Two organisational logics: line and project

An organisation needs a permanent base organisation with clear responsibilities, processes and knowledge. In technical terms, this is the line. It creates stability and carries the recurring capability of the organisation. The core business also belongs to the line, even when parts of this core business are delivered as projects.

Alongside it stands the project logic. A project is a time-limited undertaking with a specific result and its own coordination task. It can be a change within one's own organisation. But it can just as well be a customer order in the core business, if that order is led as a project because of its uniqueness, specialisation and cross-departmental collaboration.

When these pages speak of “the new”, they therefore mean the particular nature of the specific undertaking – not automatically a change business.

Line and project logic support each other. Internal change projects must transfer their results into the base organisation. Customer orders run as projects, in turn, need stable processes, roles and knowledge from the line so that they can be carried out reliably and economically. A healthy organisation masters both logics and knows how to interlock them.

Many companies master well-established line processes. The orderly handling of projects, on the other hand, often depends more heavily on individual people. This applies both to change initiatives and to companies whose customer orders are increasingly led as projects. Why this nevertheless works for a long time, and when it is no longer enough, is the subject of the next chapter.