Selling Executives on Project Management

Project Management: Case Study
Selling Executives on Project Management
Levon Corporation executives were concerned about the company’s declining revenues (Kerzner, 2013). The company’s employees argued that the decline in revenues was due to the fact that industry trends were changing, and contracts were increasingly being awarded on the basis of points as opposed to the lowest bidder mechanism; since the company had no project management capability, it kept missing out on key contracts, and this affected its revenue stream (Kerzner, 2013). The employees suggested that the project management function be incorporated into the business framework to increase the company’s competiveness. The executives were, however, reluctant to consider this proposal because they thought that such a move would disrupt the organization’s balance of power (Kerzner, 2013). They reluctantly hired a project management consultant to evaluate the employees’ suggestion, but even after the consultant had openly demonstrated that the organization was in dire need of a project management department, the executives still remained apprehensive (Kerzner, 2013).
Why did the executives refuse to listen to their employees but were willing to listen to a consultant?
There are several possible explanations for this. To begin with, since consultants are not part of the organization, they are less likely to be influenced by organizational culture and company politics, and as such, they are likely to give a more objective opinion on the issue at hand – compared to people who work in the organization and who perhaps have other vested interests (Lientz