Does Organizational Culture has an Impact on Project Management?

The concept of Project Management exists more than any other culture or strategy in every other company. In fact, it would be really helpful if every company has a broader understanding of what Project Management is and what is its impact on the company to complete a project. But with that, There aren’t any other factors included that can affect a project’s development and we think Project Management is the only way to achieve success.

But that is not the case, different companies or industries or even organizations treat the life cycle of a project, documentation or resources in different ways depending on the corporate culture of that particular company or organization. This clearly shows that every organization has its own culture that they may think is more effective or productive than any other and differences in organizational culture has a great effect on the project’s life cycle.

So today’s discussion is about whether an organizational culture has an impact on Project Management or not.

How Organizational Culture affects Project Management?

Every organization has its own cultures and norms and they tend to follow that. These cultures and structures are followed very strictly and has a great influence on how the projects are managed and executed. While working in a same line, these cultures and structures result in carrying out a project smoothly but as soon as a project comes where there is the need to involve third party that can be the partners, sub-contractors or clients, the smooth completion of the project starts to depend on how all these parties participate and do their roles as needed.

We clearly know that companies have their own unique cultures that they have developed through some experiences and they name it Organizational Culture. It is a very good practice to follow these cultures and understanding their purpose helps the company to decide which project to take now and which one later. But problems arises at some point that can have a bad impact on the performance of the project so let us discuss such problems. Some of them are mentioned below.

Problems that arise when dealing with the third party or different company:

Below are some of the problems that a project manager has to face due to difference in organizational cultures and that puts influence on the project’s progress.

• If a company has offices in different regions, language problem arises which often leads to conflict because the team members are unable to communicate and understand each other on some terms. This causes a lot of problems for the project manager and he then has to act as an intermediary and solve the problem by identifying the communication tools and maintaining a clear communication path throughout the project.
• Organizational culture is based on the beliefs of employees and all the people working in an organization. And working in such an environment makes it really easy to work on a project. But the problem comes when two different companies have to work with each other who have different organizational culture and are unable to understand each other’s personalities, norms or values. Employees may start to become inflexible and non-understanding and can cause problems that can delay the project.
• When Project Managers have to deal with third parties or such companies that have different organizational cultures. So, a Project Manager has to face great problems while dealing with them which he has to be solved by the project manager. One may understand our culture and one may not or vice versa so here it becomes really difficult for a project manager to keep them intact and get them to do their job.

Conclusion:

For a company to work smoothly and complete the projects on time, it is very important to clearly understand what organizational culture is and the problems that can rise due to change of values and norms of other companies. Every company must identify the factors that can help them make such an organizational culture for the company that can turn out to be helpful for both the project and the company.