Management - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

In the daily on-goings of any organization, one usually lives too close to the day-to-day operations to deal with great processes of change. When these are explicitly stated, they are usually translated into methodological aspects of change management, such as communication plans, risk mitigation or stakeholder analysis.

Change management is an area of highly formalized management. When there are high degrees of formalization, it is easy to get lost in standardized procedures and lose sight of the purpose of change.

Learn how to cope with change from real success experiences

In addition, it is a comfortable approach, which we are accustomed to and that supposedly achieves good results.

However, it is less frequent to carry out a more in-depth analysis that looks at the situation in perspective and asks questions such as what is the company doing, what is it giving to customers or what do they expect from our work, from the dissonances that are identified, to reorient the work of the organization.

In short, we usually define our daily activity and that of our company based on what we do, but we do not consider what the company's own existence has in its business niche, in the market, and in the world as a whole, and what we hope to contribute to society.

What would happen if, instead of understanding change as a matter of processes, we start with results?

What if, from now on instead of focusing on how the company works, we focus on why and what we do our work for?

Perhaps in this instance the change management would cease to be paralyzed by personal processes of resistance to find its energy precisely in individual change.

After all, a company is the sum of all its workers. To produce change in global management, it is easier to begin with the discipline of each employee's work, to review their motivations and their reference criteria and productivity.

Once individual change is achieved, the next step is to achieve global change, which will have greater results than those achieved as the sum of the individual change due to the emergence of new synergy benefits.

In this way, the change begins by focusing on the reorientation of each individual. Subsequently, we move on to a second phase in which the mechanisms that articulate individual changes are optimized to maximize the benefits of group work.

On the other hand, the adoption by the group of certain attitudes and work systems implies the need to adapt all parts of it, both those already in the company and those that may come in the future.

The cycle gives positive feedback, managing to maintain the effects of the change both as meaning or purpose of the work and in terms of application of concrete methodologies.

Summarized in a sentence, change management seeks to mobilize all workers individually to achieve the success of each of them, and from that, achieve global results, which in turn translate into individual changes.

Does this mean that traditional systems of customer analysis, impact, communication planning, risk management and other factors are useless?

On the contrary: all these aspects are fundamental to implement individual and company objectives, to optimize methodologies and application systems.

All improvements aimed at optimizing work processes explain how to achieve the objectives, but they will only make sense if they are framed in a context of the global and the individual aspects that can harmonize the work of the parties from the recognition of the differences in the roles of each team member.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

During the past year, various subjects were suppressed in all educational establishments within the education system in Finland, and the teaching method known as Phenomenon-based Learning (PhenoBL) was introduced. In fact, this method involves a collaborative and empirical work between students and teachers through an action that can be considered a step of applied innovation in the field of education, the management of interdisciplinary projects.
Although this method is part of a more generic paradigm that has more than half a century of existence, Project-Based Learning, its adoption as a national educational policy is novel and is based on the diagnosis that "The most important and influential results today are the results of cooperation and networking", which is why learning based on individual examination of static knowledge has lost much of its value.

How do you learn through projects in school?

Compared to passive memorization programs, Project Based Learning engages children in open-ended, project-based activities. The starting point can be a question or a problem that the students are confronted with, and proactively find answers that bring theoretical knowledge into reality through a transformative approach. This approach, popularized in the United States by great pedagogical reformers like John Dewey, recognizes that the traditional model of compulsory school was based on educating for obedience. Many of the students who were socialized into being quiet for eight-hour shifts would would eventually have a simpler transition to jobs as industrial workers.

An outdated model: as is well known, workers and manufacturing are disappearing in post-industrial countries, being replaced by the demand for tertiary workers capable of finding new solutions and adapting to changing situations.

While the old school practiced obedience, memorization, and repetition, project-based education generally involves teamwork, physical activity, critical thinking, and evaluation of the resources available to solve a problem. No less important is the promotion of the person's responsibility over results. In other words, the paradigm tries to put students in the role of researchers, while teachers stop imparting knowledge by authority to move to facilitate a process of direct experience.

Researchers

Within Project Based Learning, students are active participants in their education. Specifically, they can choose topics or subjects that they would like to learn, plan the learning development together with their teachers and, finally, evaluate their process.

Mentoring teachers

On the other hand, this paradigm also implies important changes in the teaching profession. In other words, they no longer have the usual control over their courses, and their work is not based on master classes, being more like a mentor.

The Finnish case

Finnish schools are required to have in their curriculum, for children aged 7-16 with at least an extended period of Phenomenon-Based Learning. Instead of teaching subjects in isolation, such as mathematics, science and history, multidisciplinary issues such as climate change or social issues are tackled, using resources from a variety of disciplines.

The new role of the educator is based on the internalization of the following positive conditions:

If you want to increase curiosity, let them question you

If you want to develop problem-solving skills, communicate school knowledge with real problems and encourage students to work together to find solutions

If you want to improve understanding, combine knowledge and skills of different subjects

If you want to train citizens who develop society, promote inclusivity and participation, you should facilitate positive critical thinking and provide opportunities to generate real change

If you want to reinforce confidence in yourself and the desire to learn, make constructive and honest comments. Never humiliate or discourage someone who is learning.

Many of these principles have positive consequences for professional organizations and for an open innovation culture. The attention to multidisciplinary teams and the stimulation of the creativity of team members are, at the same time, the inspiration of this educational model and the result of it.

Educators in Finland rely on online platforms to encourage discussion among their students about what topics and concepts they would like to learn more in order to deepen the phenomenon in question.

One of the main benefits of Phenomenon-Based Learning is the perception of a problem from different points of view. Even before the student knows the distinction between different disciplines, he learns that it is possible to consider a phenomenon from different and complementary points of view, the sum of whose parts offers a more complete understanding of reality. Just as there is no single way to analyze a phenomenon, there is no single answer to its construction: each student can build in their own way the path that combines discovery and creation.

Other benefits that are often emphasized are:

- the excitement caused by solving a problem or by putting together the pieces of an idea facilitates the integration of knowledge. Learning (or working) does not have to be boring: it can be exciting.

- problem solving in the classroom gives children the confidence to choose future careers that include problem solving;

- the ability to gather pieces to understand the world as a whole, is what will grow students as informed and productive citizens.

Not a trend, but the future of education

Some critical voices have pointed out that the method of learning by projects involves the practical abolition of subjects as we know them today. And with them, the baggage of general culture shared (at least in theory) by all citizens. Thus, depending on the type of projects that students have done, they can leave behind important gaps in all areas of knowledge; from trigonometry to recent history. However, the Finnish National Board of Education has repeatedly emphasized that traditional classes have not disappeared in Finland. Quite the opposite: this method of education continues to coexist with traditional subjects.

However, the reality is that the method is becoming more popular. In Spain, for example, a model similar to the one that works in Finland is already known under a similar name, Project Learning. Specifically, the schools of Jesuits in Catalonia – which educate more than 13,000 students - who in recent years have eliminated subjects, exams and schedules, also transforming their classrooms into work spaces where children acquire knowledge through project management. In addition, its pedagogical model is entitled "Horizon 2020", which implies that this and similar models are not only a trend in education, but the future.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

One of the greatest challenges of a PMO is to ensure that the experiences generated within a project are extended to the rest of the organization and not lost when the project team dissolves. Even within each project, reaching a knowledge baseline explicitly shared by all key team members can be tricky.

This process of knowledge transfer is specific to project-based organizations and encounters different obstacles to those that characterize the transfer and application of knowledge in the field of R & D, for example.

Unfortunately, Project Management Offices can either leave the functions of knowledge transfer in the background or, when they recognize their importance, often do not take an in depth approa Preview ch. To address the problem in its complexity, we recommend starting from the recognition of the main obstacles that prevent the linear flow of knowledge.

According to B. H. Reich, there are 9 obstacles to knowledge transfer between projects:

1. Lessons Not Learned

The difficulties organizations have in managing their day-to-day projects, starts and ends with this issue. It is true that beyond the records of previous experiences and the guidelines for the project in question, a new and unrepeatable path is undertaken that is not possible to predict, but the lessons learned allow the team to compare and analyze the possible scenarios, as well as Learn from previous situations that made it difficult to achieve the desired results.

Unfortunately, the unrepeatable characteristic of the projects complicates the application of these lessons, which are often transferred through the personal experience of a team member. In order to scale the learning beyond the personal components, it is advisable to:

- work on document repositories that allow for identification of previous similarities

- share the most relevant lessons of projects with characteristics that are going to be repeated, either because they belong to the same line of business, have the same client, or develop in similar markets.

2. Selecting defective equipment

Even if you have a project team with all the necessary competences to deliver a result of sufficient quality, it is possible that there are competencies that are difficult to identify, especially with regards to the accumulated experience, the Know-how of the company and, in the case of projects abroad, the multicultural dimension. Added to this is the fact that whoever carries out the planning will never be an expert in all the technical aspects that must be covered, which may fail to match the requirements with the technical capacity of the team. In this case, even transfer of knowledge internally to the project can seriously fail.

3. Volatile team governance

On this occasion, this is a problem related to project governance. The loss of a member of the governance structure that has a direct bearing on resource orientation and corporate strategies (eg, executive sponsorship or project management) seriously compromises levels of knowledge and stability within company departments based on projects.

4. Lack of function recognition

Project governance is sustained both by management and project sponsors, who must receive the appropriate training to monitor with more discretion. The difficulty is to incorporate top management into the management of knowledge without taking away the authority and the urgency we perceive it in the danger of taking wrong directions because the sponsors may have some inaccuracy or wrong distinction in relation to the project.

5. Inadequate knowledge integration

Large-scale projects require the intertwining of expertise in a number of areas to solve complex problems, to innovate or to transform that knowledge into something greater, thanks to its correct coupling. As we commonly see, there is not a person with the exact key to fit that diverse knowledge appropriately, so there is a risk that the pieces of the puzzle will come together incorrectly, interfering with the result. Given this scenario, project management requires that the directors ensure that effective communication with and among their work teams is maintained, to achieve a successful integration of multifunctional knowledge.

6. Incomplete transfer of knowledge

Often, for the development of a complex and innovative project, that requires the implementation of resources or specialized technical support, project members must go to the suppliers of the organization or interact with a consultant. In such interactions, knowledge transfer should strive to be as transparent as possible, but fears and conflicts of interest between the project team and their knowledge provider often interfere with the process.

Most of the failures that undermine the completion of a project occur because of incomplete knowledge transfer between the team and external consultants or suppliers during design.

This is because the people from the consultancy have the aspiration to receive higher profits, for their intellectual property and recognition of value, so in the first instance they will refuse to sell their knowledge.

Consequently, during the transfer of knowledge, information that is often crucial for the success of the project is omitted and this is not usually discovered until it has failed, which encourages us to go back and evaluate the failure. It is therefore of paramount importance to ascertain the quality of the documentation received by the knowledge provider and to evaluate its quality so that the project manager can make the most appropriate decisions.

7. Loss of Team Members

The fact that a member of the team may leave due to planned or unforeseen circumstances is an intellectual leak of great value for the project, since the time that person has dedicated to the planning and / or design process involves the accumulation of knowledge and skills related to the project and that are irreplaceable. This knowledge disappears once the person leaves.

In order to protect ourselves from the knowledge gaps created by possible losses of team members who are key players for the project, preventive measures should be taken to document knowledge, in order to continue the project with new members. Of course, there will always be some knowledge that stays with the person, which will be irreplaceable.

8. Lack of a Role Awareness Map

As part of the project management, we highlight the creation of a knowledge map, grouped by role, to serve as a tool so that all members of the team (including the senior positions) can identify who knows what and what skills the team has for the project.

The knowledge map allows us to facilitate the efficient and effective approach to complex problems. Not having one translates into greater difficulties in finding the solution to a given conflict, since it involves the risk of assigning decision making to people whose knowledge is not the most suitable for the type of problem.

Theorists on the subject, such as Crowston and Kammerer, and Faraj and Sproull, have concluded that project teams with a knowledge map can be more effective, focusing mainly on the integration of knowledge.

9. Loss between phases

During the operational processes of the project, the structure and integration of the equipment varies with the passage from one phase to another, so we run the risk of losing valuable knowledge in those changes in composition or transmitting knowledge inadequately. For these cases, traditionally, one uses the techniques of written or graphic documentation, to record the knowledge of a previous phase, useful for the operations of the next phase.

However, in the written record, we often overlook data of great relevance for the optimal development of the new operational phase, such as the rationale of the design or its options. In turn, the interpretations that each team gives to documentation may be altered by the subjective criteria of its members, which leads to errors or delays, while trying to understand why certain decisions were made in the previous phase.

Therefore, as a method of knowledge management within the project management, we recommend integrating multimedia records in the documentation that complementcrucial aspects of the decision making of a phase, as well as manage mining data and networks of experts, so that it is as specific and clear as possible.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

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.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

You don’t even need to be able to measure the value.

But imagine if you could.

Imagine that you could quantify the value that collaboration contributes to your projects. If you could add a few cents (or a few dollars) to your "collaborative balance" every time someone makes a constructive comment, warns of a problem in time, makes an innovative proposal outside the scope of their responsibilities, share experiences of other Projects that can save hours of misguided execution.

Try ITM Platform and start integrating PPM capabilities and powerful communication across projects.

You could show the results to top executives, including shareholders and customers, and defend the profitability of investing in strong internal communication policies.

In reality, you don’t need to measure the value at every instant. It is enough to make sure that in your organization there are solid channels for communication to flow. You may need more than one technological solution to support the entire flow. Oh, and remember that email stopped counting as collaborative technology back in 2006.

Collaborative tools

It is convenient to distinguish between channels for internal communication (within the team of each project) and external communication, or between projects.

Communication between projects

The business chat or intranet services are excellent for removing watertight drawers, but they live far from the technical planning of the projects, so they are difficult to integrate with the daily management of them. They are excellent for cross-cutting issues affecting all departments.

Internal communication

By contrast, internal communication to a project team will be better supported through management software such as ITM Platform, which integrates social networking features within each project.

Creating the Right Portfolio

No tool can communicate between projects and connect to the equipment of each project without generating noise. Therefore, it is essential to be able to find a good internal technology portfolio that maintains governance criteria.

The combination of ITM Platform with Slack is a great example of a portfolio of communication tools. Within each project, the owner is ITM Platform, while Slack is unbeatable as a business chat between teams. Thanks to the ITM Platform Teambot app, you can also connect both tools so that the members of your teams can work with the ITM Platform from Slack.

This way you can get all the benefits of a communication policy as well as improving the quality of your projects and learning between teams.

Do you still want to measure your ROI of collaboration? Subscribe to this blog and you will get the answer.