Anyone who has been a project manager for a while will have run into an organizational change management project--and has likely experienced some of the unique challenges that they present. We all know that there is no such thing as an easy project, but making fundamental changes to the company or department in which we work presents a whole new set of potential pitfalls. Successful organizational change management needs careful planning and execution--and here we help you prepare for this tricky time.
Supporting project delivery across project, program, PMO and portfolio management processes, BrightWork is a SharePoint-based collaboration tool that can be adapted to each organization’s capability and maturity level without overwhelming users with unnecessary functionality.
Portfolio managers don’t always need a full-feature package with all the bells and whistles. Reviewing the variety of solutions available led this writer to generate a basic list of PPM requirements as well as a few nice-to-have features--leading him to a recommendation.
Hidden traps often come from surprising sources, resulting in project delays or funding shortfalls. It is critical to identify all the risks up front, establish mitigation strategies and allocate ample time and budget to overcome any hurdles. How? Through effective planning, of course!
What constitutes a successful project? Should it be defined by budget and schedule, or by the extent to which the outcome adds real business value? Until the project management profession and its standards evolve to a more balanced “art and science” approach, success criteria will be misaligned with real business needs.
PMXPO 2012
gantthead is once again excited to be bringing you our annual virtual conference and exhibition on Thursday, May 17, 2012. It's your opportunity to learn, network, earn PDUs and gain valuable knowledge all from the comfort of your home, office-or home office. Registration is FREE, so take a minute now and make sure you don't miss out on what promises to be one of the highest-value conference experiences in project management this year.
Does an organization overcome cultural barriers and organizational resistance to implementing ITIL? Here are several elements that are critical to propelling the organizational change required to make ITIL implementations successful.
ITIL brings with it tremendous potential to transform an organization. However, it requires unwavering persistence and commitment to leverage the transformation potential.
We’ve been led to believe that change can take place if organizations and their processes--typically, IT systems--work together harmoniously. Is that true? This story looks at the complex relationship between organizational and project change management.
The project manager’s critical success factor will be leadership skills, according to a global panel of consultants and senior executives assembled by ESI International.
It’s time that we face up to a fundamental reality: organizations grapple with making project management work successfully on a consistent basis. Yes, there are exceptions--and some notable ones--but on the whole they simply prove the rule. It's time for a different approach.
The basic premise for the New York state project management methodology is that there are two lifecycles in managing a software project: the Project Management Lifecycle and the System Development Lifecycle. This article briefly examines both cycles, worthy processes to follow for any organization seeking a quality PM solution.
The key challenge to organizational PM is that companies tend to view projects in isolation by ignoring the obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) linkages. Here we present a list of essential factors to ensure the organization can begin to not just benefit from the discipline of project management, but be able to maximize the benefits that organizational PM can provide.
This template is designed to assist the project manager with planning to react constructively to workforce resistance due to organizational change, especially when the project is supporting the organizational change.
Stop the insanity! These three tactics are designed to help you solve today’s leadership problems and distinguish yourself as an effective leader--just when your workforce needs as many as it can get.
On organizational change initiatives, leaders must engage people at all levels by involving them in the design of the implementation strategy and its execution. Here is a three-phase Organizational Change Management Lifecycle methodology for successfully managing your next change initiative.
As we enter 2011, it's time for a refresher--it's the perfect time to explore the cross section of views and perspectives about PMOs. It's the perfect time to see what others are thinking regarding the state of PMOs, and this article will focus on starting a PMO, avoiding PMO failure, trends and the future of the PMO.
A new book emphasizes the integration of project management and change management to improve the chances of success for business, IT and other organizational initiatives.
With the emphasis on their ability to drive change, there is a growing requirement for CIOs also to change; they need to become Change Management Officers. So what will it take for CIOs to add organizational change management to their repertoire of expertise?
A wide variety of technology solutions and services are available to help organizations implement, customize and improve their project portfolio management processes. Here is our August roundup of recent updates and announcements from CA, Daptiv, Innotas, Oracle Primavera, Planview, PowerSteering, Rally and others.
How do we adapt in the face of consistency, or of anarchy or of brutal regimentation? As project managers, the only thing we really have control over is ourselves. Given this, how do we change our approach in a way that enables us to be effective in producing project results, rather than bashing our head repeatedly against an unfeeling and unchanging wall of bureaucracy? Here we take a look at adaptation in the face of organizational consistency.
Few project managers discuss stakeholders without in some way referencing the need to employ "stakeholder management". Not only have we invented a dehumanizing four-syllable word for "person", we've also now implied that they are people that need to be managed. Luckily, there's a simple solution here. Read about three letters that make a lot of difference.
A new survey from Project Management Institute identifies key trends in project, program and portfolio management, including a renewed focus on talent development and increased use of agile methods. The results also point to critical success factors, among them clearly defining expected benefits, ensuring top-level management support, and creating a career path for project participants.
The change request form should be used to formally initiate a request for change to a project. Types of change requests you can initiate by using this form include changes to scope, timeframes, deliverables, resources, milestones and expenditures.
You will have to fight against the gravitational pull of negative organizational climate to achieve the engagement of project workers and others. Use these tactics to help you win the battle.
Our May 2009 Cool Tools roundup highlights some of the latest Agile-focused technology solutions and services for project management professionals and organizations.
Even when speaking the same language, we all interpret words in our own way, with our own filters and supported by our personal or organizational context. We sometimes forget that others may define or react to the exact same word much differently than we do. In addition, organizations and areas within organizations may use and interpret the same word differently, depending on the context. As project managers, we don’t always understand the impact various contexts and these different interpretations can have on an organization’s ability to successfully implement change. As such we may find ourselves dodging verbal hand grenades – terms that can blow our organizational change projects right out of the water!
The PMBOK Guide and other best-practice frameworks provide considerable detail on schedule, budget and risk management techniques, but much less guidance on how to manage the people-related challenges that threaten the execution of these plans, and are the most commonly cited reasons for the failure of complex change initiatives.
Agile can help steer a company through organizational culture and process changes, but the project requires a strategic shift in operations. But even with these challenges, agile provides the necessary tools to make this transition possible.
Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Kraft Bell discusses how to take a strategy-aligned approach to enterprise change and overcome some of the constraints faced by organizations in these turbulent times.
The Change HEADWAY Chanage Management project plan for small projects is a work breakdown structure in MS Project containing links to detailed instructions and resources on gantthead.
From Gartner PPM Summit 2007
This keynote presentation by Kraft Bell, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, addresses how a strategy-aligned approach to enterprise change can overcome the typical contraints on those endeavors.
Organizations do a lot to implement what is viewed as project management. But do organizations have an organizational project management capability? To understand whether we do or not, we have to understand what this actually means, explore where organizations are today and evaluate how close we actually are to the attainment of this goal.
How can organizational change be implemented with a minimum of distress? Change frequently results in unrest, uncertainty and concern caused by nothing more than fear. People lose focus, become less productive and potentially seek out alternative employment because of the fear of something that is not going to happen. In this article, we look at how we can manage those situations more effectively.
This document provides a high-level Change Readiness Summary to be inserted to the Business Case. For smaller projects the Change Readiness Assessment may be more useful to relate this change to the other changes planned or underway in the area of the organization affected, contributing to the cumulative change picture. For large projects this represents a key element where absolute clarity is required at the senior decision-making level prior to embarking upon detailed planning of the change.
This document presents the detailed plan for integrating change in the organization. For small changes consider including relevant elements of the document to the Project HEADWAY Project Plan template. For medium changes consider the relevance of a lite Change Management Plan. For large changes complete the Change Management Plan and consider other elements to be added that add to the likelihood of the adoption of the change.
We seem to be moving from the “every PMO is different” model to the “PMOs fit into one of several types” model. However, since the heady days of Y2K the world has changed a lot--and created a lot of opportunities for PMOs to reinvent themselves and create a new model. This writer may be a power-crazed egomaniac, but he thinks PMOs can run the organization (if not the world).
The Change HEADWAY Change Management project plan for large projects is a work breakdown structure in MS Project containing links to detailed instructions and resources on gantthead.
Project management in practice struggles to evolve, and we consistently fail to take the actions we know we should. Human inertia is too strong an influence to ignore if we want the future of PM to be that much different than it is today. If it were to be different, however, where might it go? There are two overall directions that appear to be emerging, and each has advocates and detractors. Whether (or indeed if) one attains dominance will depend upon the intersection of many forces.
Greg Balestrero will promote awareness of “corporate consciousness” and advise the project management training provider on the development of new programs that focus on leadership and accountability .
Managing strategic change initiatives and complex project turnarounds can be like trying to solve a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with a ticking alarm clock. In order to improve your odds of ending up with a pretty picture, consider adding a project pre-check to your toolset to see if any pieces are missing.
The elusive achievement of organizational alignment in corporate America is striking. What is needed is the development of an organizational structure and culture that dynamically self-adjusts and recalibrates to an ever-changing environment.
This document defines the requirements of the training plan that will support the implementation and adoption of the the change. For small changes the document can consist of 1-2 pages. For large changes the document can be extensive as this plan is imperative to the transformation of the organization.
This document provides the project sponsor, the steering committee and other stakeholders with an understanding of how the change is being received. The status report template allows the project manger to provide the audience members with a high-level view of the status of the change. The template provides them with enough information in order to for them to understand change progress whilst not so much information as to overwhelm them.
In the history of organizations trying to implement and get some value from project management, there has been a string of buzzwords that have captured the hearts, minds and budget approvals of senior executives. Why doesn't the hype of portfolio management seem to measure up in real life?
As a project manager, you will typically focus on bringing the project in on time, on budget and to the approved scope. Your focus is making sure you and your team are accomplishing what you have been tasked to do given the constraints in place. However, organizations are increasingly measuring project success not simply against the on time/one budget criteria, but also against how much and how well the product of a project is being used. One of the emerging disciplines that project managers can use to assist them and really integrate the project's product into the organization in a sustainable way is Change Management. Change Management is viewed more and more as critical to project and organizational success. In this Change HEADWAY webinar, we will be examining the change management process from a project manager's perspective to understand how change management can impact all aspects of your project.
Projects are hard enough when the focus is on getting the technical result produced, on time, on budget and to specification. When we add in the complication of getting that used, however, the challenge becomes much more significant. Organizational change requires the evolution of structures, roles, responsibilities. processes and - above all - behaviours. It is all about getting people to work in new and different ways, and to embrace why they need to make this change.
This document captures the key messages, list the target audiences, align the timing for communication and identify the most effective communication channels in relation to these three elements. For small departmental changes the document can consist of 1-2 pages. For large transformational changes the document may consist of up to 8-10 pages or more and include and internal and external communication plan.
Requirements Management Plan Toolkit
This toolkit includes a template and white papers to help with your requirements management planning. Download it now.
