by Arne Vestergaard and Marianne Smedegaard

We have for a number of years taught project managers how to manage people and processes. We have heard stories from many different organisations describing numerous ways to understand and execute projects. It seems that there exists not a single correct way to manage projects, but many possible ways. One thing, though, seems to be characteristic of most of the cases. Top management expects the project manager to have complete control over the project and to have answers to any question anyone might want to ask. In many cases it is also a requirement that the project manager ensures that members of the project group have clear goals and that the development of the project is on schedule.

In this paper we want to explore to what extent the effort to control and direct a project is useful, and to what extent a project can be restricted by tight control. Perhaps there are other concepts for project management that better fit with the complexity and variability that characterise projects in today’s world. Perhaps it is preferable to see projects as a living system rather than strategically and bureaucratically.

A change in perspective of this kind would mean that the project organisation must relinquish the idea of having control over the project all the time and, if they do achieve control, see it as a temporary state of affairs. Some degree of chaos then becomes a necessary (but not exclusive) condition for innovation and for handling complexity and change. In other words, the project manager must place the project on the edge of chaos. In this paper we will try to understand what this means in practice.

Read more here http://arne-vestergaard.dk/default.aspx?pageid=208

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Brazil, China, Bangladesh and Uganda see upgrade in rankings, as Germany tops list

WASHINGTON, January 15, 2010—The capacity of countries to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets is improving around the world, but much more progress is needed to spur faster economic growth and help firms benefit from trade recovery, according to a new World Bank Group survey on trade logistics.

Germany is the top performer among the 155 economies ranked in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI), which are included in the report Connecting to Compete 2010: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy. The study is based on the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.

“Economic competitiveness is relentlessly driving countries to strengthen performance, and improving trade logistics is a smart way to deliver more efficiencies, lower costs and added economic growth,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick, who is visiting Berlin January 13 -15 to discuss global development and economic issues. “Streamlining the connections among markets, manufacturers, farmers and consumers offers tremendous growth and investment opportunities and should be a top focus for developing country growth strategies. As we issue this global report, I’m pleased to be in Germany, the top performer on efficient logistics.”

According to the LPI, high income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, with most of them occupying important places in global and regional supply chains. By contrast, the ten lowest performing countries are almost all from the low and lower income groups.

Although the study shows a substantial “logistics gap” between rich countries and most developing countries, it finds positive trends in some areas essential to logistics performance and trade. Some of them include the modernization of customs, use of information technology, and development of private logistics services.

“Following our first survey in 2007, many developing countries have improved their capacity to connect to international markets, which is a key ingredient for competitiveness and economic growth,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “But if developing countries want to come out of the crisis in a stronger and more competitive position, they need to invest in better trade logistics.”

“Countries with better logistics performance can grow faster, become more competitive and increase their level of investment,” said Bernard Hoekman, World Bank Trade Department Director. “Our research shows that increasing logistics performance in low income countries to the middle-income average could boost trade by around 15 per cent and benefit all firms and consumers through lower prices and better quality services.”

The report, headed by World Bank Group economists Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra, notes that among developing economies logistics performance transcends the level of per capita income: Many countries perform better than what their income level would suggest. The ten most significant over-performers include China (27), India (47), Uganda (66), Vietnam (53), Thailand (35), the Philippines (44), and South Africa (28).

Likewise, the countries with significant improvement in performance between the two surveys (the 2007 and 2010 LPI) are often those which implemented comprehensive logistics and trade facilitation reforms earlier, such as Colombia, Brazil, and Tunisia.

In terms of how developing countries are doing per region, South Africa (28) is the top performer from Africa; China (27) from East Asia; Poland (30) from Central and Eastern Europe; Brazil (41) from Latin America; Lebanon (33) from the Middle East; and India (47) from South Asia.

According to the study, logistics performance is heavily influenced by the quality of public sector institutions and the effective coordination of border clearance processes among all border management agencies. In this area, customs performs better than many other agencies, pointing to the need for border management reforms. In low performing countries, on average, half of the containers are physically inspected and one container out of seven at least twice.

Other areas for improvement include better transport policies, increasing competition in trade-related services such as trucking, freight forwarding and railways; and better trade-related infrastructure. For many low-income countries the most binding constraints are often in logistics services and international transit systems. Given they perform better on many other indicators, improving trade infrastructure is often reported to be a priority for middle-income countries.

The World Bank Group has a number of projects designed to improve trade logistics in developing countries. The US$250 million East Africa Trade and Transport Facilitation Project improved the corridor infrastructure and upgraded the main border crossing between Uganda and Kenya at Malaba, reducing border crossing times from three days to three hours. In Tunisia, a US$250 million operation is improving competitiveness by reducing trade costs and streamlining border clearance procedures. And in Afghanistan, the Bank is providing funding for a US$31.2 million project to modernize and computerize four major border crossings, increasing customs revenues from US$50 million when the project started in 2004 to over US$399 million in 2008.

In addition, the Bank is working with IBM, Microsoft and the Global Express Association as part of a public-private partnership on “Aid for Trade Facilitation.” The objective is to develop pilot projects in developing countries that apply innovative IT solutions to streamline border procedures.

To access the report under embargo, please visit: www.media.worldbank.org

The report and related material will be available to the public after the embargo expires at:
www.worldbank.org



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It’s hard to grasp or to imagine what the world would be without the meetings at Cabaret Voltaire at the beginning of the last century. These meetings witch eventually come to stand as symbols to the changes in society and to experiments and movements in the art world, witch have led us to today’s conceptual and contemporary art scene. What would the art world look like without the birth of Dada? This anti-art witch not only changed the expectations of what art could be but also most importantly opened the doors for what art could become.

It occurs to me that the famous Romanian revolution from 1989, the first televised live revolution ever, is like the first Dada – meetings. This revolution is in its form very similar to the birth of Dada. It also sprung out of a frustration towards the existing society, it also started in closed underground meetings and it also started as a chaotic reaction without clear course or direction, only with a kind of utopian dream of freedom and change. But most importantly what they both managed to accomplish is that they opened the doors to what one and society could become.

And even if history is full of these kinds of events, events witch have changed the entire world, it’s still quite hard to pinpoint exact dates or places where one meeting or one group changed history. Personally I can remember to the day, when I first met Dada. When I first realized that everything could be possible. Because Dada for me is of course an art-movement, but most importantly it’s a state of mind, it always was. A way to be. It’s actually a kind of key to everything that might be. It opens up to every possibility imaginable. I can go so far as calling it the perfect kind of freedom.
And I am quite sure that the meetings at Cabaret Voltaire almost a hundred years ago, the meetings led by exiled Romanians where for the simple purpose to change the state of mind. In every way possible!

/ Daniel Daboczy

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The  10 finalists will be presented on october 02 and the winner will receive the prize on October 30.

For more information please e-mail daniel@ideasforchange.tv

/Daniel Daboczy

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Or should we be individualists and do whatever we can in our own backyard? Maybe it´s enough to quietly protest by choosing other paths then the easy ones?

But I can tell you something, the world will not change itself. But the world hasn´t either been destroyed by the common man, but by companies and organizations trying to make a quick buck because we thought that we need cheap and massive ammounts of stuff. And they obliged, found cheap stuff for us. And we believed that cheap is better. We built a culture that chases the best deals. But somebody, somewhere always pays the difference. What you gain on a bargain is paid somehow else, by poor people slaving for you, by nature or other.

Do you think that we would have chosen the cheap but bad way instead of the expensive good way? I can tell you that even the poorest of us would do good first. I am sure of that.

So instead of butting our heads together and acomplish almost nothing, or little in a very long time, we should go to the source, to the power, to the money. We should go to the companies and ask them, make them, convince them to be part of this movement. Companies are made by people. People are made the same as you, think the same as you and act the same as you. There for it´s given how you can change.

Just put yourself in their shoes and make a good argument!

/Daniel Daboczy

http://en.cop15.dk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/01/q-and-a-copenhagen-summit

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SmashingApps and FileBanker are teaming up to do their part for the environment. Average American consumes more than 700 pounds of paper per year, highest compared to anywhere else in the world.  Hundreds of thousands of trees are cut down per day to support the consumption of paper that can be easily avoided.

SmashingApps believes that we can change that by helping people save and share their documents electronically instead of printing them out each time.  We do not want you to print so much so they are offering 500 GB file hosting accounts for free at FileBanker. You will need to enter “smashingapps” in the promo code field. You can use these accounts to share all your documents without ever having to print anything.

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You may argue that we have already fulfilled parts of his vision of the perfect society. That we have developed democracy and spent a lot of efforts building institutions to defend human rights and secure peace that goes further than More could have even imagined.

You may argue that most people in this world have a higher level of freedom, education and income than More’s Utopians.

And still: all these checks and balances, the riches and the freedom is granted only for a minority of the world’s population. There is appalling poverty and starvation in this world. Torture and human rights abuses committed every day. An enormous destruction force that unleashed could wipe out humanity. Corruption and abuse of power.

I do believe that we need to test and use new models, strategies and tools to reduce the suffering in the present and pave way for the transformations that our societies will go trough in the future. New ways of organising our societies and distribute our wealth, new ideas how democracy can be further developed, new models for power sharing and conflict resolution and new strategies for tackling poverty, disease, human rights abuse and environmental issues. In short: ideas for change.

The good news is that hundreds of thousands are already working with social innovation, in theory as well as in practise. My task as an editor for Ideas for Change will be to dig up the most interesting of those projects from a variety of internet-based sources. It is going to be a truly delightful task that I expect to be as enlightning for me as I hope it will be for yourself.

Jon Brunberg

Stockholm 30 Sep. 2009

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Social Business is a concept developed from 30 years experience of the Grameen buildup of Muhammad Yunus over the years. It emerged from a need where current institutions did not manage to fulfil social needs. Where public sector, private enterprises and charities have fell short to reach all the way to solve social problems, social business take a different stance. With the cause orientation found within charities, NGO’s, foundations and associations, and the efficiency, creativity, innovativeness and drive found within private enterprising, social businesses make positive social change and money at the same time. Thus, it releases itself from third party dependence for financing, and gets allowed by its investors and owners to focus primarily social return on investment as its main cause.

Prof. Yunus has already shown the effectiveness of this new type of business: his clear focus on eradicating extreme poverty combined with his condition of economic sustainability has created numerous models with incredible growth potential.

Muhammad Yunus defined the Grameen Social Business seven principles as follows.

The 7 principles of Grameen Social Business

1. Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization
2. Financial and economic sustainability
3. Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money
4. When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement
5. Environmentally conscious
6. Workforce gets market wage withbetter working conditions
7. …do it with joy

With these principles, it distinguishes itself more clearly than social entrepreneurship in general. Social entrepreneurship is addressing the same social needs, but only look on the way things gets organized – “in an entrepreneurial and innovative way”. It does not focus on what type of organization it is – it could be any kind of ”third sector” institution as mentioned above – charity, NGO, a foundation or association, a cooperative or a business. With the social business concept a focus is put on the long term self sustaining of the organization created due to its own revenue generation.

The concept of social business is developed more deeply in Yunus’ book ”the Future of Capitalism”.

/Anders Abrahamsson

Anders is a serial sustainopreneur and has been the driving force in the conceptual development of Sustainopreneurship, and published its Wikipedia article in 2008. He has published a number of publications on this topic, and is currently authoring a popular book on subject, one blog post at a time. Founder of SLICE Services and Publishing.

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The human kind has without understanding it reached a whole new stage in development. One where we no longer need to fight to survive. We no longer need to compete with other human beings to get roof over our heads or food on our tables. But we are so used to struggle for survival that we find it hard to change our way of living. We are stuck in the type of society that our explosion in material and economic development is based on and now we don´t know how to leave the routines we´ve created, and get off the treadmill.  Since the period of hunting and gathering to the more civilized society of agriculture and cattle and further on to the industrialism and early market economy, through all these phases we´ve been forced to focus on ourselves and our closest and compete with others to even survive. Even in modern times, while the prosperity has been great in many parts of the world, it hasn´t been successfully distributed to everyone.

The competition has of course changed a bit over the years, and gone from a direct competition between individuals or small groups of people to competition between nations, but it’s still been a kind of struggle for survival, where some nation has been victorious and increased their prosperity rapidly and other nations not. Somebody has to lose so that somebody else can win, which is the characteristic of a struggle for survival. But in reality we are no longer at that stage of development. Or at least we don’t have to be anymore. The problem is that our minds and habits don´t change as fast as technology, so in our minds we are still there, we still have to compete, to fight for survival.

In fact there are enough resources on our planet for everyone to lead a comfortable and safe life with a reasonably high material standard. And we have knowledge enough to use that possibility and spread the prosperity and the material standard to the whole world. We no longer need to compete, there´s enough for everyone´s needs. To be a profit maximizing society no longer adds so much when it comes to survival or when it comes to quality of life. The only thing it gives us is more things, more products.

So it´s time to forget the old focus on competition, economic growth and higher material standard and instead start focusing on what would make us feel better, enjoy life more and have fun together more often. We should celebrate that we no longer have to compete within the human race. Maybe one day aliens from another planet will challenge us and we have to compete again, but until then let´s pick the fruits of the society that our ancestors have created for us and stop focusing on competition.

We could move on from a profit based society with constant competition to a society based on needs and cooperation.  It´s not about going back to stone age or even lower our material standard, nor is it about changing to communism. It´s about realizing that a very important era in the history of mankind, the industrialism, now is over and that we are on the treshold of a new age, the next step in the development of mankind. The latest centuries we and our ancestors have worked hard to solve the so called production problem, that is trying to find a system which allows everybody to have a decent material standard and not having to worry about food supply or if to freeze to death in the winter or not. We have now solved that problem through new technology and much more efficient production methods. And with a slight redistribution of the worlds resources and knowledge the solution could within a very short time apply to the whole world.

With this solution to the production problem at hand it´s now time for human kind to enter the next phase in evolution and start looking for a new model for society that allows us to move on past the industrial phase and grow as human beings.

It is what nature and the environment demands to allow the human race to keep existing, but it is also in the interest of the human beings themselves, since we seem to have a basic need to keep on developing. The latest centuries we have developed the technical solutions surrounding us enormously, but as human beings we´ve hardly reached any more understanding at all. We have more or less stood still for a few hundred years. The knowledge we´ve achieved have almost exclusively been knowledge about technical or economic solutions.

So let us use the next few hundred years to start developing again, as human beings and human kind.

Johan Olsson

Former of the organization Medveten Konsumtion (Conscious Consumption) in Sweden
and now creating a worldwide organization for new global politics

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