Inside the World of the Project Baron

In industrial sectors such as consulting, advertising, film-making, software, architecture, engineering and construction, most individual businesses are project-based firms in other words, their activities tend to be organized through the delivery of projects aimed at meeting the highly differentiated and customized needs of clients. These firms depend on executing discrete task-oriented packages for clients, often through temporary coalitions with other project-based organizations, and on routinely combining knowledge and skills in new ways. Of course, as with any business, project-based firms need to maintain internal coherence. But they also require flexibility to respond to opportunities, manage workloads and allocate resources to different projects. As a result, this type of organization, which is becoming increasingly common in developed economies, presents special management and leadership challenges