News & Insights

Driving Project Culture -  a unique leadership challenge

A healthy project culture engages and binds people together in a shared enterprise, providing alignment with organisational goals while also supporting the well-being of individuals. An unhealthy culture does the opposite, fragmenting bonds and alliances, creating adversarial relationships, and diminishing personal well-being. All that and more – ultimately a poor culture erodes project timeframes and goals. A bad culture is bad for business.

Large and complex projects often experience a ‘culture clash’ as different organisations come together with their own ‘way of working’. This can lead to a poor overall project culture and unproductive outcomes. It might seem like a ‘no brainer’ that projects require an interconnected project culture to succeed. However, the task of creating one can get lost in the detail or ‘weeds’ of the daily grind and critical path of project programs.

Project leaders face the task of creating a shared culture within a temporary project ‘super-organisation’. Success depends on a ‘one team’ culture that enhances and doesn’t diminish the strengths of participating organisations, or the contributions of their people. An effective project culture must incorporate contemporary expectations of career progression, flexibility and leadership.

People now seek an open, collaborative culture where ideas are sought, opportunities are created and relationships are fostered. If they don’t find it, they may look elsewhere. The ‘a job for life’ values of last century have changed. Talent retention is a risk.

With the above in mind, we created the Project Culture Index (PCX) to measure and maximise a project’s culture across its lifespan. The PCX captures project participants’ experience, providing project leaders with the data to foster a climate of success.

Through regular assessment and tracking of the projects culture leaders can make fast adjustments before challenges become intractable problems.