A Grudging Note of Respect

In many of my comments I have been somewhat negative about American foreign policy as it is projected into the world arena through the operations of the Department of Defence in the USA. I have very little time for the politicians involved. However I have to say that the ability of the US Armed Forces to manage projects is something to be admired and learned from.

Almost all of the techniques which we currently apply in the world of professional project management has been pioneered in the DoD in the time frame from WWII to the present time.

I wonder whether this is necessarily a good thing?

On the one hand we have through all of the functional management of the armed forces one of the most hierarchical vertical control systems in the world. We also have a matrix managed organisation of all of the projects that they manage.

How well does that translate into a non military environment where the command control structure is not entrenched. There are serious consequences within the military for disobeying a command from someone who has a higher rank. This same expectation is transferred to the work environments of non military organisations and it is here that I suspect most people experience their first problem.

In a non military environment the culture is not conducive to staff obeying almost without question the orders coming from a 'superior officer'. Regardless of how much we try and write into people's roles functions and responsibilities a requirement of this kind, the culture normally does not support it and hence leaves open the question about how effective a process developed within a military environment can be within an environment that does NOT support the level of control and accountability (with consequences) that happen in the military.

I will be spending some time exploring this issue in this BLOG over the next weeks and months and would welcome input from my readers who have experience with this, preferably within the military and then in non military organisations.

Let's hear from you!