Initiating a Project Management Culture in Business: The Baby Steps Approach

Introduction

Effective project management enables a company to realize its vision through various strategies. However, why is it so difficult to establish an efficient model? This article explores this question through a case study and offers practical solutions to improve project management in business.

Case Study: Luc’s Company

A few months ago, I met Luc (a pseudonym), the CEO of a European certification company. With about a hundred employees, including a dozen project managers, Luc is concerned. Although his company is doing well, it operates in a highly competitive market, and he knows it must evolve to stay relevant.

When Luc finished his presentation, I was positively impressed and wondered why he invited me. His company has a vision, a strategy, and a seemingly coherent action plan. Various projects are on the roadmap:

• Advanced digitalization of client interactions during the certification process.
• Extension of the range of certifiable products.
• A strategy to conquer new geographical territories.

I was puzzled and interrupted Luc to ask, “So, what’s the problem?”

Luc hesitated a bit before answering. He explained that his teams are willing, but despite a well-defined strategy and a concrete action plan, projects are neither executed efficiently nor completed without pain. Project managers combine their projects with daily tasks, making project management chaotic.

“How can we effectively combine our regular activities with project management practice?” asked Luc.

Problem Analysis

A project management methodology must be tailored to the company. Too often, companies implement inadequate practices without managing the necessary change for successful deployment. Luc agreed to start with a workshop with his teams without participating himself to avoid influencing the discussions.

During this workshop, the project team was enthusiastic about working on improving project management and willing to question themselves. A roundtable revealed varied profiles:

• Sam, the youngest, admitted his lack of knowledge in project management.
• Jacques, with numerous projects and PMI certifications, was very experienced.

Evaluating strengths and weaknesses revealed the following points:

• Varied knowledge and experiences.
• Team willingness and mindset.
• Individual comfort zones.

Cross-perceptions between management and field teams revealed significant difficulties:

• Lack of a clear vision of projects and their status.
• Blurry link between projects and strategy.
• Poorly defined roles and responsibilities.
• Insufficiently allocated resources.
• Projects are planned reactively rather than proactively.

Proposed Solutions

Given these findings, I proposed a step-by-step approach to Luc:

1. Baby Steps Approach: Adopt a gradual approach to implement the necessary changes without overwhelming the teams.
2. Priority Assessment: Determine priority projects to focus resources on the most impactful initiatives.
3. Integration Workshop: Organize a collaborative workshop to align teams on goals and methodology, strengthening communication and mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities.
4. Light Methodology Implementation: Develop a company-specific methodology adapted to its needs and capabilities to facilitate adoption and implementation.
5. Deployment of a Visual Project Management Tool: Use a visual tool like perspectives.pm to better track, coordinate, and manage projects, improving visibility and communication within teams.

Conclusion

In this article, we examined the challenges of Luc’s company in project management and proposed an approach to address them. Here are the main points discussed:

Company Context: A certification company with insufficient project monitoring and project managers juggling daily tasks and project management.

Identified Problems:

• Projects not executed efficiently.
• Lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities.
• Poor resource allocation for projects.

Evaluation and Analysis:

• Workshop with the project team to identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Importance of cross-perceptions between management and field teams.

Proposed Solutions:

• Adopt a step-by-step approach (“baby steps”).
• Prioritize projects and define a light methodology.
• Use a visual project management tool to track and coordinate initiatives better.

To Be Continued

In our next article, we will see how these solutions were implemented in Luc’s company. We will share detailed steps of the implementation, challenges encountered, and results obtained. These insights will help you understand how to adopt a successful project management culture in your own company.

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For even more effective project management, I invite you to discover perspectives.pm, our visual project management tool. perspectives.pm is designed to improve team visibility, project tracking, and team communication. Using clear and intuitive visualizations, you can easily coordinate your initiatives and ensure their success.

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