Project Management Support

Most Organizations Have Poor Project Management Practices

Additionally, these practices cost organizations nearly 10% of every dollar spent according to a 2018 survey my PMI. Project management is a discipline that encompasses management of financial and human resources as well as processes. Our project and management services help support key project control activities required to deliver high quality projects, programs, and services.

Seven Keys to Delivering High Quality Projects and Outcomes

Clearly Define the Scope and Objectives

Defining the objective of the project or program is a key success factor. This provides context for what is considered in-scope and what is out of scope when change requests eventually occur. The more clearly you can define the objective, the easier it will be to define and understand the deliverables and work products required. The importance of this can’t be overstated because cutting corners, or loosely defining the objectives, creates a risk of scope creep and cost over runs.

Actively Engage Stakeholders

Stakeholders, according to the Project Management Institute (PMI), refers to, "an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project". This will often include senior management, project sponsors, resource managers and other groups. Spending time to carefully identify all stakeholders and their interests helps make sure all stakeholders understand and agree to objectives and deliverables.

Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

Everyone should have a clear understanding of their role and how it fits within the project plan. This includes project team members accountable for delivery and stakeholders who may be responsible for reviewing and approving all deliverables.

Objective Planning and Realistic Expectations

Many projects are over budget or behind schedule because of overly optimistic estimates on cost and schedule. Many organizations fail to account for cost risk or even cut corners in the estimating and analysis processes. Our costing and analysis services can help with planning for these cost risks and assessing impacts to scope, schedule and cost.

Regular Progress Reporting and Inspection of all Deliverables

According to PMI, a project is “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources”. Given this, it’s important to monitor and track the status of all deliverables, the utilization of the defined resources and the quality of work being delivered. A simple method for evaluating this is earned value management (EVM), which integrates the measurements scope, schedule, and cost to assess value realized by the project.

Actively Manage and Track Issues, OCI and Changes

Risks should be identified, quantified, and assessed on an ongoing basis. Mitigation strategies for these risks should be planned well in advance and reviewed as the project progresses. Flexibility is necessary part of any project but marginal changes should be resisted as changes create risk. All proposed changes should be assessed for impact and benefit, and an informed decision taken to either implement the change or reject the change using the clearly defined scope and objective as a guide.

Communication, Communication, Communication

Frequent and ongoing communication with stakeholders and team members is necessary due to the collaborative nature of projects. Planning stakeholder and team communications helps streamline the flow of information and avoid surprises. Keeping all team members and stakeholders informed demonstrates commitment, and helps achieve the desired objective of the project.