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Strategy Question: How can I track the status of multiple initiatives in a timely and easily understood fashion?

Summary: Waterfall charts have been part of business comparisons for some time. Many times these take the form of tables comparing current figures against a budget or standard by fiscal period. We use this same type of comparison format and use it to graphically convey information relative to project status relative to target dates. This simple tool provides a quick and effective method to present meaningful data. This one-page chart visually tracks progress of multiple projects or activities. By using the waterfall format, an executive can track schedule status along with highlighting slips and accelerations. The unique feature of this tool is the immediate highlighting of status. If a project continues on schedule, the project line appears as a continuing horizontal line on the waterfall chart. Slips or accelerations are shown by movement of the line away from the horizontal. The visual nature provides a method to update numerous initiatives in a format that can be reduced to management by exception if desired.

In this paper, we explore the effects of emerging digital technologies on professionalization within organizations. Specifically, we examine how the emergence of data analytics as a new cross-functional profession rooted in new digital technologies is challenging human resources (HR) as an established organizational profession. Our qualitative study reveals how rhetorical work and material work have established a symbiosis between data science and HR. Rather than leading to de-professionalization, new technologies are enabling HR practices to be augmented and new actors to be integrated into the professionalization project, thereby elevating the status of HR. These findings contribute to the literature on the role of technology in institutional theory and its influences on the professionalization.

The French higher education system has experienced reforms since the 2000s that gradually emphasized the executive power of universities and the centralization of decision-making. This culminated with the excellence initiatives (Idex) that concentrated 7.7 billion euros on only nine institutions to create “world-class” universities and made their leaders responsible for the local allocation of this substantial endowment. The universities’ executives had four years to complete changes in governance in order to see their institution permanently awarded the title and the funding of Idex. The hiring process is one of the elements that this policy impacted the most within these universities, enabling leaders to create new kinds of positions and control the hiring process. However, by looking at the hiring practices within three different Idex, we will show that collegiality did not disappear but rather it evolved: in the three cases, the closest colleagues have been marginalized but decision-making remained collective and in the hands of academics chosen by the university executives. Variations in the intensity of this evolution could be observed according to two dimensions. First, the scientific reputation of the university: the higher it is, the less collegiality is transformed. Second, the level of external pressures: the less collegial universities have relaxed their hiring practices after the evaluation that permanently granted them the label of Idex.

Academic library work has often been project-based; however, the interest and adoption of formalized project management techniques has come late to these organizations. The desired outcomes of good project management systems include excellent communication, organized work in manageable tasks, clear expectations, and responsible management of resources.

With an aim to improve on these elements, a new focus on project management at the University of Minnesota Libraries provided a unique opportunity to showcase the development of an informal, in-house set of standard processes for a large, academic institution. Honoring the processes found within individual departments and divisions was key to the work of the Project Management Processes Task Force that created common language and standard processes for project development and implementation to support the growing focus on cross-divisional, cross-departmental projects.

The outcome of this work was to greatly streamline the ability of any staff member to successfully develop and move project proposals from idea to completion. Transparency of process led to stronger understanding of not only project status but also key stage gates and decision points to ensure projects stay on track in supporting the Libraries’ strategic planning. The clarity in scope and the outcomes of projects creates more potential for the Libraries to align their work with that of the University as a whole. Well-developed and implemented project management standard processes create stronger connections between all library units, through consistencies of practice and language, as well as shared expectations and outcomes, by both staff and administrators.

The University of Minnesota Libraries’ process for developing practical project management processes identifies the benefits of this approach for similar organizations as well as outlining specific methods for implementing a set of standards within academic libraries.

The present study investigated the nature of Public–Private Partnership (PPP) in various subsectors of social and commercial infrastructure in India for better understanding of significant characteristics, attributes and factors governing the public private participation. The Indicator Analysis approach has been adopted to study a total of 119 Public–Private-partnered projects involving four qualitative and three quantitative indicators to help build a detailed profile of partnered projects in various subsectors of social and commercial infrastructure in India. The subnational government has been unravelled as the dominant form of government participation across all the subsectors of the social and commercial infrastructure in India. The infrastructure projects in the subsector of tourism have registered high average cost and time overruns. Further, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) mode has been identified as the most preferred PPP entry mode in the social and commercial infrastructure in the Indian economy. Since, the Indian economy comprises a large workforce, investment in social and commercial infrastructure projects through PPP mode can tap and harness the demographic dividend, which is critical for sustaining the growth of developing and emerging economies. The study provides a detailed account of qualitative and quantitative information about the nature of social and commercial infrastructure sector that shall facilitate successful implementation of the PPP projects in this soft infrastructure sector, which has a substantial bearing on the economic growth and human development in the Indian economy.