2.5 Social-Economic-Environmental Influences

Like general management, socioeconomic influences include a wide range of topics and issues. The project management team must understand that current conditions and trends in this area may have a major effect on its project: a small change here can translate, usually with a time lag, into cataclysmic upheavals in the project itself. Of the many potential socioeconomic influences, several major categories that frequently affect projects are described briefly below.

2.5.1 Standards and Regulations
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) differentiates between standards and regulations as follows (7):

   A standard is a "document approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines, or characteristics for products, processes or services with which compliance is not mandatory". There are numerous standards in use covering everything from thermal stability of hydraulic fluids to the size of computer diskettes.

   A regulation is a "document which lays down product, process or service characteristics, including the applicable administrative provisions, with which compliance is mandatory". Building codes are an example of regulations.
  Care must be used in discussing standards and regulations since there is a vast gray area between the two, for example:

   Standards often begin as guidelines that describe a preferred approach, and later, with widespread adoption, become de facto regulations (e.g., the use of the Critical Path Method for scheduling major construction projects).

   Compliance may be mandated at different levels (e.g., by a government agency, by the management of the performing organization, or by the project management team).

  For many projects, standards and regulations (by whatever definition) are well known and project plans can reflect their effects. In other cases, the influence is unknown or uncertain and must be considered under Project Risk Management (described in Chapter 11).

2.5.2 Internationalization
As more and more organizations engage in work which spans national boundaries, more and more projects span national boundaries as well. In addition to the traditional concerns of scope, cost, time, and quality, the project management team must also consider the effect of time zone differences, national and regional holidays, travel requirements for face-to-face meetings, the logistics of teleconferencing, and often volatile political differences.

2.5.3 Cultural Influences
Culture is the "totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought" (8). Every project must operate within a context of one or more cultural norms. This area of influence includes political, economic, demographic, educational, ethical, ethnic, religious, and other areas of practice, belief, and attitudes that affect the way people and organizations interact.

2.5.4 Social-Economic-Environmental Sustainability
Virtually all projects are planned and implemented in social, economic, and environmental context, and have intended and unintended positive and/or negative impacts. Organizations are increasingly accountable for impacts resulting from a project (e.g., accidental destruction of archeological sites in a road construction project), as well as for the effects of a project on people, the economy, and the environment long after it has been completed (e.g., roadway can facilitate the access to and destruction of a once pristine environment).