TABLE OF CONTENTS Middle management provides the corporate bridge between the programs and projects and the senior management team. It is middle management who must truly understand the organization's strategic direction and the senior manager's vision. This understanding of strategic direction and vision must be communicated to all other levels of management and practitioners, so that the daily project management, development, or maintenance activities can support them. It is middle management that must emphasize these policies and procedures to the project managers and practitioners in support of the vision and business objectives. Middle management may not know all of the small technical details of the processes and procedures that their people should be following, but they should be keenly aware of what is expected of their project members and what processes, methods, standards, guidelines, templates, checklists, and tools with which those project members are supposed to be in compliance.
Middle management should receive project and process management information. This information, combined with the knowledge of the organization's strategic direction and vision, allows them to make sound risk management decisions to guide the organization's daily operations. Thus, middle management is expected to be the advocate of a strong organizational measurement program that provides deeper insight into product and service quality along with process performance.
Without senior management involvement, the process improvement initiative may flounder and not be oriented toward supporting the organization's business objectives. Without middle management involvement, the critical process improvement...
