This guest post is by Neil Stolovitsky (Senior Solution Specialist at Genius Inside).
Genius Inside Senior Solution Specialist Neil Stolovitsky Working for a PPM vendor (Genius Inside), has its benefits in that I am exposed to many types of project-centric organisations. It would be amazing to see the diversity in project management practices and the variety of project types that make up the DNA for many organizations looking to improve their project management.
Every organization is different in how they experience project management pain. Some may be concerned about planning or collaboration, while others want to improve their visibility through portfolios and resourcing. After speaking with enough organizations, patterns emerge that can be shared among project management professionals.
Learning from product development: Risk management
One of the most interesting areas of project management is the functional area for risk management. While all projects have inherent risk, each organization’s approach to managing risk will be different. However, risk plays an important role in the final outcome of most projects. Organizations that are involved in New Product Development (NPD), can offer a lot of valuable information to project managers. Project managers from all walks can use NPD strategies to reduce risk and get a better understanding of the direction their projects are headed with a gated process.
What makes NPD organizations unique in how they manage projects? NPD projects are more at risk due to the multiple value chains and significant financial impact of high-value projects. These organizations must be able monitor all business processes that directly or indirectly affect product development projects.
NPD offers 3 strategies to borrow
These are some strategies that NPD teams use to achieve high-level results that you might want to incorporate into your own projects.
Project Governance – NPD organizations tend to be more focused on the development and maintenance of standard documentation, policies, and procedures that are related to their projects. This formal agreement will allow for better visibility to projects and portfolios.
Business Process Management – NPD organizations must ensure that they implement project workflows with the appropriate stakeholders to ensure project success. Your project leaders will have the visibility they need to spot bottlenecks and problems before they affect your project. If necessary, ensure that multiple workflows are mapped to each value chain that contributes to a project’s outcome to maximize the value.
Project Collaboration – NPD organizations must provide the means for dispersed groups and stakeholders to effectively give feedback and view information. This will ensure that there is transparency and input throughout every stage of the project’s lifecycle. Collaboration includes automatic alerts to project stakeholders with relevant information, detailed reporting, and the sharing information.
It is important to create a project management strategy that does not only focus on providing project information to project managers.