Information Technology, Project Management & Organizational Efficiency With Cases and Examples

Technology always played a role in tipping the balance of human existence. Modern technology as we know it today, most defiantly has changed the nature of human interaction, from the way we live to the way we work. Throughout history, the story of human existence has been one of adaptation to the environment and innovation of tools and techniques.

Technological innovation is defined in this book as the creation and development of processes, procedures, techniques, products, services or a new methodology. Technology and innovation has created a brand new paradigm and social order. We are only beginning to experience this social order with all its intrinsic worth and disruption to natural human order. Innovation is an essential element of human nature. That is, the quest to make things better, more convenient, easier, faster or cheaper. The learning curve tends to cause human kind to improve the “way” of doing things as they start doing it, which is a key driver for innovation. The inseparable interaction between society and technology has shaped people’s destiny throughout the ages and has always defined social order. This is no more evident than the invention of the machine, and 

the start of the first industrial revolution. Innovation of the machine has taken over through the development of modern technology, and the invention of systematic social order has disrupted simple coexistence forever.

Although technological innovation brings convenience to life, yet at the same time, it greatly complicates and disrupts human life. This desire to innovate however has not always been driven by the desire to improve the ways and conditions of human conditions. Throughout history, greed and the desire to dominate others has always been a key force behind innovation. Such motives have inflicted a tremendous amount of anguish on fellow human beings, and since the start of the first industrial revolution, the systematic destruction of nature, and now the natural order of things. Wealth and power tend to be primary motivators, throughout the ages in the development of innovation. This was evident in the Mongols’ utilization of silk, better bow- making and horsemanship skills, in the domination of what was known then as the civilized world.

The twenty and twenty first centuries are no different. Modern human achievement is a story of evolutionary large-scale destruction that history has ever known. 

Our quest for improving productivity, reducing cost and increasing wealth continues to contribute directly and indirectly to the creation of new technological social order. It is an inherent attribute of the evolution of humankind.

Wealth creation is, however, the dominant motive and ample feature of modern industrialized society. Mass production, mass consumption, mass transportations, mass communication, mass media and education are the direct causes of the innovation of machine and the industrialization. Today, and since the start of the third industrial revolution of information technology, we are entering an era of mass innovation that is giving birth to the fourth-industrial revolution. This is an era characterized by a rapid acceleration in technology- based innovation and rapid destruction of long established business models. Existing norms, businesses processes and long-established norms of interaction will no longer exist, in the face of this rapid interruption. The human and collective social cost is still unmeasurable, and in many ways unpredictable. Where will such rapid acceleration of ideas, disruption and change take us? no one seems to have a full and comprehensive answer. Throughout history, cost has always been a fundamental concern for organizations. While product innovation provides firms with better margins, process innovation helps firms reduce the costs of production (Schilling, 2013). Technology then significantly contributes to cost structure and helps overall return on investment. Nevertheless, technology is still judged on the bases of its efficiency and effectiveness. This book present to the reader and students of technology a collection of cases, particularly of organizational concern with improving efficiency and behavioral work processes. This is probably gave birth to project management as we know today. As project management gain momentum in modern organizations, and work becomes project-based in the post-COVID 19 work environment, it is essential to understand not only the root causes of project management, but the nature of technology, innovation and process management. These forces will continue to shape our lives in this century as far as the management discipline is concerned. I attempted to start this book by laying out a brief foundation of technological innovation and efficiency as the driving force behind project management. The short cases presented herewith are an example of that quest for efficiency through application of different or better technology. For my M.B.A. students, I attempted to develop the understanding of certain fundamental principles of the philosophy of technology, innovation, and process management, prior to handing-out the lessons gained from each case study. While noticing that most students of project management enjoy learning from successes and failures of other projects, this is something entirely dependent on the experience of the learning environment and the limitations of peers and instructor’s experience. As such, an attempt was made to provide as many diverse cases as possible to make the point that organizations everywhere around the world are in a similar position. That is they attempt to use technology to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness and competitive standings.