Project Management Is a Value Strategy
Value. That term has taken on new importance in the last few months. As I sit here writing
this preface, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been down for the previous eight
days, down some 2,000 points since the United States Congress passed the $700 billion economic
recovery bill, and some 35 percent from its peak only about a year ago.
This “economic event” was caused partly by derivatives, instruments that derive their value
from some other instrument that has value. Derivatives appear to serve two purposes:
1) to offer alternative methods for exchanging an instrument with intrinsic value (futures
and options, for example) and 2) to disguise the true value of the instrument, to sell it for
more than it’s worth (in this case, mortgage securities). According to reports, companies
have hired mathematicians and physicists to develop derivatives of such instruments.Now
the United States Treasury is considering buying these instruments (called “toxic mortgage
securities” by some newspeople) because no one knows what they’re worth. The Federal
Reserve Bank (the “Fed”) is planning to take equity interest on some banks, to help finance
banks holding such instruments.
Value. Perhaps it’s coincidental—or perhaps it’s fate—that this book was published shortly
after these events. The reason: the core theme for this book is that projects and project management
add value to an organization.
Value. That term has taken on new importance in the last few months. As I sit here writing
this preface, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been down for the previous eight
days, down some 2,000 points since the United States Congress passed the $700 billion economic
recovery bill, and some 35 percent from its peak only about a year ago.
This “economic event” was caused partly by derivatives, instruments that derive their value
from some other instrument that has value. Derivatives appear to serve two purposes:
1) to offer alternative methods for exchanging an instrument with intrinsic value (futures
and options, for example) and 2) to disguise the true value of the instrument, to sell it for
more than it’s worth (in this case, mortgage securities). According to reports, companies
have hired mathematicians and physicists to develop derivatives of such instruments.Now
the United States Treasury is considering buying these instruments (called “toxic mortgage
securities” by some newspeople) because no one knows what they’re worth. The Federal
Reserve Bank (the “Fed”) is planning to take equity interest on some banks, to help finance
banks holding such instruments.
Value. Perhaps it’s coincidental—or perhaps it’s fate—that this book was published shortly
after these events. The reason: the core theme for this book is that projects and project management
add value to an organization.
