Project managers’ and change managers’ contribution to success

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose – Many projects involve an organisational change component. Project management (PM) and change management (CM) have the potential to jointly contribute to the delivery of organisational changes. However, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the boundary and relationship between these disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution these disciplines make to a set of project critical success factors, to understand the ways that these disciplines can most effectively work together. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses data collected through an online survey, examining project managers’ and change managers’ perception of each disciplines’ contribution to critical success factors. The survey received 455 responses. Findings – This paper identifies the success factors that are most clearly influenced by PM and CM, and areas where practitioners of these disciplines hold significantly different perceptions of their contributions. The results have been used to rank and categorise success factors based on the influence of each discipline. This has been used to develop a risk-based questionnaire to guide the contribution of PM and CM to the mitigation of specific project risks. Originality/value – These findings will be of use to practitioners managing organisational change projects, or projects with a significant change component. The findings will be of assistance in determining the ways in which these disciplines should work together to mitigate risks associated with specific critical success factors

Should project management aspire to be an archetypal profession: evidence from Australian-based research

Many occupations aspire to recognition as a profession. The question of whether or not project management is a profession has arisen multiple times within the literature, but answers vary. It is possible to identify common traits that typify occupations that are consistently agreed to have professional status. Project management is reviewed against these professional traits. This study also reports on the findings of two surveys, which provide insight into project managers’ perceptions of their own field. Survey responses are compared to their perceptions of change management, an arguably comparable field. Then, project managers’ views are compared to the general public’s perception of project management. It is found that a number of the archetypal traits of professions may not be relevant or desirable for project management. However, some approaches for developing the image of the field of project management to professional status are identified and discussed

Measuring project success in local government.

Local government (councils) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, are responsible for the management and delivery of projects in various fields such as: information technology; engineering; and planning. Council budgets for capital works can vary from less than 2 million ($AUD) in smaller councils to over one hundred million ($AUD) in large city councils. Although projects are publicised and promoted as examples of effective local government, operations often comprise the bulk of the statutory reporting requirements. One reason for the preference of operational reporting over project reporting is the difficulty associated in measuring the success of projects. This paper will discuss the issues local government project managers must consider to determine if their project is a success

On the Sensitivity of the Devonian Climate to Continental Configuration, Vegetation Cover, Orbital Configuration, CO 2 Concentration, and Insolation

During the Devonian (419 to 359 million years ago), life on Earth witnessed decisive evolutionary breakthroughs, most prominently the colonization of land by vascular plants and vertebrates. However, it was also a period of major marine extinctions coinciding with marked changes in climate. The cause of these changes remains unknown, and it is therefore instructive to explore systematically how the Devonian climate responds to changes in boundary conditions. Here we use coupled climate model simulations to investigate separately the influence of changes in continental configuration, vegetation cover, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, the solar constant, and orbital parameters on the Devonian climate. The biogeophysical effect of changes in vegetation cover is small, and the cooling due to continental drift is offset by the increasing solar constant. Variations of orbital parameters affect the Devonian climate, with the warmest climate states at high obliquity and high eccentricity. The prevailing mode of decadal to centennial climate variability relates to temperature fluctuations in high northern latitudes which are mediated by coupled oscillations involving sea ice cover, ocean convection, and a regional overturning circulation. The temperature evolution during the Devonian is dominated by the strong decrease in atmospheric CO2. Albedo changes due to increasing vegetation cover cannot explain the temperature rise found in Late Devonian proxy data. Finally, simulated temperatures are significantly lower than estimates based on oxygen isotope ratios, suggesting a lower d18O ratio of Devonian seawater. ©2019. The Authors

Project management maturity levels and organizational revenue in New South Wales local government.

Local government in New South Wales (NSW) is responsible for the delivery of a variety of projects, each with variable success measures. Due to the variation in success indicators, measurement of project management maturity (process and procedures) was sought. An industry specific project management maturity model was used to assess maturity levels. Using a mixed-methods approach, the project management maturity levels of NSW local government were determined. Correlation analysis was used to determine that maturity and organizational revenue are related

Discerning primary versus diagenetic signals in carbonate carbon and oxygen isotope records: An example from the Permian-Triassic boundary of Iran

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordSedimentary successions across the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) are marked by a prominent negative carbon isotope excursion. This excursion, found in both fossil (e.g., brachiopod) and bulk carbonate at many sites around the world, is generally considered to be related to a global carbon cycle perturbation. Oxygen isotopes also show a negative excursion across the PTB, but because δ18O is more prone to diagenetic overprint (especially in bulk carbonate), these data are often not used in palaeoenvironmental analyses. In the present study, bulk-rock and brachiopod δ13C and δ18O, as well as conodont δ18O, were analyzed in PTB successions at Kuh-e-Ali Bashi and Zal (NW Iran) in order to evaluate diagenetic overprints on primary marine isotopic signals. The results show that the use of paired C-O isotopes and Mn-Sr concentrations is not sufficient to identify diagenetic alteration in bulk materials, because δ13C-δ18O covariation can be due to environmental factors rather than diagenesis, and Sr/Ca and Mn/Ca ratios can vary as a function of bulk-rock lithology. Comparison of δ13C profiles shows that all bulk carbonate is altered to some degree, although the general bulk-rock trend mimics that of the brachiopod data with a systematic offset of -1.2(±0.4)‰. This suggests that the first-order δ13C trend in bulk carbonate is generally robust but that the significance of small-scale carbon isotope fluctuations is uncertain, especially when such fluctuations are linked to lithologic variation. The PTB interval, which is marked by a low-carbonate 'Boundary Clay' in the study sections, may be especially prone to diagenetic alteration, e.g., via late-stage dolomitization. Comparison of oxygen-isotope profiles for bulk rock and well-preserved fossils (both brachiopods and conodonts) shows that the former are offset by -2.1(±0.4)‰. Diagenetic modeling suggests that these offsets were the product mainly of early diagenesis at burial temperatures of ~50-80°C and water/rock ratios of <10. Authigenic carbonates precipitated during early diagenesis represent a potentially major sink for isotopically light carbon at a global scale that has received relatively little attention to date.TJA thanks the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF EAR-1053449), the NASA Exobiology program (NNX13AJ1IG), and the China University of Geosciences—Wuhan (SKL-GPMR program GPMR201301, and SKL-BGEG programBGL21407) for their support. This study was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; projects KO1829/12-1, KO1829/12-2 and KO2011/8-1)

FIELD TRIALS OF ONTARIO RABIES VACCINE BAIT IN THE NORTHEASTERN USA, 2012–14

In the US, rabies virus (RV) has been enzootic in raccoons (Procyon lotor) since the late 1940s. Oral rabies vaccination (ORV) was implemented in the 1990s to halt the spread of raccoon RV and continues to be used as a wildlife management tool. Our objective was to evaluate a recombinant human adenovirus–rabies virus glycoprotein vaccine in northern New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire over a 3-yr period, using changes in RV neutralizing antibody (RVNA) seroprevalence in raccoon populations as an immunologic index of ORV impact. Vaccine baits were distributed at 75 baits/km2 and 750-m flight-line spacing in the study area. Animal sampling occurred during 10-d intervals pre- and post-ORV during 2012–14 within eight study cells: four northern cells had a history of ORV with a different vaccine for 3 or more years prior and four southern cells were ORV naive. Baseline raccoon RVNA seroprevalence was 27.3% (n=1,079, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 24.8–30.1) before ORV in 2012. Raccoon RVNA seroprevalence averaged 68.5% (n=1,551, 95% CI: 66.2–70.8) post-ORV during the 3-yr study. The RVNA seroprevalence levels in this study were considered to be adequate for stopping raccoon RV transmission and supported and expanded the results from a West Virginia field trial, as well as earlier evaluations along the Canada–US border