All large-scale projects are driven by the project's "final client", i.e. a business or support department of the company. Projects can be of several kinds: team mergers, mergers of two entities, integration of an acquired entity, implementation of an ERP...
In all cases, project management is an expertise in its own right, based on methods and tools as well as on similar experience with (large) projects.
This is why Akeance Consulting offers its services in the area of delegated project management. The interlocutors are the company's business or support departments.
The project management relies on a governance and an organization of the project which respects the project fundamentals (project director, project manager, committees...) and which adapts to the reality of the project and the company. Project management has a triple role:
- to animate the project through monitoring tools and committees;
- to be the relay for all constraints undergone or generated by the project, whether inside or outside the company;
- to identify blocking points and find alternative solutions during the whole project.
Experience is a very strong asset as projects are never the same and it is particularly useful to have experienced different difficulties during different projects to better react, propose and arbitrate. Experience also teaches that a project must be carried out at a sustained pace, which does not necessarily mean an overload of work but implies immediate reactivity to any kind of problems.
A common misconception about project management is that a good project manager will do the job. And that's all there is to it. Unfortunately, this is not enough. As soon as the project reaches a certain size, of course, participation in workshops, writing minutes, monitoring time tables, motivating and arguing for arbitration, budget management, etc. are all tasks that should be performed by a team around the project manager.
Meeting overload is often the response to proposals and demands made during workshops and other committees. However, project management requires many meetings in order to discuss, confront, propose, validate, etc. Quality of meetings preparation, their efficiency and effectiveness are the mark of a rigorous project management methodology, the high number of committees is not. In a nutshell, good project management implies a lot of meetings... but short ones!
