Productivity - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

Even in a specialized world like project management, there are current trends and popular kids (often newcomers), while other issues, skills and areas are relegated to a second row or altogether ignored. Here are ITM Platform’s candidates to those second row components in project management that are worth discussing more in-depth.

1. Project Evaluation

Project Evaluation should be a methodical and un-biased assessment of your projects, both completed and ongoing. Post Project Evaluation completes the project management process once the product is in use. It provides feed-back in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, etc. in order to learn for the future. There are two main stages:

Immediately, evaluation seeks to identify isolate learning moments, transform them into lessons so that they can be applied to the next project – that’s the moment they turn into lessons learned
A longer term review to determine what, if any, adjustments should be made to company policies and procedures

2. Project Integration Management

The objective of Project Integration Management is to co-ordinate the diverse components of the project by quality project planning, execution and change control to achieve the required balance of time, cost and quality.

Project integration management ensures the effective integration of a project into the organization’s total business and co-ordination of the diverse components of the project. This includes setting up the planning and control systems for project selection, planning the total project and co-ordinating the activities in the other eight knowledge areas. It also includes working with everyone in the organization who is involved in the project, not only the immediate stakeholders.

3. Management tools and techniques

The objective of using management tools and techniques is to optimize specific activities in the development of a system. Although much of the attention is paid to the selection of planning tools, some areas that are often neglected from this point of view are:

Growth Management. Beyond the adoption of prediction metrics that can measure the growth of an organization, it is essential to have scalable tools to accompany an organization when it goes through a transition between different maturities. By combining ease of use with the full benefits, ITM Platform is specifically designed to support these processes.

Using Project management tools such as ITM Platform will help automate management processes and make your company more efficient.

Talent development should go beyond measurement and remuneration by objectives, seeking to introduce a learning loop between project performance and work performance of team members.

4. End-customer orientation

Although this is the fundamental focus of agile philosophy, putting yourself in the place of the end user is a form of empathy that is always lacking and which there are few formative options. Here are some strategies that demonstrate customer orientation:

Work in startup mode beyond the initial phase of creating an organization: the business orientation is to respond to what the customer is looking for.
Responding swiftly to customer complaints and questions.
Dealing respectfully with community issues.

5. Creativity

Essential to conceive solutions for customer problems, they are typical of engineers and product owners, but obviously extend to project managers. In one way or another, creativity is an essential skill in project management. As opposed to the regular and standardized world of operations, there is no one-size-fits-all for projects.

But creativity in project management is not a voiced desired for the extremely original or the never-seen-before. It’s, put simply, the ability to identify what’s should be happening when placed under a new situation.

Project managers require a taste for recalling their past experiences, and those of the projects they interact with, to come up with a combinatorial solution that applies to the current context. That’s creative project management.

6. Coaching and Development

By employing their coaching skills, supervisors assess the training and professional development of team members with the aim of offering them opportunities for improvement, such as new experiences that allow them to develop new competencies. Although project management certification is a recognized goal, it is often important to be able to identify intermediate training and experience objectives.

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Sometimes we can't start all the projects we would like to. This often happens with internal projects: how many CIOs will undertake all projects that are demanded by the heads of each department? And how many find solid reasons to explain which projects are initiated, in what order and why?

Whenever you have a hard time deciding which projects you should run, you can base your decision on the evaluation of different scenarios. Here's an example.

Try ITM Platform for free and start to prioritize your projects strategically.

An example of using scenarios

Imagine that there are three internal projects that are difficult to compare: the implementation of a new document management system (DMS), the development of a new product and the internal training of the entire sales force. And also, as we said, we do not have enough capacity to finance them all.

Estimation of cost and importance

The first step in setting the scenarios is to assess their cost and importance:

Number	Project	Importance	Cost estimate
1	DMS	17,73%	$15,777.00
2	New product	47,05%	$90,091.00
3	Training	35,22%	$64,144.00

Suppose that the maximum budget that can be allocated to these projects is $150,000, less than the total of 170,000.

How to value a project

With ITM Platform, the value of a project depends on how much it helps to achieve a business objective. This criterion allows you to group very different projects by programs and to develop scenarios more complex than the one of this example.

Test yourself on how to generate scenarios linked to your goals with ITM Platform.

1. Count Scenarios

The next thing is to know what all the alternatives are. In this case, there are 8 scenarios or possible situations considering that we can choose (blue) or discard (red) each of the projects.

123	123	123	123
123	123	123	123

2. Quantify the scenarios

What is the investment required for each of the scenarios?

0.00	$64,144.00 $	$90,091.00 $	$154,235.00
$15,777.00	$79,921.00 $	$105,868.00 $	$170,012.00

As we know that the investment limit is $150,000, we can rule out the two combinations that exceed it.

0.00	$64,144.00	$90,091.00	$154,235.00
$15,777.00	$79,921.00	$105,868.00	$170,012.00

3. Assess the scenarios

What is the value obtained from each of them?

0%	35%	47%	82%
18%	53%	65%	100%

If we did not have limitations, of course, we would choose to launch all the projects. But in applying the financial constraints, we choose the scenario that brings the most value without exceeding budget.

Since two scenarios have been ruled out, it is necessary to choose the combination with the highest value among the remaining ones: 65% of projects 1 and 2.

Is it simple? When you try it on IT Platform you will no longer have doubts when selecting projects.

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1. Organization Design

Organizational design is a methodology that takes into account the various, potentially problematic, areas of projects, such as work-flow, structure, systems, roles and responsibilities and realigns them in the most appropriate way for the project.

The 3 most basic kinds of structure are; functional, project and matrix.

2. Negotiation

Negotiations happen constantly. A good negotiator knows not only what he needs, but also how to get it, both internally and externally to the organization.

That’s why negotiation is an incredibly advantageous skill to have as a project manager. However, since it belongs to the phantasmatic realm of soft skills, it is rarely mentioned.

Negotiation is the art of achieving the most benefit for yourself from a transaction, while leaving all parties to the negotiation sufficiently content that the relationship subsequently works well.

Formal negotiations usually take place with external providers typically when agreeing on contracts, while informal negotiations can arise resolving conflicts or in discussions to gain more internal resources.

3.Value Management

Value Management is defined as a way of improving business effectiveness using a combination of planning tools and methods to find the optimum balance of project benefits in relation to project costs and risks. It is done in a structured manner, and uses specific techniques:

Value Engineering is the management philosophy that should guide the design of the project, using proven techniques during the formative stages.
Value Analysis is the introduction of similar techniques to an already existing product, process or organization.

4. Industrial Relations

Far from being a PR concept, Industrial Relations covers a full range of functions related to work-force management. Of course, proper Industrial Relations require an in-depth knowledge and personal experience of the legal system, labor regulations, and the negotiations with the unions, for example.

This skill is a must have for a project manager that wants to create a positive and safe working culture, and solve or prevent work related incidents.

5. Variation Control

Traditionally, projects have been predictable. Differences between projects (variations) ideally are too –so they have to be managed.

To incorporate variation management, systems and processes must be established and properly documented. Once these steps are implemented, procedures and their variations can be managed in an efficient and controlled manner. This practice is also known as Change Control, and includes taking into account such variables as scope, specification, cost and schedule.

6. Conflict Management

Although it is considered a soft skill, it still has imperative importance to how successful a project manager will turn out to be.

Conflict Management is the process of identifying and addressing differences that, if left unsolved, could affect the business goals. And we all know that an unresolved conflict can be expensive! It increases uncertainty, damages morale and undermines long-term team harmony.

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There are more and more companies that, regardless of their size, are applying strategies to optimize the management of their portfolio. This fragmented macro-unit welcomes the set of projects, programs or operations opened by the company to respond to its business demand. Such elements may interact with each other or not, but in any case require the allocation of resources to be carried out.

To begin with, it is important that we narrow down the scope of each of the segments in which we bring together our creative or commercial initiatives. If a project is a temporary effort to achieve a unique result, a program would be a set of projects, that pursue a common outcome. Even though there is no functional relationship between projects that are under one umbrella, sharing strategies, components and business structures involves managing resources at a higher level.

These competencies are under the control of the PMO (Project Management Office), a department that has gained importance in recent years due to the innumerable advantages it brings to the company that manages it correctly. One of the greatest advantages it brings is the aerial perspective that contributes to managers when it comes to assessing the efficiency of their business processes due to the close connection between corporate governance and portfolio management.

Centralized Portfolio Management

Portfolio management allows organizations to identify the deviations that occur within programs and correct them by reallocating human resources, technological resources or priorities. Constant evaluation of ongoing operations is the basis of project optimization, especially if these are related and pursue a specific purpose. Some responsibilities of a PMO are:

The establishment of a general methodology that supports portfolio management practices.

The creation of a structure in which to carry out this methodology.

Advice on the allocation of resources and priorities in order to maintain the corporate orientation.

Selection of components of the organizational structure that will accommodate the resources and provision of the tools appropriate to each position.

Provision of internal protocols to evaluate, measure and monitor the distribution of competences.

Reassignment of resources, analysis of constant priorities and optimization of decisions.

Value analysis of the portfolio through the use of economic indicators designed to measure the success of business initiatives such as ROI, VAN or PP.

Assignment of Human Resources at portfolio level

The employees who give life to our projects must be managed as an investment portfolio, that is, as a group of high value assets that have a specific weight in the company.

To do this, it is essential to start with a holistic view of resource allocation, which functions as a centralized project management office for this purpose.

Now let’s look at an example with the planning view of the ITM Platform resource management area.

This view shows aggregate data on demand and supply of resources in one place.

General view

At the top of the view, for each project you can check:

The total demand for hours for this project
The total number of hours allocated
The deviation between the two

Demand view

These three factors are also broken down periodically. For example, you can view the weekly demand, allocation and deviation segments over the next quarter and act on them:

Identify problems of over-allocation
Break down the details of the assignments until you find the over-allocated professional categories
Identify default deviations and allocate new resources

At the bottom of the view, the project entry is replaced by resource categories. Typically, here will be the analysts, divided, for example, between external and internal.

Supply view

Similarly, to the top, each professional category is shown; the total capacity, hours allocated and availability.

This view shows:

Display when a resource is over-allocated or underutilized.

Resolve divergences between capacity and allocations.

To see more precisely the demand and supply of resources and its different views, try a free trial of ITM Platform.

Two other important actions that can be framed within the human resources management at the portfolio level would be:

Diversification of talent to eliminate the risks of a hiring policy based on non-flexible profiles.

Perform integration actions that increase the value of a set of employees that alone would be less effective. Fostering synergies and redistributing them is vital in order to find the combination of human resources that best suits the needs of each project and, in short, the goals of a particular program or general business strategy.

It should be noted that not all assets have the same value and each of them has a rating given by the importance of their contribution to the common purpose. This rating should not have a permanent character, but rather be an indicator of the evolution of the employee's performance and since the management of portfolios must be counted on. The management of professional resources must establish a protocol based on a deep analysis of the results of each individual or group and apply corrective measures that include internal recruitment, promotion of employees or their training to improve their contribution to the segment of the project in which they work.

Not all employees are the same

Portfolio management must be able to identify those resources, which, because of their special talent, must occupy a key place in a project. There are techniques that allow managers to reliably track their future managers.

Among them we highlight:

Evaluation center: An affordable group of participants is selected and placed in management situations involving agile decision making.

Workforce Review Committee: This is a kind of roundtable held at the highest corporate level that takes into account performance reports and evaluations of all kinds to define the career of its future managers.

Finally, we emphasize the importance of having portfolio management tools that provide a comprehensive view of the processes opened by the company and allow to act, precisely, on each assigned resource.

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With more than a million and a half new professionals in the next three years, many things are changing in the industry.

There are many factors that are generating major changes in project management. To begin with, the community of project management experts has long since ceased to be a highly specialized niche for engineers: more and more professionals are involved in fields as diverse as marketing, translation, product and service development, or even Finance have titles or responsibilities related to project management.

Take control of your Project Management this year with ITM Platform

Of course, this means the practice is developing in many directions. Here we highlight four that will be fundamental during this year.

1. Project management in extreme situations

Brexit, Syria, climate change, Trump. This is only a quick summary of the political difficulties that are testing the global economy ... and with them all companies with international scope.

Faced with this situation, it is essential to have tools to deal with unforeseen events and respond promptly to threats. The evaluation of investments and risk assessment will become increasingly important, moving from the strategies of internationalization to the dimension of the projects and their impacts.

2. Strategic value, not just tactical

Projects have ceased to be watertight drawers that can be planned and developed in a vacuum. The habitat of a project and the integration of the manager's responsibilities into the company's overall strategy are the measure of credibility, both external and internal, when developing projects. That is why transversal competences, the ability to listen and to go beyond predetermined processes are increasingly valued.

3. Combined methodologies

Especially in companies with business models that are not dedicated exclusively to software development or foreseeable engineering projects, such as construction or infrastructures, the combination of agile and predictive methodologies is increasingly gaining acceptance to cover the different operational phases of an organization.

In the financial sector, for example, many teams already employ a methodological sandwich structure to deal with a new credit product.

Kanban board

To cover the phases of market research, identification of barriers, niche, etc. The objective of this first phase is to build sufficient knowledge to define the essential characteristics of the product.

Gantt chart

When the product is profiled, it is possible to introduce predictive guidelines that allow it to become a reality. A Gantt chart is still highly valued to develop the product with some fixed dates.

How to land the go-to-market

Finally, the phases of business development and client acquisition usually follow agile procedures that allow reacting to market acceptance in a flexible way. In other words: how to land the go-to-market. In some ways, this approach allows us to treat each product or service as a project. But on other occasions, even the teams themselves or the organizations themselves are organized on a project basis. For this reason, it is important to have tools like ITM Platform, which allow to combine both methodologies in a flexible way in a single portfolio. The Design Thinking approach, coined by Stanford University, resembles in its goal the sandwich of methodologies combined in the sense of providing a process that allows to incorporate technical experts and personnel with other training. However, the commercial orientation is clearer, as the different phases are a formula for creating a solution from the public and their needs.

4. Project Intelligence

We have been talking about Big Data for years and it does not seem that this trend is going to leave us. Applied to project management, orientation to big data involves learning, creatively, from all the information of the projects that is automatically collected during its development. In this sense, the leap beyond mere statistical guidelines towards creative data science can be a very interesting dimension for 2017.

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By Nicholas Taylor

Our intern Nick shares his particular views on the season

Season’s greetings to one and all! Hope you’re all looking forward to the Day of Food… or otherwise known as; Christmas day.

All joking aside, there can be a lot of pressure to deliver at Christmas, particularly depending on the number of not so close relatives you only see once a year, and the rotation system your family has in place. After the amazing stuffing your brother-in-law prepared last year, expectations are built up!

Whether it be all the family coming round expecting the best meal of the year, or making sure you’ve got the correct Tamagotchi for Sophie (I am aware that my knowledge of children’s toys may be a little outdated…) and the latest Nike trainers for Matthew, at ITM Platform we are aware a bit of method might help your situation.

I’m going to provide you with some insider tricks on how to get through the big day using project management skills, so that by the end of it you find internal peace to sit back, relax, and enjoy a well-earned tipple.

Christmas initiation

The first step to project managing your Christmas, before doing anything else, is establish what your perfect Christmas day entails. Do you have all the family coming over and want to impress them with an amazing dinner? Or maybe a simple, quiet Christmas day with close family is what you’re aiming for? Whatever it is you decide to do on Christmas day, make sure it is clear in your mind what the project is, so you can put into place the steps to managing a stress and problem free day (Well, as much as possible).

Christmas planning

The next step to project managing your perfect Christmas day is to plan it! Planning is a MUST in project management.

Let’s go to the basics: think of your oven in terms of scope and try to answer the following questions:

How many people are coming? Do I have room for such a big turkey in my oven?
When do you have to start cooking in order to be done by dinner time?
How many hours of work will you need to have an unforgettable dinner?

If you don’t know the answer to any of this, projectize! Break down your preparation, task by task, and think of what each task requires so you can have a clear, critical path in mind.

Don’t improvise the groceries! Make lists of all the ingredients for recipes, and don’t underestimate drinks! Double the amount of champagne that you consider sensible.

Gift control

When it comes to buying presents, controlling costs is probably the most important advice for the season. Give yourself an overall budget and don’t go overboard!

Other important facets of gift control include:

Not buying large presents for adults
Buy services, not stuff that will be abandoned in a corner. A subscription to a good news service, for example, or to a non-profit can mean a lot more than yet another necklace.
Identify your relative’s personas: Are they likely to get upset if the present doesn’t meet their expectations? Do they have expectations at all?

Communication

Communication, communication, communication. If you’ve got a couple of Santa’s little helpers on your side, you must have good lines of communication with them, report your progress and vice versa. Don’t buy presents without telling them, don’t change the recipes or invite new people over without informing the party! This will help keep the project on track as everyone will be on the same page.

Avoid project overload?

Don’t give yourself a crazy amount to do all in one day, this could completely ruin the quality of the project or only finish with a half completed job.

Remember: to be a great host, you need to look happy, too.

Final checks, expert delivery

This is your time to shine.

Quality checks are a must – is the turkey moist enough? Are the grandparents merry enough yet? Whatever your goal, final checks should definitely be undertaken to make sure the project is up to the highest standard so your guests will enjoy the evening without realizing you have been using spreadsheets with thousands of rows to track your Christmas orders.

Enjoy

Now comes the fun bit. Enjoy Christmas Day! Reap the success of your work, whether it be devouring those delightful little pigs in blankets or enjoying a large glass of champagne. You’ve worked hard and successfully project managed a great end product. You can now take these project management skills of yours and put them to use for the New Year’s party you’re regretfully obliged to host…

Nicholas Taylor

Marketing Assistant

ITM Platform