We have extensive experience in large-scale, global program management. We have established a global Program Management Office (PMO), implemented project management methodologies, created tools & templates, and managed many large, complex global projects.
One company was in the process of developing & rolling out their first global application. The company was in the early stages of developing its digital distribution strategy, and the application was intended to be a repository of all company assets available for sale, and eventually would feed data directly to all digital distribution partners for the company.
Several months into the project, management began to lose confidence in the technical team’s ability to deliver.
The team had never managed a project of this scale and complexity before, and they were struggling. They were missing major milestones and the quality of their work products were not up to expected quality standards. The programmers felt that their manager was not allowing for realistic timeframes to complete their work, and their manager was frustrated with their inability to meet their due dates. Users were becoming frustrated and senior management was not happy. The project was six months behind schedule and a $500K over budget.
We were tasked with getting the project back on track. An urgent assessment was required to determine the current state of the project, identify the root cause of the issues that were undermining its success, and develop an action plan to get the project back on course.
After meeting with the team to get their perspective, reviewing the project plans & processes, reviewing the team’s organization structure and skills, as well as evaluating how communications were being managed between the team and their users, we were ready to make some changes to get the project back on track.
The addition of a more experienced project manager to help guide the team yielded immediate results and a reorganization of the project team established clear lines of accountability. Daily project meetings were established to keep the newly reorganized team on schedule.
A detailed review of the project requirements was made a priority, and as a result, a new project baseline was established. Weekly stakeholder meetings were established and used to ensure that all stakeholders were briefed on project status as well as any new issues and risks.
It wasn’t long before user confidence in the team’s ability to deliver improved significantly. Users who were testing system deliverables became less frustrated as they saw the quality of the deliverables improve. Project meetings become more productive and the technical team started meeting their due dates on a regular basis.
Suddenly the team began achieving success. They starting making their due dates, major milestones were accomplished, and the users and stakeholders were pleased with the turnaround they saw.
Six months after we were brought in, the first phase of the project was successfully implemented in its first country. A second phase of the project was completed 4 months later and implemented in a second country. Today, the system is relied on by over 1,500 users in 35 countries around the world to ensure that critical company data is available to all of their digital business partners.