How does Organizational Culture affect your Projects?

Does this sound familiar?

I recently got a question on LinkedIn requesting my input which in turn inspired today’s post.  The question was to clarify the impact of organizational culture on projects. Well my take on this question is twofold: organizational culture can have negative and positive impact on projects.  In Nigeria, our organizations grapple with getting competent staff to execute projects, managing impossible timelines and limited resources, and often unpredictable financial cash flows. Despite these constraints, the PM is expected to deliver on their projects without considering their impact on project performance.

Often times we focus on the impact of external factors like clients and customers on our projects that we tend to forget that the internal idiosyncrasies in the organizations we work for also pose significant impacts in project delivery.  What constitutes our organizational culture include our processes, values, technology, people, and strategic objectives. Organizational culture is as a result of how your people interact with all these parts in the work place environment. It affects the way people and groups interact with each other, with clients and stakeholders.

While organizations have a holistic unique culture, however sub cultures can exist between groups or people under the same organization.  Like stated earlier, organizational cultures can be positive or negative.

A few characteristics of positive cultures include:

• Strong and accountable leadership
•  Structured and transparent decision making
• Employee satisfaction and pride
• Enviable team spirit
• Investment in employee welfare and professional development
• Low employee turnover
• Strong competitive edge/advantage
• Hands on management

On the other hand, a few characteristics of negative cultures:

• Poor organizational/employee performance
• High employee turn over
• Lack of concern for employee welfare and professional development
• Weak leadership
• Lack of innovation and employee empowerment

Regarding project implementation, organizational culture is reflected in the way people perform tasks, set objectives, and administer the necessary resources to achieve objectives. Culture affects the way individuals make decisions, resolve issues and conflicts, and act in response to the opportunities and threats affecting the organization.

An organization that embodies a healthy, positive culture will have the following impact on projects:

• Well planned resource allocation
• High project performance regarding budget, schedule and scope
• Proper risk management
• High employee morale 
•  Reduced probability of waste, rework and scrap
• Effective project management methodologies and practice
• Empowered and highly motivated team

Negative cultures will have the following impact:

• Over run budgets and schedules
• Missed timelines and milestone targets
• Poor quality deliverables due to rework, employee turnover, and waste
• Customer dissatisfaction
• Difficult to motivate and manage teams

These lists are by no means exhaustive. Are there any positive and negative impacts you can think of?