Search results

Many of us have heard the organization's strategy, the organization's vision, the strategic goals of the organization, the development and implementation of the organization's strategy, the strategic direction of the organization, the short-term and long-term strategy of the organization, and so on. However, do we know what strategy management is about and what benefits the organization gets from it? Strategic management – what is it? Strategic management is in a certain sense a process during which there is: a) defines the company's strategy or, in other words, the strategic goals of the organization, i.e. what the organization wants to become in a certain period of time, and how the agreed goals will be pursued – an implementation plan is prepared, b) the plan is implemented and c) monitoring and control is carried out on how well the agreed strategic goals are achieved. What to expect from strategic management? Strategic management in an organization must define: what period of time the strategy will be planned for how the organization will plan its long-term and short-term strategy, every year who will approve the planned strategy and in what period of the year it will be carried out who will be involved in the planning of the organization's strategy who and how the action plan for achieving the start-up will be prepared how it will be checked whether the arranged action plan of the organization's strategy is progressing as planned, whether corrective goals are needed at any point how every once in a while, the pursuit of the organization's strategy will be audited how and by what means the employees of the organization will be empowered to achieve the strategic goals of the organization what indicators will be measured to evaluate the state of achievement of strategic goals and how these indicators will be implemented or not for the rest of the organization and its employees Strategic management in its stages is very similar to the project management methodology, i.e. it has the stages of planning, implementation and monitoring. However, strategy management affects all areas of the organization, starting with personnel management and ending even with the equipment used by the organization and its employees.

Project management is a very widely applied practice in the world, which can be applied in a wide variety of situations not only in business, but also in life. However, is there anything to think about before implementing project management in an organization? Is project management and its principles the same in different areas of business? The answer to this question is yes and no. The practice of project management is applied everywhere the same: before the initiation of the project, the idea of the project and the desired benefits of the project are arranged before starting to prepare a project plan, it is decided what solutions are available and which one to choose then the project actions are planned, a detailed plan is prepared and possible unexpected situations are assessed after the preparation of the detailed plan of the project, the implementation of the project is carried out after the implementation of the project, the benefits received and the lessons learned are assessed All of these steps are perfectly applicable to any area of business, from that construction business to information technology. Though there are some steps are specifically applicable in IT, real estate or any other area, if we would go deeper in to the details. So, what should we pay attention to when we want to implement a project management methodology in our business enterprise? The implementation of project management seems very easy, you would say what is here: you came up with the main life cycles of the project, arranged the main steps and requirements of the project and launched it into life. In part, this is true, but there are a few things that are very important to think about before drawing what the project management process will look like in your organization: identify what problem you want to solve with project management practices name what you want to consider as a project – not all changes should be called projects, this can make the implementation of the smallest changes more expensive when you know what changes will be identified as projects - answer the question of how many such changes occur in the organization per year the answer to the third question will help you to assess how complex project management practices are needed, i.e. if the number of projects in the organization is large, then you may need project dependencies, risk management and a few more steps in making a decision another important point is what is the maturity of project management in the organization: although in the absence of an official project management methodology, are there people who manage change according to project management practices? If maturity is low and people are not very aware of the principles of project management, it is very important that first stages of the implementation of project management are as simple as possible and more complex stages are introduced gradually during the development of the organization

Change management is a very broad topic. It is not uncommon for change management in an organization to be identified as project management. Project management is a way in which changes could be implemented, but this is not the same. What exactly is the management of organizational change? What is change management? Depending on which area you look at, change management can be treated differently: say, in the field of information technology (IT), change management is associated with the introduction of small and large IT changes in a production environment, while from the side of human behavior, the management of changes is characterized using the Kubler - Ross change curve. What is organizational change management? When changes are introduced in an organization, change management takes on a deeper meaning, and the ability to manage projects or implement processes alone is not enough. In such situations, it is very important to also use understanding how people react to change. To what extent is the organization adaptive to changes? What is the change connected with? Are the organization's leadership ambassadors for the change? When was the last time there was a change in the larger mindset in the organization? These and many more questions are important for planning breakthroughs in an organization and trying to understand what the right way would be to implement a change in an organization. When we are talking about management of a change in organization, these are the steps to think about: identify the most sensitive group of people in the organization who can react most to the change after identifying this group of people, try to pay more attention to them, trying to understand their fears, for which they do not believe or do not want to implement the change in the organization try to include them as much as possible in the implementation of change so that people would feel part of the change plan appropriate communication channels based on how different departments or teams are affected by changes in the organization. The most common mistake is that everyone communicates the same way and through the same channels, thus making the message impersonal and may not reach part of the audience The main rule of change management in an organization: to understand what kind of people, how they will be affected and what kind of reaction could be to the change depending on the environment of the organization.

Project management is a very widely used methodology in the world. There are perhaps two of the best-known certificates for project managers (PMP under PMBOK/PMI and Prince) that help identify whether person has knowledge of project management. However, when we talk about project managers, can anyone with a certificate of project management be an IT project manager? What knowledge does PMP give according to PMBOK / PMI and Prince? PMP according to PMBOK comes from the United States of America, while Prince is more of a British version describing what project management is. Although practice originates from different continents, they both talk about general project management principles, what are the main steps that are applied when there are managed projects in organizations. However, they do not mention anything about information technology projects and how they should be managed. So if you have a PMP or Prince certificate and know how to apply the practices described in these methodologies, could you be an IT project manager? The short answer to this question would be unfortunately "no". Why? In the field of information technology project management, there are countless other processes that project managers working on these changes need to know. What are those processes: solution testing and its stages: system integration tests, system user acceptance tests, system performance stability tests, security tests solution release: most often in organizations there are certain calendars on which days the ready-made solution can be installed into an environment accessible to all users, before doing this there are various level checks to ensure that the solution that is about to be launched does not destroy the existing infrastructure solution design and its stages: depending on the size of the organization and its complexity, each new decision or change in the system is reviewed and approved in the context of the entire IT infrastructure, that is, it is not the projects that make the decision on what to install, but the people responsible for the IT infrastructure. The project in this case ensures only that the objectives of the project are ensured with the chosen solution decision-making for further maintenance: when a ready-made IT solution is implemented into an environment accessible to users, it must be transferred to the rest of the organization, which will support and maintain the system. At this stage, there are countless steps related to the documentation of the system, the training of people and so on These and more processes exist that every project manager should know before stepping into IT project management field.

How many times have you heard that initiating a project is very difficult in your organization? I hear this all the time, although when I look from the outside, the initiation process does not seem very complicated. So let's discuss what are the main requirements for initiating projects. What are the basic documents most often used to initiate projects? Before moving on to the documents, let's remember what a project is. Project management defines a project as an action that creates a unique service, product or result and has a beginning and an end. Regardless of the maturity of project management, in each organization you will find certain requirements that must be met, if you want to initiate a project. The most common requirements for initiating a project are: project description (project charter) - this document most often consists of: reason - why the project is needed purpose - description of what result is suppose to be achieved with the project consequences - what, if the project was not initiated initial project implementation plan - initial self-assessment of how long the project may take business requirements - i.e. how the process should work, after the implementation of the project project business plan (project business case) - in this document you need to find: costs - how much the implementation and maintenance of the project in the long term (usually in the context of 5 years) will cost for the organization benefits - what monetary benefits will be achieved, such as revenue growth, reduction of operating costs, etc. payback period - this one is one of the most easily calculated indicators, which helps to understand how many years it will take for all the costs associated with the project to pay off. This indicator is calculated by comparing the planned benefits with the spent costs of the project, for example: the project cost 200 euros and the benefit per year is 100 euros - the project will pay off in 2 years

Project management has a very clear definition of the project. Project - this is an action that creates a unique service, product or result; it is an action that has a very clear beginning and end. But is the concept of a project the same in all organizations? What changes taking place in the organization or actions performed can be considered projects? In each organization, you can find changes or actions that match the general definition of the project. However, each action, for example the report about quarterly company results preparation, cannot be treated as a project, although: it has a beginning and an end and creates a unique result for that specific period Key criteria here due to which quarterly report can not be considered as a project is the fact that the action is repeating every quarter. So, what criteria can be applied in different organizations when it comes to projects? I share some of the criteria that companies apply when they try to determine whether a particular action can be classified as a project, which leads to the activation of the project management process. Extra criteria that can define the action as a project: cost: that is, if a change will cost for the organization from a certain amount, then this may indicate that there is a change in the size of the project impact to the organization: if the change has a huge impact on the organization, for example, the organization enters other markets, strongly changes the direction of its activities, changes the structure of its information technology, etc. In such cases, the change can be treated as a project number of stakeholders: if the change affects, lets say, 3 or more stakeholders, the organization may request that such changes be a subject to project management and its process external obligations: in the definition of an organization's project, there may be a condition that if a change is initiated, due to legislation and other regulatory measures, in order to maintain the necessary control and clarity, the organization may say that the project is carried out in all cases where they are related to external requirements involvement of external companies: organizations may decide that a change will be considered as a project in all cases if its implementation requires the involvement of other organizations These and more conditions can be introduced into the general definition of the project, so that, only the most important changes in the organization, follow the practices of project management.

In traditional project management and in the Agile management, resource management is carried out in completely different ways, although the goal of the process itself is the same: to get the necessary resources, to know where those resources are located, to understand when those resources will be freed up. So what are the main differences between project management and agile management when it comes to resource management? Project management and Agile management: what are the main differences in resource management? One of the most fascinating things about Agile management is that this whole methodology only works when there are 100% dedicated team for each product area. That is, this team works on all the changes associated with a particular product. They will work with different changes throughout the year (or two or three, depending on the decision of the organization), but in the same product area and team. Such resource management in Agile management also greatly helps the organization's budgeting process, i.e. the necessary costs to maintain the team are counted (and all other additional external costs) and that's it . This is also very useful in resource management, because a lot of steps in the process are simply no longer needed: the resources are planned for a year or more and they work with as many changes as the team itself can take. One of the minuses of dedicated teams is that very often, the operational costs of an organization are higher than when carrying out changes in the usual way of managing projects and assigning people, where they are needed and for issues of the highest priority. Another thing that is important to mention is that very often there are areas in organizations (for example, if we are talking about information technology, this can be the case with a "core" system), which are always influenced by all the changes in one way or another. In such cases, in order to have 100% dedicated teams, there must be almost twice as many specialists of this competence. In project management, most often people work on several projects at once, so it is more difficult to maintain focus, to understand where, which person spends how much time on which project and where maybe they need less or more, but this is less costly more often. When we talk about non-human resources, neither the management of projects nor the management of Agile has much of an impact. All sorts of tools, environments, will still be needed and will need to be managed and supervised by people who are certainly not members of the product team (in the case of Agile management) or the project team. When we talk about resource management, there is no single rule on which change management is more correct. It is always very important to understand how organization works, what changes it usually develops and what is size of the organization.

Project management consists of a very large number of different components. One of them is resource management. Many companies ask the question of what processes and tools could be applied to make it clear how many resources are needed to implement projects, how long they will be needed and when, according to the availability of resources, when a new project could be initiated. What is resource management? Resource management includes all the necessary resources that are necessary for the implementation of the project. It can be: people, machines, servers, tools, etc. Resource management in itself includes: planning the necessary resources, providing them and giving them away when the project is over. What is it important to think about while setting up resource management in project management? There are a few things to think about at all times when there is a need to manage resources for a project: The project manager should plan the necessary resources at least 2 months in advance. Why? Because no matter what size of organization it is, in some areas there may be certain limits of certain competencies due to the historical reasons of the organization, due to such a market situation, due to the fact that many other projects are underway in the same area. If more than 3 - 5 projects are underway in the organization (depending on their complexity), a tool is needed for resource management in which to see: where the resources are currently being used, when they will become free, which project is already waiting for resources. There is no best tool. I started with excel myself, then we switched to Jira, but no tool will work if those who have to order resources, those who have to allocate or free them up, do not use the tool and, accordingly, will not mark it in the necessary places. When the project ends, the resources must be freed up. This part is one of the most frequently forgotten. Why? I am not talking about human resources, but rather about technological resources: for example, in the field of information technology, there was a project for which environments were used to prepare, test and implement a solution. When conducting solution tests, some data is always required to check whether the various scenarios in the process will work as they should. When a project closes, people tend to forget that environments need to be cleaned of the data used. Why? Due to the fact that the environmental capacity is used, if it is not enough, other projects can be forced to increase the capacity of the environment, which most often increases the cost of the project. Resource management is a very broad topic, at the top I present, only the main topics that would be worth thinking about when implementing resource management in project management.

Nowadays, there are countless sources of information where you can find answers and solutions to the most unexpected questions. Therefore, sometimes the question arises, who needs paid business advice when there are inexhaustible layers of various processes, document templates, tips, video training, etc. on the Internet? Let's start with what exactly is business consulting? Consulting on business issues can have more than several directions: when advice and examples of how different business problems can be solved on certain issues when, in the presence of a certain business problem, not only advice is needed, but also the implementation of the solution along with the training of people when, in the presence of a certain problem in an organization, one wants to understand or check the true causes that leaves organization in certain situation when, due to lack of people, additional help is required to install new processes, tools when one wants to understand whether certain processes in the organization are needed and would benefit from it How to know, when is business consulting needed? Business consulting could be considered in the cases bellow: the organization has limited time and human resources to solve the problem. In this case, the best thing is to seek help so that the issue that exists in the organization is resolved as soon as possible and people are trained it is felt that the organization is stuck and none of the methods used help to solve the problem that has arisen. In such cases, people who provide consulting services can: taking into account the experiences seen in other organizations, it is capable to assess from outside what are the real reasons why the organization faces difficulties in a particular area help to understand which actions are most appropriate to solve the problem – sometimes the problem is clear, but the actions are not correct want to assess what processes of change, project, strategy management or other processes are needed and appropriate according to the organization's environment, its maturity and culture there is a need for help in order to sell new ideas to the management of the organization, i.e. additional insights from the outside can help to assess and present the potential benefits of introducing new processes or ways of doing business

When I hear two words "business consulting", I am often skeptical about the quality of the services they provide. This attitude has formed while working for many years in an area where it is not uncommon to seek help or advice from business consultants. And sometimes, unfortunately, it happened that we didn't get the result we wanted or got very generic advice that wasn't necessarily applicable to our organization. And it's not about the fact that business consultants were not competent - all of them were professionals in their field at a certain level, it's just that we were not fully prepared for such a collaboration. So, what is worth knowing and how to prepare before inviting business consultants to your home? When it would be worth to turn to business consulting companies to ask for help? Business consulting is a service provided by companies or individuals who help various types of organizations to operate and improve certain areas. There are a lot of areas, one example could be project management: let's say an organization is doing poorly in carrying out projects, they are always late, people do not understand what steps need to be taken and do not perform them, etc. In such cases, if, having tried to correct potential mistakes that exist in the process or in people's understanding, inside the organization, it is not possible to achieve improvement, it is always recommended to turn to external people who could look at your problem with fresh eyes. How to get ready for business consulting? Sometimes it is forgotten, that the moment of preparation before inviting business consultants to your organization is of paramount importance. So what should the preparation consist of? first of all, name what areas you want to improve take the current picture of the area - it is very important to have quantitative results that characterize the current situation determine what kind of improvement you expect in quantitative results and in what time frame determine how you will want to measure whether the services provided by business consulting have been successful and brought benefits to you determine how you will measure whether the work you have agreed with business consultants is done – the expression commonly used i "definition of done" If you think at least a little about the criteria listed above, there is a greater chance that after cooperation with business consultants you will be satisfied.

PMO (Project Management Office) is a team whose one of the functions is control. Different organizations require a different level of control in project management. How to know when and at what level of PMO control is needed? What is included in PMO control function? project management document content control: checking that the documents are prepared correctly and all the necessary information is provided and described control whether all signoffs are collected: verification if project manager has all the evidence showing that everyone with whom he had to align is done project budget plan control: verification of whether all the necessary costs are calculated and planned project's budget expenditures control: whether to the extent that the planned project has spent, if not, what are the reasons for discrepancies project implementation plan control: reviewing the detailed plan of the project by assessing whether it is sufficiently detailed, whether the tasks are assigned to people, whether the logical durations are designed for different phases, what method of implementing the tasks is chosen (parallel or sequenced) and deep diving into how realistic this plan is control over the composition of the project team: whether all the necessary resources are assigned and the project is ready to move on control of the project business plan: whether the project has assessed the planned benefits that it plans to achieve and earn in the course of the project implementation control of assessment of project risks and dependencies: whether all risks and dependencies are assessed, whether they are correctly described and whether the owners are correctly assigned, and whether all this is reflected in the project implementation plan When and what kind of PMO control is needed? When PMO function is being implemented, it is not worth implementing all control mechanisms, as this makes it possible to bend the stick too far, in places where control may be superfluous. It is best to first of all name the weakest points that you want to improve and introduce changes gradually, taking into account: what is the maturity of project management and other processes, what is the level of ownership, i.e. whether people understand the their responsibilities and act as owners and leaders the importance and complexity of the projects taking place: if the projects are not interdependent and do not have strict deadlines, the omission of which can cause great pain to the organization, the less control should be applied

The PMO (Project Management Office) is a project management department that carries out the control, monitoring and supervision of projects that develop in the organization. However, is there a need for an PMO function in all organizations where projects are carried out? What are the main functions of the PMO? PMO is a unit that performs a number of functions, one of the main ones being: project management process control growing the maturity of project management project monitoring quality control of project documentation and delivery drawing up and maintaining an annual project plan installing and maintaining project management tools ... How do you know when the PMO function is required in an organization? With regard to the need for an PMO, I think it is very important to take into account several aspects: what kind of environment the organization operates in: if the organization operates in a strongly controlled environment, the body that oversees all the changes taking place in it would be very useful what is the internal environment of the organization: if there is a knowledge of project management in the organization, the processes are mature and people know how everything works - the PMO function may not be needed, but if it is the other way around, to ensure smooth project management - the PMO function would be inevitable what is the structure of the organization: if there is a huge segregation of duties in the organization and each unit looks after only its own small bit of the area, most of the time PMO in such an organization helps to find the right owners when the implementation of change is required what type of projects are most often carried out: if it is very common for various ongoing projects have a lot of dependencies on each other, then in this case someone needs to take care that these different project teams talk to each other and understand each other's dependencies