PROJECT MANAGEMENT

 

The Challenge

It is challenging to manage complex technical projects and many fail to achieve their objectives, timelines, and budgets.  Gartner statistics point to failure rates exceeding 70%.  Key reasons for failure include:

• Misalignment of objectives and priorities between the project team and the rest of the organization

• Inadequate executive leadership committment and support

• Lack of clearly defined requirements that are understood both by the technical staff and their business partners

• Failure of risk identification and mitigation processes

• Implementation of techinical capabilities because they are available, rather than because they are necessary for the success of the project

• Inadequate management of scope changes, expectations, and task completion

• Insufficient project resources or time for task completion due to poor estimation or arbitrary decisions

• Failure to include user adoption as a critical project success measurement

• Lack of user involvement in project planning, failure to provide sufficient training, and not providing on-going support

• Failure to consider and integrate the organizational culture and processes into the project

Our Approach

Accelerated Knowledge manages projects with the traditional focus on "on-time, on-budget" and take project management further by.....

• Managing projects considering and mitigating against typical reasons for failure such as the reasons identified above

• Understanding that projects are completed by people.  People whose needs and expecations deserve to be recognized and where possible, honored

• Providing clear, consistent, and regular communication of project status and issues.

• Adopting and fostering an attitude of "failure is not an option"

• Encouraging creative and flexible approaches to address project issues

Accelerate Results

Accelerated Knowledge adopts a practical and effective approach to project managment. In any project, the following key questions should be addressed:

• Who are the stakeholders and key decision makers?

• How will you know if the project is successful?

• What user adoption goal are you committed to delivering?

• How will you know when the project is done?

• Is the project team fully engaged and focused on success?

• What are the key risks and how will you mitigate them?

• What resources will you need?

• What will you do if you don't get all your resources?

• What is a realistic timeline for implementation?

• What are the major milestones and deliverables?