Effective project management is crucial for transforming a company's vision into reality. However, establishing an efficient model can be challenging. Discover how the "Baby Steps" approach can help.
In this article, we explore the challenges a European company faces in implementing project management.
Luc, the CEO, shares his concerns about project efficiency within his company.
Effective project management enables a company to realize its vision through various strategies.
However, why is it so difficult to establish an efficient model?
This article explores this question through a case study and offers practical solutions to improve project management in business.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to meet with Luc (a pseudonym), the CEO of a European certification company. With a workforce of about a hundred employees, including a dozen project managers, Luc's concern was palpable. Despite the company's current success, he is acutely aware of the need to adapt and evolve in a fiercely competitive market.
When Luc finished his presentation, I was positively impressed and wondered why he invited me. His company has a vision, a strategy, and a seemingly coherent action plan. Various projects are on the roadmap:
- Advanced digitalization of client interactions during the certification process.
- Extension of the range of certifiable products.
- A strategy to conquer new geographical territories.
I was puzzled and interrupted Luc to ask, “So, what’s the problem?”
Luc hesitated a bit before answering. He explained that his teams are willing, but projects are neither executed efficiently nor completed without pain despite a well-defined strategy and a concrete action plan. Project managers combine their projects with daily tasks, making project management chaotic.
Luc's question hung in the air, a clear indication of the pressing need for a solution. “How can we effectively combine our regular activities with project management practice?” he asked, his tone reflecting the urgency of the situation.“How can we effectively combine our regular activities with project management practice?” asked Luc.
A project management methodology must be tailored to the company. Too often, companies implement inadequate practices without managing the necessary change for successful deployment. Luc agreed to start with a workshop with his teams without participating himself to avoid influencing the discussions.
During this workshop, the project team was enthusiastic about working on improving project management and willing to question themselves. A roundtable revealed varied profiles:
- Sam, the youngest, admitted his lack of knowledge in project management.
- Jacques, with numerous projects and PMI certifications, was very experienced.
Evaluating strengths and weaknesses revealed the following points:
- Varied knowledge and experiences.
- Team willingness and mindset.
- Individual comfort zones.
Cross-perceptions between management and field teams revealed significant difficulties:
- Lack of a clear vision of projects and their status.
- Blurry link between projects and strategy.
- Poorly defined roles and responsibilities.
- Needs to be more allocated resources.
- Projects are planned reactively rather than proactively.
Given these findings, I proposed a step-by-step approach to Luc:
Baby Steps Approach: Adopt a gradual approach to implement the necessary changes without overwhelming the teams.
Priority Assessment: Determine priority projects to focus resources on the most impactful initiatives.
Integration Workshop: Organize a collaborative workshop to align teams on goals and methodology, strengthening communication and mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities.
Light Methodology Implementation: Develop a company-specific methodology adapted to its needs and capabilities to facilitate adoption and implementation.
Deployment of a Visual Project Management Tool: Use a visual tool like perspectives.pm to better track, coordinate, and manage projects, improving visibility and communication within teams.
In this article, we examined the challenges of Luc’s company in project management and proposed an approach to address them. Here are the main points discussed:
Company Context: A certification company with insufficient project monitoring and project managers juggling daily tasks and project management.
Identified Problems:
- Projects need to be executed more efficiently.
- Lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities.
- Poor resource allocation for projects.
Evaluation and Analysis:
- Workshop with the project team to identify strengths and weaknesses.
- Importance of cross-perceptions between management and field teams.
Proposed Solutions:
- Adopt a step-by-step approach (“baby steps”).
- Prioritize projects and define a light methodology.
- Use a visual project management tool to track and coordinate initiatives better.
To Be Continued
In our next article, we will see how these solutions were implemented in Luc’s company. We will share detailed steps of the implementation, challenges encountered, and results obtained. These insights will help you understand how to adopt a successful project management culture in your company.
Discover perspectives.pm.
For even more effective project management, I'd like to invite you to discover Perspectives.pm, our visual project management tool. Perspectives.pm is designed to improve team visibility, project tracking, and communication. Using clear and intuitive visualizations, you can easily coordinate your initiatives and ensure their success.
Visit perspectives.pm to learn more about our visual and intuitive platform!
To learn more about transforming project management in Luc's company, read the full article on Medium.
Read the full article on Medium
Mindmaps provide a structured vision of the company’s strategy and its breakdown into concrete actions.
Mindmaps provide a structured vision of the company’s strategy and its breakdown into concrete actions.
The data connection technology enables the connection of your strategic objectives to implemented projects.
The different perspectives available will allow you to focus on both short-term and longer-term strategies.
Besides the High-Level schematic vision, a document-based library can also collect and organize more detailed information.
Perspectives allows defining fine-grained access levels. This way, each audience (internal/external) can only access the intended information, and confidentiality is respected.
