Case Study: Project Management Practices

Challenge: A major telecommunications company undergoing rapid growth wanted to reduce the delivery cycle time of their projects for new voice and data services. Time to market was critical to the company’s success in a highly competitive industry. As the company’s staff and number of projects expanded, the management team identified the need for better project management to improve project delivery.

Solution: Recognizing that improving project management practices involves a cultural change in a company, we recommended that all project stakeholders should understand project management and not just the individuals designated as project managers. To ensure consistency in project management practices, we facilitated the client’s management team in defining eight basic project management templates for the project management toolkit. These eight templates were based on the client’s internal best practices and were consistent with the Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) for project initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. The toolkit contained simple instructions along with easy to use templates for each key project management activity.

A half day training session was designed to explain fundamental project management principles and to teach how to use the eight project management templates in the toolkit. The what, who, when, how, and most importantly the ‘why’ were part of the training program. The training used examples from every day life and from the client’s project portfolio to illustrate the practical application of project management. These training sessions were held for over three hundred of the client’s staff. Follow-up coaching was provided to project teams for first time use of the project management toolkit.

Result: The client achieved a common vocabulary and consistent practices for project management across the organization. The project management toolkit provided basic project planning and control practices needed to help reduce project cycle time. With these fundamentals in place, the client was then able to focus on making other project improvements.