Archive for the 'Capital Development Plans and Projects' forum

20^th century enterprise management lays structures over the business to control the enterprise

The operations and development of the enterprise today are controlled by structures laid over the business for:

• Financial and statistical accounting through a chart of accounts structure
• Financial control through actual compared to budgeted measures
• Cost accounting through activity, center, and product structures
• Capital development control through project structures and asset registers
• Quality control through TQM, six sigma, and other quality structures

The control provided by each of these structures is limited to certain entities and known measures. Financial control covers capital for tangible assets and finances for cash receipts and expenditures against plans or budgets. Cost control is limited to known costs against arbitrary entities like activity or center. Non-financial control is sporadic depending on individual management. Quality control focuses on performance producing selected end-product results.

Accounts record accrued and actual receipts and expenditures from point money comes in to the point money is spent. There is no control of the business cycle from the point money is spent until value is created to enable money to come in. Accounting control is enforcement of rules and principles rather than providing accurate information for business control.

Capital development lumps costs together as a project or tangible asset. The specific capital solutions developed are not controlled and may be lumped together as one large asset or classified as intangible assets. No method or information is provided to plan and control return on specific capital solution investments. Projects are not organized to capture investment costs for implemented solutions and plan value-added to the business from solution utilization. Capital worth numbers are sporadic for some asset and liability solutions, but real capital worth in the capability to produce future business value is unknown.

Each structure is separate from other structures and uses its own terminology and definitions to describe the enterprise. Each structure introduces high costs and much effort to collect and report information. But, none of these overlaid structures can control the actual business.

The actual business must be controlled for each component of the current and planned business

In order to control the business the actual business must be organized, planned, and directed as explained in previous articles. [more...].

20^th century enterprise management problems are caused by rigid structures laid over the business

The generally accepted “business enterprise” definition is the activity of providing goods and services. The failure of 20^th century management to organize and manage the business enterprise in the activity of providing goods and services creates unsolvable management, business, and performance problems.

The fatal error of 20^th century management, employed by all companies, corporations, and other enterprises today, is laying a rigid enterprise organization structure over the business, rather than organizing the business. Since the business is not organized, the business cannot be managed. Therefore, rigid enterprise management structures for planning, processes, systems, financial and cost accounts, quality, administration, performance, reporting, etc must be contrived and laid over the business. Structures laid over the business conflict with the actual business, restrict business flexibility, move out of “alignment” as the business changes, prevent direct business data capture and management, and do not provide the direct management information needed to manage the business.

20^th century enterprise management improvements can never solve unsolvable problems

We continue to teach 20^th century enterprise management, contrive new 20^th century structures and “business solutions” to lay over the business, and write more 20^th century management books, but we have never solved the top ten problems of 20^th century enterprise management.

1. Reorganization: The business changes while the organization structure remains rigid, causing upheavals to lay a new rigid organization structure over the business and repeat the cycle
2. Accounting and Financial Management: Historic legacies focus on cash control and prevent professional records management and modern capital management of the actual business increasing financial risk and preventing accurate business management information
3. Investment Analysis and Development Project Management: Investments and projects are managed separate from the business, rather than itemizing, planning, and managing the costs, benefits, and return of capital development investments, as part of the business
4. Administration: Performing functions, while leaving tangible and intangible capital utilization and improvement unmanaged
5. Performance Management: “Performance” definitions mix actions executed with the result accomplished, so business processes, performance management, and KPIs mix results and performance and manage “performance quality”
6. Business Complexity: Each organization, plan, processes, system, administration, or other structure is defined separately with different definitions creating business and information complexity and preventing business collaboration and common solutions applicable to any business
7. Information Technology: Business systems, data, information solutions, networks, and architectures are designed to process overlaid structures and managed as technology, not capital, creating costly IT infrastructures and continuing capital management problems
8. Change Management: Change management addresses the conflicts between structures laid over the business and the actual business to change structures, while the business remains undefined and unmanaged
9. Corporate Governance: Problems are addressed from the governance side to restrict and control management, rather than organizing the business to be governed by management on the corporate side
10. Alignment: Rigid overlaid structures go out of alignment as the business changes requiring continual changes to the structures to align closer to the business

These and other unsolvable 20^th century enterprise management problems are discussed, in detail, here at the Business Change Forum.

Solutions to he top 10 management, business, and performance problems of 20^th century enterprise management are described in a referenced article.

The top 10 problems are eliminated by 21^st century business management

20^th century enterprise management problems are unsolvable, because they can never be solved by laying new or improved structures over the business. [more...].

20^th century enterprise management used today lays various plans over the business

20^th century enterprise management cannot plan the business directly because the business is not organized. The enterprise is planned through various structures laid over the business. These overlaid planning structures include:

• Strategic plans using such structures as maps and corporate plans
• Financial plan and budget structures
• Information technology plans and enterprise architectures
• Capital development plans and investment analysis structures
• Human resource hiring and development plans
• Other operational plan structures

Each of these planning structures uses its own set of entities to describe the enterprise, uses different information systems, and requires its own support staff. Each plan must be maintained and updated with actual progress against the planned entities, and reported. The plans plan the enterprise in various ways depending on the particular structures implemented.

None of the overlaid plans plan the actual business

Since the business is not organized, the business cannot be planned. The results produced by the business cannot be planned as an interrelated set. Some results may be planned in isolation as separate entities such as product sold and revenue received. The plans are usually created from estimates rather than a period by period build up from the existing business. Since the business is not planned actual business data is not planned for actual measurement; such as performance costs, performance effectiveness, result value, result quality, capital worth, investment returns, etc.< [more...].

Investment Analysis is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century enterprise management

20^th century investment analysis cannot plan the actual return on investments

How does your company analyze strategic investments in capital development? Does your company perform a cost-benefit analysis? Are all the specific investments needed for business success planned? Are the costs of the investment analyzed, itemized, and scheduled? Are the benefits of the investment analyzed, itemized, and scheduled? Is the value to be added to the business planned and set up as goals to menage the return on investment?

For the most part, 20^th century investment management cannot itemize the costs or benefits of investment, particularly investments in management improvement and business change. Costs are project expenditures rather than investments in specifically-identified capital items. Benefits are usually estimates of increases in revenues or reductions in costs.

Identify and value results needed to justify investments and set result goals to manage the return on all investments

21^st century business management manages the economic outputs of the business as specific results and manages the invested capital utilized to produce results as specific capital solutions. [more...]

Capital Development Project Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century enterprise management

20^th century enterprise management cannot plan, manage, or repay capital development projects

Capital development projects for internal management or business improvement today tend to be ad-hoc and conducted separate from the business. We have unsolvable problems in 20^th century capital development project planning, management, and return on the project investment, so we cannot:

• Plan and manage operations and development as an integrated continuum that is part of the business
• Itemize, plan, and achieve specific benefits from development projects
• Clearly and systemically understand what we must be implementing from projects as part of the business for ongoing management and return on investment
• Scope the project as part of the enterprise business to define specific results to add or improve and specific capital solutions to acquire, develop, or improve
• Plan the output results to be produced from the project in specific capital items to be implemented and utilized by the business
• Utilize users and administrative staff in proper roles in the project
• Utilize contractors and consultants as solutions in an enterprise-managed project
• Document and record the project so that all capital developed is fully documented and that knowledge required for use is created
• Manage the capital to be consumed and utilized in the project
• Manage the capital development project as a subsidiary business
• Record accurate development costs by capital item developed
• Implement project results as capital items for direct utilization by the business
• Measure the actual return of capital development investments overall and by capital solution utilized

The unsolvable 20^th century enterprise management problems hamper project management, particularly for enterprise internal capital development and management improvement.

Manage results to drive capital development and gain the return in result value created

Business management provides new breakthroughs for planning and managing enterprise capital development and planning and managing the capital development project.

Capital development develops two things:

• The capital to be utilized as solutions that incur costs
• The results to be produced by the developed capital to provide benefit and return

When we plan and manage a capital development project, we must plan and manage two things:

• The results to be produced by project performance
• The capital to be consumed and performance solutions to be utilized to perform the project

Business management utilizes Result-performance-Management knowledge and procedures to do both. [more...]

What is the business and capital as part of the business?

The business is defined as “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for cost and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. Every business in the world invests in capital needed, in order to utilize capital in performance, in order to produce output results. The capital must have a worth that justifies the investment costs for acquisition or development and implementation as capital solutions.

Capital is the investments in the business to have the capability to produce results

The only reason to invest in capital is to provide the capability to produce business results. Capital is all the tangible and intangible assets available to be utilized by the business. Capital includes the business organization, processes and systems, humans and their capabilities, facility equipment and supplies, management plans and tactics, and information capital. Capital has a worth in the capability to create result value attributable to the capital over the remaining capital life.

20^th century management fails to organize and manage capital as part of the business

Today, people think of capital as items in an asset register or on the payroll, rather than as items to be managed and utilized as part of the business. Businesses invest in enormous sums of money capital and then fail to identify the specific capital solutions developed, the costs of developing the capital, the worth of the capital as developed, the utilization of the capital to create value, the cost of capital utilization or consumption as capital worth deteriorates, and the value created to return the original investment. [more...].

Change Management is one of the top 10 problems of 20^th century management!

Business change cannot be managed directly because the business is not managed

Business change is a mystery to the 20^th century enterprise because the business, the activity of providing goods and services, is not organized and managed. The enterprise is organized and managed through organization and management structures laid over the business. 20^th century “business change” is not change to the business, but is change to structures laid over the business. Most “business change” lays new organization, process, or system structures over the business with little positive change to the business itself. The rigid new and old structures are separately defined and conflict with each other and the actual changing business. Since the business is not managed, the value created by change cannot be planned or managed and the return on change investments cannot be measured.

The solution is to organize the business for direct management of business change

Business change is a change to either an output result produced by the business or a capital solution utilized in business performance. When the business is organized and managed, business change automatically reorganizes the business and can be managed as the routine. Business management organizes results and capital solutions to change the business as the daily routine. Business change projects involve capital development to increase the value of results or to enable new results, by implementing new or improved capital solutions. If the enterprise does not manage results and capital solutions utilized in performance, it is difficult to manage change to results, capital solutions, and performance.

The Change Management Problem

20^th century business change is change to overlaid organization and management structures

Even accepting 20^th century management change to overlaid organization, process, information system, account, performance management, and other structures, there are another set of problems. [more...]

The academic approach dictates incremental improvement and prevent breakthrough thinking and innovations

20^th century enterprise management methods, used today, are devised using the “academic approach” that accepts the solutions in place and the existing body of knowledge as the basis and seeks to make improvements. The academic approach may produce incremental improvements, but it also prevents new management thinking and breakthroughs. New management methods build on old methods. New management books and articles must be substantiated as accurate by footnoting previously published works and referencing existing methods in use.

There are many fundamental problems with traditional organization and management methods that cannot be changed by traditional change methods

What if the body of knowledge in the “published record” is inaccurate or if basic management methods in use are flawed? The academic approach then propagates inaccuracies and flaws. The Business Change Forum contains hundreds of examples where today’s 20^th century organization and management methods, principles, structures and definitions are flawed and inaccurate. So, new methods build on flawed old methods. New books repeat old inaccuracies.

The Business Change Forum discusses unsolvable 20^th century management problems that have never been solved despite thousands and books and methods based on the academic approach to management improvement. [more...]s

20^th century enterprise management cannot plan and manage investments for a specific return

20^th century enterprise management used today concentrates on performance and the need for performance improvement. Development planning and execution concentrates on the capital needed for performance. Investments are directed primarily at tangible assets or achieving a project outcome. Return on investments cannot be calculated, since specific capital items and business improvements are not defined. So, potential increases in sales, revenues, etc are estimated to justify the investment. Project management manages the project separate from the business as an entity in itself.

20^th century enterprise management objective is capital development without managing the capital developed

20^th century enterprise management supposedly manages capital development. The managed capital developed is limited to capital that is managed, primarily in assets and employees. Most other capital is not managed or is classified as intangible assets. Development costs are not captured against the specific capital items to be utilized by the business to provide the return. [more...].

All capital development should develop capital, plus business results for return on investment

Every business enterprise must produce output results that lead to goods and service results to create value. An expanding enterprise must produce new results of increasing value. The enterprise needs additional capital in order to produce new results as part of the business. The capital must be acquired or developed, implemented as specific capital solutions, and then utilized to produce improved or new results of increased value. The value added to new business results must justify the capital expenditure to acquire or develop needed solutions and provide the return on investment.

All capital development is really result and capital development to develop capital as solutions to be utilized to create additional value in output results produced by the business. The additional value of output results provides the return on the capital development investment. If the capital solutions utilized and the results produced by business performance are not managed, result and capital development cannot be managed properly and the return on investment cannot be measured. Even physical capital development, like a new building, produces capital solutions to produce results, be it the enterprise office facility solution or a facility solution to produce lease or rental income results.

20^th century enterprise management does not organize or manage results or capital as sets

20^th century management used today does not manage the enterprise business, defined as “investments in capital as solutions of worth utilized for costs and effectiveness of performance to produce value and quality in results”. [more...].