear is illustrated by rectangles and vague by clouds.) The mission is defined in terms of task goals: to deliver a certain type of principles of management accounting and control by a certain date, possibly also specifying the resources allotted. The intended results may be specified as provide the possibility to view and evaluate the business activities in terms of a matrix or contribute to increased profitability. User needs, needs for development on knowledge, etc. are not specifically addressed in the stated goals. Neither is the explicit identification of stakeholders a self evident element. It may then be natural for the project manager to conduct the project with the task results in focus, and to see to it that he achieves them. (In the figure this is illustrated as a result-rectangle on the task level that matches the goal-rectangle on the task level.) Goals Results Person Task Figure 6. The goals and results of management accounting and control projects divided into person and task aspects Because the focus is on the task level, results on the person level appear as pleasant (and unpleasant) surprises rather than as results that have been planned and sought. That they come as surprises does not necessarily mean that they are vague. The negative reactions from an information user who is deeply upset when he is faced with a cost computation that he finds incorrect and which he has not participated in designing can be ever so clear! Other examples of results on the person

11 Perspectives Management X:11 level can be the emergence of a dialogue between accountants and line personnel or that a production manager is starting to realize how the length of production runs influences product costs. Yet a factor influencing project managers interest in other people s perspectives is the project duration and relationship to the process of developing management accounting and control. The path from the initiation of a revision of the management accounting and control to the point in time when the changes are fully implemented and part of the management accounting and control in use can be long. At the same time the notion seems widespread that projects should be of limited duration and preferably rather short to help the enthusiasm and focus on the task last for the entire duration. A management accounting and control project is therefore often planned to be relatively short and may, for example, cover the design of new principles, but not their implementation. This easily leads to myopia. The project manager realizes that he can relatively quickly design principles which are good according to the criteria he and people around him use. To then actively expend resources on seeking the perspectives of other stakeholders to see whether they are different from the perspectives he naturally encounters may easily appear as a way of complicating the task of designing the principles. Close contact with the stakeholders who will be affected by the change in management accounting and control can be expected to facilitate primarily the implementation of the change. A certain degree of altruism is then needed from the project manger who, without being explicitly commissioned to attend to the implementation that will take place after his project has ended, is to invest time and energy in facilitating the implementation unless he sees an immediate benefit for himself from this investment. Development Phases and Parallel Processes The work in the projects I have studied can typically be divided into phases. Following a more or less protracted idea phase, during which the decision to start a project is formed, a relatively quick project formation phase in which a project manager is appointed and the project organization is developed takes place. (See Figure 7.)

12 X:12 Advancing Your Business Developing acceptance Developing understanding Idea Project formation Checking picture developed Design Seeking approval of design Investigation Implementation Adjustment Figure 7. Typical development phases and two parallel processes. Then project manager then normally starts on an ambitious investigation phase in which he, mainly through interviews, attempts to form himself a picture of the business operations the principles of management accounting and control are to describe. This is followed by a more or less ambitious checking of the picture developed, after which the design of the principles starts. When the project manager judges the principles to be complete, he seeks a more or less formal approval of them from people he views as important. After this, the implementation of the principles starts. This phase is normally accompanied by some adjustments of the principles. In parallel with these phases, two processes extend for the duration of the project. One (labeled Developing understanding in the figure) concerns how people develop their understanding of the system that is being developed. The other ( Developing acceptance ) concerns how people develop attitudes toward the system: how they come to accept it or develop feelings of resistance to it. The project manager s explicit attempts at knowledge dissemination are normally restricted to short presentations at the beginning, at the end of the design phase, and, possibly, in preparation for the implementation. Informally, however, there is a learning process among those who come to participate in the development process. The more deeply they become involved in the development phase, the greater their understanding of the system becomes. Participation in the other phases also influences the understanding the stakeholders develop. The way the project is conducted, from beginning to end, also has importance for to what degree different stakeholders build acceptance for

13 Perspectives Management X:13 the management accounting and control that is being developed. Some project managers work explicitly on building acceptance for the project and for the principles developed. Others expect acceptance to follow from the qualities inherent in the principles. In both cases the project manager views the explicit or implicit approval of the principles from different stakeholders prior to implementation as an important point signaling that they have reached the goal set for the project. If the parties then raise criticism against the principles during implementation the project managers become annoyed. Normally the processes of developing acceptance and developing understanding two processes which active perspectives management could help focus on are given too little attention in the projects. The project managers tend to view dissemination of knowledge about the principles as well as the gaining of acceptance for them as formal tasks that appear at certain points during the projects. Knowledge dissemination is seen as a question of describing the principles that have been developed when they are to be implemented and gaining acceptance as a matter of receiving formal approval from steering committee and reference groups. According to a perspectives management view, it would be more reasonable to view developing acceptance and developing understanding as two continuous processes in which it is important to understand and handle different stakeholders based on their own perspectives (and possibly also to influence their perspectives). Patterns of communication Management accounting and control aims at increasing the profitability of the business. Economic data can aid in this process by describing other parts of the business operations than those an individual has first hand knowledge of. For the product manager, costs in production can be an important component in assessment of which deals are good and which are less advantageous. For the designer, knowledge of the production process and demands on resources in production may provide insights into the production cost consequences of different design choices. For the salesman, knowledge of the cost relationships in order

14 X:14 Advancing Your Business processing may provide insights regarding the consequences the way he designs contracts with the customer will have for the fulfillment of the orders he secures... Part of becoming able to interpret economic data from other parts of the organization is to see those business functions at work and to hear how the people in them reason. Such an understanding would be facilitated by multilateral communication between the stakeholders (see Figure 8). Project manager Figure 8. Netlike pattern of communication Another aspect is that a change in management accounting and control brings changes in the power balance in the organization. The picture of profitability of different products, resource consumption in different activities, etc. changes, and the possibility to scrutinize the way people conduct their activities may also change. A dialogue concerning goals, power, and priorities would therefore be an important part of a change in principles of management accounting and control. How do the patterns of management accounting and control look in the projects I have studied? They are not very like Figure 8. They show considerably greater similarities to Figure 9. The project team is typically very small consisting of the project manager and possibly a colleague or two as permanent members. Communication mainly takes place between the project manager and one stakeholder at a time.

15 Perspectives Management X:15 Project manager Figure 9. Star-shaped pattern of communication. The project manager views his role as that of an expert. He is to collect information, assess the situation and then design those principles of management accounting and control which will serve the goals he has identified. The project manager does not to any greater extent attempt to build cross-functional teams in the project where stakeholders can communicate directly with each other. The cross-functional groups which do exist are already established fora, such as top management teams. Manager of information users Information users Accounting system owners Accounting system operators Those described Figure 10. Parties in the communication. In terms of roles in relation to the system of management accounting and control presented above (see Figure 10) the project managers ini-

16 X:16 Advancing Your Business tially communicate with those described. In the investigation phase it is mainly them he interviews concerning their picture of the activities they perform. The project manager s contact with information users and their managers is quite limited in this phase. Normally it is also with those described that the project manager checks the picture he has derived of the business operations. The project manager then conducts the design of the principles on his own to a large extent. The communication that takes place then is mostly with functional colleagues ( accounting system owners and accounting system operators ). The project manager primarily presents the resulting principles to those described, to managers of information users, and to accounting system owners to have them approved. The information users, if at all consulted, are given the opportunity to react to the principles when they are completed and circulated for consideration. Their true contact with the principles normally does not come until implementation. Project manager Figure 11. One-way pattern of communication Thus, the project managers patterns of communication are characterized, as indicated by the arrows of Figure 11, by information gathering rather than by dialogue. The project managers also tend to underestimate the need for communication going in the other direction, i.e. from them to the stakeholders. It is not unusual that stakeholders feel disregarded because they did not realize that the development process was

17 Perspectives Management X:17 progressing the way it did, or because they could not grasp the brief presentations the project manager held to them. (From the project manager s perspective, the sending of information was considerably more rich and abundant than from the recipients, although the project managers often noted in hindsight that they had placed too little attention on sending.) If I attempt to divide the seeking of other people s perspectives in levels of ambition (see Figure 12), a lowest level would be to try to understand how others perceive the business operations. The project managers have typically been ambitious in doing this when it comes to those described (but not regarding the information users ). A next level of ambition would be looking to the use of the principles and the information needs of the users. Here the project managers have to a much larger degree relied on generalizations based on their own views and those of colleagues and other indirect sources than on the information Goals, power and priorities Use and information needs Descriptions of business operations Figure 12. Levels of ambition in seeking of other people s perspectives users. A highest level, concerning relationships between the principles and goals, power, and priorities, the project managers have more or less consciously striven to avoid. Normally they have attempted to keep the project at a task level and to avoid political issues and discussions. The obstacles to active perspectives management presented at the beginning of the article makes the behavior of the project managers understandable. I am not trying to say that they have mismanaged their missions. It is not difficult to find people who think that the project managers have done a good job. They have managed their projects and produced results sets of principles often using little resources and finishing the project within a relatively limited time. In some respects the projects can thus be viewed as successful. However, my proposition is that viewed from the perspective of the impact the principles of management accounting and control have on the behavior of the people in the organization, a greater emphasis on perspectives management would have led to better results. The project, if viewed in isolation,

18 X:18 Advancing Your Business may take more time to complete, but the process of creating management accounting and control that has positive effects on behavior stands to gain from such a focus. Presently it is not difficult to find potential users who do not feel helped by the management accounting and control or who are upset at how the projects have been conducted: that they have been conducted in relative isolation from many of those who would be affected by them. In all the cases the system owners have continued to point to the future when describing the benefits of the projects. What Would be Awarded Greater Emphasis Given Active Perspectives Management? As can be seen above, I see considerable potential for increasing the effects the projects have, potential relating to the handling of different stakeholders perspectives. How would I then wish that active perspectives management would be practiced? The project manager would to a greater extent seek new contacts with others and intensify his listening. The project manager would, based on a holistic view of the use of the principles of management accounting and control, identify stakeholders early (information users not least). He would operate more in modus tollens, i.e. actively listen for signals that his understanding of user needs and quality does not correspond with the intended users. He would also be attentive to differences within groups. (In all the cases studied there were information users who had been neglected or who felt neglected.) Focus on the two processes developing acceptance and developing understanding would increase. This would include attempts to identify natural leaders and socially influential individuals. (The natural leaders can contribute to the development of acceptance within their units, and socially influential individuals ought not to feel disregarded so that they for that reason spread badwill concerning the project.) It would also involve more of sending regarding the project goals, contents and progress. (The project

19 Perspectives Management X:19 managers seemed to systematically underestimate how little the surrounding knew about the projects and what was going on in them.) Furthermore it would entail attempts at establishing new contacts between others. The expert role adopted by project managers place considerable demands on their omniscience. To help parties communicate directly not least concerning politically sensitive issues would lessen the demands placed on the project managers while at the same time the development of new channels of contact between stakeholders would serve to facilitate communication regarding issues brought up by the management accounting and control in future too. Is Perspectives Management Difficult? The Christmas list above may give the impression of raising the demands posed on the project manager, but this is not necessarily so. The expert role demands considerable time to fill. Moving towards creating contacts and channels of communication would pose other but not necessarily greater demands on the project manager. What then makes the project managers tend not to practice active perspectives management? One explanation that seems close at hand is that they are experts at management accounting and control and because of this tend to take on the role of expert when given the responsibility for a management accounting and control project, but there are probably additional explanations. We Tend to Generalize It is easy to assume that others think like we do, or that a certain group of people is homogenous. Perspectives management urges us to question generalizations (which in the short run facilitate our work). We have a natural tendency to underestimate the differences in how people perceive and view things.

20 X:20 Advancing Your Business We Tend to Act Short-Sightedly Perspectives management requires time now, the savings appear later. Perspectives management is thus a form of investment (which may be easy to give low priority, not least when we perceive demands for quick results as strong.). The projects also tend to centre on creation, not on implementation and continuous operation. When the project manager is not the one who will be responsible for the operation of that which the project has created, he is likely to concentrate on results that are discernible within the timespan of the project. Perspectives management by the project manager may then be a question of investing time now so that someone else can profit from it later, a situation which results in it slipping on the list of priorities. To Handle People May Feel More Difficult and Demand More Mental Energy than to Focus on Task Issues Understanding another way of thinking requires mental energy. If done ambitiously it may even result in questioning one s own way of thinking. Perspectives management may thus lead to double loop learning and double loop learning requires time and energy. To invite other people s perspectives leads to making differences in goals and views explicit. It is not certain that the project leads to conflicts, but to open up to the possible existence of different perspectives is an invitation to discussions which may prove difficult. Not actively practicing perspectives management is to sweep potential conflicts under the carpet. They do not disappear just because they are out of sight. If not before, the meeting between different opinions and goals comes when someone attempts to introduce the principles of management accounting and control. The Project Manager s Assignment and the Effects of the Project Finally there is a question of assignment and responsibility. The project manager can view his responsibility as limited to the explicit assign-

21 Perspectives Management X:21 ment. Alternatively, he can, regardless of the wording of the assignment, view his responsibility as to attempt to produce the effects the project is ultimately meant to promote. Above I have discussed the management of management accounting and control projects with the goal of achieving successful application of the principles designed. This corresponds to the wider definition of responsibility. As mentioned earlier, the duration of the projects is normally strictly limited and the finishing date comes before the points in time when it becomes possible to assess the success of the application. Furthermore, the goals are mostly specified on the task level. When development of understanding and acceptance are not explicitly included in the assignment, the assignment is fulfilled even when the project manager does not place much emphasis on that the concrete project result is understood and widely accepted among the stakeholders. Looking to the effects of the project is then to take on a larger responsibility than specified by the assignment. If in addition the principal sees it as normal that it may take many years until the principles of management accounting and control developed in a project find their shape and are adopted and have impact on the organization, to wish that the project manager supersedes the expectations could seem like asking too much. The tendency to focus on task aspects and to interpret the assignment narrowly is also influenced by the project manager s perception of authorization. The project manager typically does not belong to the top ranks in the organization. To initiate discussions in the organization concerning goals, priorities, and effects of changes in management accounting and control (including shifts in power balance that the changes may lead to) can then feel like venturing into an area where his mandate is uncertain. For the project manager to more actively practice perspectives management it may then take a wide view on responsibility from the project managers side as well as support from the principal and that the principal requests him to take on this wider responsibility.

22 X:22 Advancing Your Business Notes In Langefors, B. (1995) Essays on Infology: Summing up and Planning for the Future, Studentlitteratur, Lund, Sweden, Langefors explains and discusses his infological equation in chapter 9. Bo Dahlbom, editor of the book, provides a complementing view of the equation and its applicability in the introductory chapter, starting on p. 17. The project manager can easily fill his time simply attending to producing any concrete deliverables (such as a costing model) to present to his principal on time and within the resources allotted, without in addition spending time and energy on attempting to ascertain that those who in one way or another are to use or will be affected by the model view it as appropriate, understand it and accept it. In Soft Systems Methodology CATWOE is a central model. The three letters I highlight in my figure (C, A, and O) stand for roles in relation to the change. The other letters in CATWOE stand for Transformation (a description of the change and its aims) Weltanschauung (a view of the world according to which performing the change makes sense) and Environment (a description of those aspects of the context of the change that are of importance to the change, but which the change is not intended to affect). For a more thorough and amply exemplified description of Soft Systems Methodology, see for example Checkland, P. & Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems Methodology in Action, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. DeLone, W. & McLean, E. (1992) Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable, Information Systems Research, Vol. 3, No. 1,