Interview five ....................................................................................................1 46

product, the service, or the project. In other words, the increase will not only be in quality, but also in the quantity.

While in portfolio management, the interviewee says that this concept is more related to ensuring proper decision making and better strategic planning. In his point of view, good portfolio management makes sure that all projects are aligned with their strategies and direct them towards achieving the business goals. Again, this can be achieved when the company’s management involves its working staff in the discussions, during all the phases of the work process. Such discussions maintain accurate moves in every phase, starting from the decision-making phase in the portfolio management, until the company reaches the final outcomes. Another worthy point that he mentioned, when considerable assessment of the projects is done during the portfolio management phase, the results would be consistency of success and an increase in the rate of success of individual projects. Therefore, every phase in the work process should be taken in consideration even if the interviewee believes that innovation is the most important; however, if the management gives each phase the required time and the efforts, the results are most probably going to be victorious.

Concerning using frameworks, the interviewee spoke in a very positive way about using them. He recommended using one or even multiple frameworks, because he believes that frameworks can save the company a lot of time and hassle. He said that good frameworks have clear steps or procedures for managing the workflow. To clarify, whenever the company has the procedure of the project clear and easy to use, then the company is ready to execute the project. Thus, they save time and effort. He added that frameworks have advantages such as they help and ensure a fixed direction of a certain approach. He resembled the framework to a steer which guides the working team to pass through multiple checkpoints where each member of the working team confirms that they have all the essential needs on their critical journey. In other words, the framework not only provides the plan and the procedures of the workflow, but also it provides information about what is needed to accomplish the project until the end.

He believes that successful companies are concerned about the impact of the framework on the final outcomes. In his opinion, the performance of the team is only a tool to reach the final objectives of the company. Hence, he seems to have good experiences with using frameworks, since he finds them very helpful and timesaving. Probably, he finds them useful in terms of organizing the work and providing clear instructions for working team. However, how will he know that they will impact the final outcomes, in a positive way, before using them?! Most likely, he uses frameworks which have been previously applied and have proven to result in satisfactory outcomes for other successful companies. Probably,

he assesses various frameworks that are used by other companies and examines which ones mostly align with his company’s values and objectives, then, he would decide which one or ones are the most appropriate to embrace.

Despite that the interviewee recommends using frameworks, he said that they do not have a full model framework. He declared that they have designed some sort of a simple framework, which ensures facilitation and simplicity among the procedures. They use it in some phases of the projects and not always. However, he said that they need a framework which helps to define the most suitable practice for each situation. At this point, the company appeared to be in need of an advanced, easy-to-use, clear, and professional framework. In other words, the company is in need of a framework which is up to date with the needs of the current market. Also, the framework should not be complicated in terms of using; it should be user-friendly with clear instructions. Also, it should be professional in a way that provides quality type of work among the staff, quality type of products or services, and larger quantities of sales.

Among the disadvantages of some frameworks, the interviewee stated that some frameworks lack agility and require the engagement of few individuals. As other previous interviewees, this interview appears to care about a flexible framework, which allows managers to move in different directions, depending on the surprising events that show up when the project is executed. Also, it is clear that the interviewee is supportive for engaging a bigger number of employees in the company’s discussions and meetings, because the more employees are involved, the higher the probability of innovation. More discussions lead to more ideas. When there are many ideas under study, the best ideas are usually chosen, leading to better outcomes. Therefore, an important strength that the interviewee is looking for in a new framework is something that engages various departments and types of staff, in order to reach the best results in quality and quantity.

4.2.6.Interview six

The interviewee here (See Appendix I: Interviews Transcripts) has portrayed the three concepts in an attractive way. He imagined that the three concepts are three magnifiers. The portfolio management was the magnifier with the wider look; it consists of the general projects that the management selects, according to the company’s interests and benefits. In other words, one can understand that portfolio management includes the assessment phase of the project and the decision phase whether the project is worth taking or not. During portfolio management, the interviewee said that a compare and contrast process takes place during this phase; thus, it allows the management to understand the load over

each business unit. Therefore, one can infer that the portfolio management phase is useful, as well, for evaluating the work pressure which will be held by each business unit.

The closer magnifier, according to the interviewee, is innovation management where one needs to ensure that the projects are adding a new value to the company. For him, innovation is not merely related to the product or the service; it can influence the staff by boosting their motivation. That’s true!

It is so because innovation allows the employee who provided the novel idea to feel with a sense of belonging to the company and a higher self-confidence. Also, innovative employees will feel motivated to work better in order to maintain in the minds of their managers and administrators a view that these innovative employees are a need for the company’s success.

The closest magnifier, said the interviewee, is project management, that is used to optimize the project’s processes and ensure the highest efficiency. He believes that the role of project management is to provide accurate definitions of the scope, schedule, and the budget of the project from the very beginning. In other words, the role of the project manager is not merely planning; it is also defining the tasks and distributing the tasks. His tasks include, as well, executing daily operations and evaluating whether each task is being done properly. The project manager specifies the timeline of the work. He identifies the required resources and budget. Therefore, the project manager’s work is almost defining every step in the workflow, from the beginning until the end.

In brief, it is clear that the interviewee has a sufficient practical background in the industry in a way that he was able to put each concept in an abstract picture. This picture allowed us to see how the three concepts are interrelated, but which one is more general, and which one is more specific. What he explained pinpoints to where most of the efforts are put; this working area is the project management.

He believes that frameworks are useful but there is a need to tend towards generality and not details, in a sense that they do not have to list of exact instructions for processes, such as how to do this and that.

Instead, it should set a roadmap for completing this job. This means that the framework should not restrict the style of work into specific methods; it should allow the management to choose the most appropriate methods and strategies for them. Therefore, the framework should direct the work into systematic tasks without specifying the methods to perform these tasks. This is to facilitate the process instead of complicating it.

He complains that it is necessary, in the construction and building materials industry, to make an effort in the practical domain by translating theoretical words into actual methods. The term framework should be used for a broad range of activities and business processes. Based on what he said, it is necessary to try the frameworks, which are constructed in the universities, through systematic research

in order to evaluate the frameworks and modify them according to practical requirements of the companies and the market.

He added that companies cannot quantify all the values of the impact of frameworks. Some values are seen qualitatively. This means that part of the impact can be quantitative, such as the profit and the rate of sales. Unlike the other part of the impact which can be qualitative, sometimes the impact of the framework can be better communication among the departments, increased motivation in the performance of the working team, or improved organization of the operations of the workflow. Such impacts are qualitative, which means they can be observed but not specified by number. In brief, both, the team’s performance and organization and the company’s final outcomes and sales, are impacted by the utilized framework to a certain extent.

This interviewee does not seem very enthusiastic about using frameworks, because they got used to focusing on the results rather than approaches. The interviewee said that the company’s management does not feel that there is a necessity for using frameworks, because the company relies on the manager and how he chooses to deal with the projects and situations, depending on the circumstances. This reveals that the company’s management is not interested a systematic framework, rather they care about the survival of the company in the market. In other words, as long as the company’s management is satisfied with the rate of sales of the company and as long as they are pleased with their situation in the market, they do not care a lot to follow an organized framework.

The interviewee assumes that many companies avoid using frameworks, due to certain weak points in them, which are that these frameworks do not help the companies solve their problems. This could be true to a certain extent! Although some frameworks provide a map of the workflow, but some do not offer a solution to many problems, which are encountered by company managers in the practical process of the work. He believes that companies are searching for what meets their needs and fulfills their requirements. What needs did the interviewee mention? He mentioned that companies need something which supports three main things: alignment with strategies, project acceleration, and more communication. This means that an effective framework should be in harmony with the type of strategies companies use in this industry. Also, it should facilitate the work process by providing quick work processes and ensuring fast satisfactory results for the customers.