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How do you motivate people to work harder or better? That's a question that is often asked. At one time it was thought that just paying someone a higher salary, or conversely threatening them with dismissal, would motivate them. While these approaches had some success, they are very self-limiting.
In project management, when we talk about "power" we mean the ability of the project manager to influence the behavior of team and other stakeholders. Knowing the different types of power in project management, and knowing how and when to use them, can be crucial to managing projects successfully.
Until the 1970's, typical, large organizations tended to function in "silos", where isolated groups of workers reported to a line manager. This was inefficient, with lots of duplication of skills around the organization. But their major weakness was when they tried to manage projects.
Everybody wants to be successful. Of course it could be argued that some people obviously want to fail in life - but that means that they want to be successful in failing. And so when they eventually DO fail, they succeeded in achieving their life's main goal.
In recent years there has been an enormous growth in both the adoption of Project Management and the numbers of PMP's (Project management Professionals) in China. But there are barriers to Chinese project managers working in English-speaking countries, due to the Chinese educational system.
The project Management methodology PRINCE2 started life in 1975 as PROMPT2, developed by Simpact Systems Ltd, a UK company.2005 saw the release of a significant update of the PRINCE2 documentation. and today it is the standard methodology for all government information systems projects.
In the first half of the 20th century there was a belief that Scientific Management was the new way forward. But as moral fell, psychologists began to investigate ways to motivate workers, eventually identifying the need for managers to be "leaders". But what does this really mean?
Long before man (or woman, I'm not sure which), first put grilled fatty ground meat on white bread buns, or worked out how to pressure-fry chicken in fat-laden breadcrumbs, and thus invented obesity and the heart-attack, people were already striving to do everything faster. So we got fast food, instant coffee, supersonic travel, high-speed computers and communications, and so on.
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