Three Keys to Project Management
Susan Poser over at Oracle Profit has an excellent take on what she considers to be the three keys to project success. Summarized, they are:
- Project Portfolio/prioritization
- Project Execution
- Project Closeout
Before starting any project, you must ask yourself three questions. Is this project the most profitable? How well can we track progress utilization and milestone success? How quickly will we bill so we can book revenue?
When it comes to the dynamics of funding internal projects or funding opportunities to engage in externally, these three questions should always be an initial starting point. You should also know that project management has more options of team management apps now. Check out this software alternative for basecamp tool.
Says Poser:
Executives go through various processes to determine which projects to fund internally and which opportunities to engage in externally. For instance, a high-technology company may develop a new product or build a new facility internally, and may provide installation services externally. Once these decisions are made, managing the execution by tracking the schedule, costs, resources, and milestones is critical to ensure project success. Many managers have the additional complexity of overseeing a supply chain to ensure that equipment, material, and resources are available on time at the point of need and use. The question is, how can they integrate their portfolio and project management processes in order to manage projects profitably—and ensure business value?
Me, I’m in the Accounting Department here at MIPRO. I found this article to be very informative, and above all, very realistic in terms of what many folks talk about when evaluating a project. It’s a quick read but while the principal ideals gaining profitability, decreasing costs and achieving customer satisfaction are nothing new in today’s market, MIPRO has one of the highest success rates in the industry when it comes to what we consider a key differentiator — customer satisfaction. Happy customers equal repeat business. If a project doesn’t pave the way for us to increase our number of satisfied customers, then we don’t do it. You don’t often hear ‘customer satisfaction’ bandied about in the consulting world, but we take it very seriously. For us, it’s an outcome that we try to achieve through the exact questions Poser discusses.
