Nailing the process of effective Enterprise Project Management (EPM)

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Nailing the process of effective Enterprise Project Management (EPM)

At any given time, a typical enterprise will have anywhere between two to five projects on the floor. Nowhere is this more apparent than in an enterprise that is committed to continuous improvement.

Organizations undertake a project to move with changing times. They may be looking at improved productivity or adapting to the changing dynamics of business. A project can be any proposal to change something or implement something new that will require staff, customers or suppliers to behave or react differently. Some means of bringing about this change is through order processing, newsletters, discount policies, commissioning new machinery etc.

A project plan has to be effective enough to streamline a project and help it achieve the goals it has set out to do. Here is a look at 5 simple ways in which this can be handled, irrespective of the kind of enterprise project you are looking at.

Step 1: Setting the base for the Project

This step ensures that the project has a good base on which to establish itself. Some of the tasks that will fall in its ambit are

  • Identifying project goals and objectives
  • Arranging sponsorships
  • Setting up the project team, a leader and roles and responsibilities of individuals
  • Detailing project stages, timelines, tools required and measuring metrics
  • Imparting skills / domain training as required.

 

Step 2: Identifying the problem and diagnosis

Once you have identified the problem, you should be able to share this information with everyone on the team and give them an educated understanding of the cause of the problem and how things should be worked out. What you can expect here are tasks like

  • Root cause analysis (RCA)
  • Establishing vital few issues vs. trivial many.
  • Prioritizing the vital issues and discussing about ways to tackle it.

 

Step 3: Coming up with the appropriate solutions

With the problem clearly defined, the team should be able to devise appropriate solutions. In this process you will

  • Develop ways to tackle the problem
  • Identify alternatives and arriving at the ideal solution
  • Test the solution on paper or simulating it using AI tools
  • Consider scenarios in terms of maximizing efficiency, meeting customer needs, managing staff concerns and organizational policies etc.

 

Step 4: Putting the plan into effect

In the course of implementing your solutions you will,

  • List out all resources required to implement the project
  • Develop a critical path or change management plan for action and implementation
  • Ensure resources are available and they are efficiently used
  • Brief employees about the project to minimize resistance
  • Plan staff training needs

Step 5: Implementation and reporting

  • In the end you will implement the project and address the issues or any resultant outcomes. The sub-tasks that can arise here are Monitoring implementation
  • Presenting qualitative and quantitative metrics
  • Project review
  • Consolidating gains
  • Detailed reporting