(Projects) Made In China

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(Projects) Made In China
Janet Carmosky and William Carl (March 13, 2008)

The guoqing (national character) of Chinese project management stresses instincts over methodology. With an education system that churns out resourceful engineers, projects are ready to deliver at the task level. It all falls apart or comes together where project leaders must intuitively translate mission into objectives, and that’s tricky when directives are based more on political criteria than commercial principles.

The authors recently toured Chinese tech parks with senior officials from the New Tech and High Technology Development Agency of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, known more commonly as the TORCH program. Here, they share their observations about the Chinese project management workforce and culture.

China has a top-down economy in which single party rule, state control of many resources, and a strong emphasis on planning — China is now implementing its eleventh 5-year plan — means the direction for development is always provided. Developers of power plants, business districts, residential areas, research parks, even private enterprises, all take their cues from policy. Compare this with our environment: an economy of free market and free agency, where elected officials change out regularly and every decision is analyzed by the implementers before a commitment is made. Clearly, at the mission level, project creation and ownership is going to be unfamiliar to most Americans.

What about the functions of project management? The heart and soul of our discipline lies in the translation of missions into objectives, and objectives into tasks; in the allocation of responsibility and the measurement of progress and outcomes.

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