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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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
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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 =
1
i(D, S, t) 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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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 organi2
zation. 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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Perspectives Management
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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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
3
Soft Systems Methodology ) 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
O - Owners, those who can stop the change
C
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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
System
quality
Organizational
impact
User
satisfaction
Figure 5. Indicators of system success and their interrelations (from DeLone and
4
McLean, 1992 ).
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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Perspectives Management
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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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Perspectives Management
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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.)
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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Developing acceptance
Developing understanding
Idea
Project
Investiformation gation
Checking
picture
developed
Design
Seeking
approval
of design
Implemen- Adjusttation
ment
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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Perspectives Management
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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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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).
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Project
manager
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Perspectives Management
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Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Project
manager
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
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-
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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.
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Project
manager
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
Stakeholder
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
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
Goals, power
and priorities
Figure 12), a lowest level would be to try to
understand how others perceive the business
Use and
operations. The project managers have typiinformation needs
cally been ambitious in doing this when it
comes to “those described” (but not regarding
Descriptions of
the “information users”). A next level of ambibusiness operations
tion would be looking to the use of the princiFigure 12. Levels of
ples and the information needs of the users.
ambition in seeking of
Here the project managers have to a much
other people’s perlarger degree relied on generalizations based
spectives
on their own views and those of colleagues and
other indirect sources than on the information
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,
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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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
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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.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
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
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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.
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Advancing Your Business
Notes
1
2
3
4
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, 60-95.
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Lundeberg, M. & Sundgren, B. (eds.) (1996) Advancing Your Business: People and
Information Systems in Concert, EFI, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden