Do your projects get bogged down by constant revisions? Do your teams regularly fail to meet project deadlines or beg for extensions? Do projects go over budget more often than you’d like? If you answered yes to any of those questions, it might be time to reevaluate your project workflow. How can you find the thorns in your project’s side? Consider some of the common areas where problems arise and how PMO methodology implementation can solve your problems.

How to Identify the Weak Spots in Your Project Workflow

Where Do Delays Occur Without PMO Methodology?

It’s vital to track your projects: you should know whose court the ball is in at all times. Since projects involve multiple departments, it’s possible that one department, in particular, is causing most of your problems. Track your projects and pay attention to delays. Log those delays by recording when a deliverable was due, whose responsibility it was, and which department failed to meet its deadline. It won’t take you long to spot patterns.

Once you have a clear idea of where delays are coming from, zero in on the department that’s lagging the most. Talk to project leaders in that department to analyze the situation. A common problem with projects is that employees have other responsibilities, so they may not have enough time to prioritize the project. Alternately, there could be communication issues. Perhaps the project’s urgency wasn’t clearly explained. You won’t know until you find out who to ask!

Focus on Back and Forth

Ideally, projects should follow a set path from one department to the next. If you’ve mapped this out in advance, then you already have a measuring stick to use. Compare your ideal workflow with what’s actually happening in the company. Does your project take unexpected detours to other departments that weren’t in the original scope? Does it ping pong back and forth between two departments more than anticipated? Every time your project changes hands, it slows down the entire project.

You have to plan these exchanges in advance and take note of any deviations. Perhaps one department is being too strict and insisting on unnecessary revisions. You can minimize back and forth with a PMO approach. Having a single project management office facilitates communication between different departments and speeds up project transfers. Instead of one department passively receiving instructions from another, you can actively assign tasks across departments by using the PMO as a middleman.

Individual Vs. Group Responsibilities

Another way to examine your project hiccups is to examine whether you’re dealing with individual issues or group failures. On smaller project teams, individuals bear more responsibility for making progress. You can dissect a project’s advancement down to the individual level and see which employees are struggling to move the project forward. They might just not be very interested in the project. Perhaps they’re overwhelmed with other work. Maybe they lack confidence in their skills to move the project along.

When a group of people within a department is in charge, communication breakdowns tend to be the cause of your problems. Internal power struggles can also pose a threat to your projects. Sometimes, it’s best to bring in external help. Reach out to Project Genetics if you need a PMO to step in and get your projects back on track.

The act of planning and executing projects is itself a skill. However, many managers fail to see the utility of having a designated project leadership team or project management office. Without any central authority for projects, departments often end up competing against one another, prioritizing their interests over the project’s greater goals. This can lead to dysfunctional project teams that fail to finish their projects. Project consulting can solve these problems and set you up for future project success.

How Project Consulting Can Bridge the Gap Between Different Departments

Filling the PMO Void

Businesses are gradually starting to see the need for designated project staff. The Chief Project Officer role exists now, something that was unthinkable a few years ago. In fact, some experts predict that the CPO will become more important than the COO as companies shift their focus to projects over regular operations. We’re already seeing this trend develop as more companies have put project management offices (PMOs) into place. Some are department-only PMOs, while others are enterprise-wide.

However, even when a company does have a PMO, they tend to be inexperienced. The number of PMOs has risen considerably since 2017, which means that most of them have fewer than 5 years of experience managing projects. If your PMO is failing to move projects forward, or you have yet to implement a PMO in your company, consulting can help you fill that void in the meantime. We can even teach you how to best build a PMO.

A Neutral Perspective

One of the reasons departments fail to work well together on projects is that each department has its own interests. When the IT department needs to work with finance, each side is likely to value their own priorities over those of the other. IT wants better infrastructure and more features, while finance wants to keep the costs as low as possible. Each side has valid arguments, and without a neutral arbiter, decisions and compromises are hard to make.

A project consultant is more likely to be listened to by both sides since they have no vested interest in either department. By listening neutrally to what both sides have to say, a consultant can find a healthy middle ground and look for ways to compromise. This ultimately leaves both departments more satisfied with the final decision and encourages better interactions going forward. Just like courts rely on neutral judges, your projects should have a neutral person in charge.

Fewer Conflicts, More Collaboration

No workplace is completely free of internal power struggles. Personal conflicts between workers in the same department or even heads of different departments vying for positions in the company can destroy projects. An outsider can spot these tensions quickly and resolve them. A consultant can also tear down the barriers that silo teams and limit communication. In the end, your teams will collaborate instead of competing.

To get a project consultant for your company’s endeavors, contact Project Genetics. Our experts in project management can help you meet your deadlines and pave the way for smoother projects in the future.

Software releases are some of the most stressful dates on any calendar. New and existing customers alike can be severely affected by delays, or worse yet, bugs upon release. Software developers find themselves under immense pressure as deadlines loom large. Although there are unique aspects to software development, projects of all kinds are similar in nature. With proper technical project management, release days can be a cause for celebration rather than a source of stress.

4 Tips for Improving Your Release Process

1. Adopt an Agile Development Methodology

Agile development isn’t just the buzzword of the day: it’s the real deal. Agile software development makes it easier to implement changes into software and respond to sudden modifications. Through frequent communication and concurrent processes, an Agile approach gets work done faster and minimizes bureaucratic bottlenecks in your company.

However, Agile is such a different methodology that the learning curve can scare companies off. The prospect of switching systems terrifies many managers. It’s important to bring in experienced Agile coaches who can teach your staff by letting them live the Agile experience.

2. Keep Documents Updated

Documentation is vital for technical projects. Change logs, test results, feature requests, and the company budget all pull projects in different directions. If you don’t keep track of these details throughout the project, redundancies and mistakes are more likely to occur. Fixing these problems later slows down releases.

A technical project manager needs to keep documentation up to date and make sure that employees have access to the latest information. Consider assigning the job to someone who can oversee documents across departments, unify the writing style and format, and push notifications out to workers.

3. Consider Technical Project Management Software

Software can help create software. Project management software can make managing technical projects much easier. Switching to software-based project management can cut down on unnecessary meetings that sap valuable time that could be spent developing. Software also helps you keep track of who is responsible for various tasks within a given project. Tracking that data can help you find roadblocks such as underperforming departments or excessive back and forth between departments.  

Cloud-based project management tools will also make it easier to manage projects remotely. Since you can access everything from any device, work-from-home situations and hybrid offices can seamlessly handle projects despite the distance. If you’re not sure what kind of software is best suited for your technical projects, reach out to Project Genetics to learn more about your options.

4. Don’t Rely on Crunch Time

Crunch time has become so commonplace in software development that many companies just assume that if a deadline gets too close for comfort, they can crunch their way out of it. While that might work, it’s not a sustainable solution. Crunch time costs more, burns out workers, and produces more errors.

A smoother approach to technical projects is best. If you want to reach your release dates and put out the best product possible, contact Project Genetics. We can help you optimize your project management and have the latest version out right on time.  

CRM, or customer relationship management, is one of the best approaches to boosting sales. Rather than focusing solely on luring in new clients, CRM encourages your company to target existing clients with personalized attention and messaging. Repeat business is easier to get than new business, which is why CRM has become such a popular method of increasing sales. However, successful CRM calls for new tools that facilitate interactions with customers. CRM implementation takes some time, but it’s worth the wait.

How Long Does CRM Implementation Usually Take?

Factors to Consider

The exact time it’ll take for your company to deploy a CRM system depends on several variables. From a technical perspective, a cloud-based CRM software suite could be up and running in as little as a month, given enough resources. However, your CRM software needs to be tailored to your company and the products or services you offer. Customizing your CRM system may add a few weeks to deployment. Data migration is another variable to consider.

Ideally, you’d upload data from existing systems to make your CRM system productive from the day you launch. If you leave old data in the dark, expect a longer wait to see a significant return on your investment. This is where the experience of your team comes into play. Do you have experienced IT personnel who can handle a large data migration? Do you have CRM experts? If not, consider bringing in outside help.

Starting From Scratch

If you’ve never used any sort of CRM tool before and you’re looking to add it to your business, you can get up and running faster. If you’re a small company or a startup, you might be able to use your CRM tools in as little as a month or two. Larger enterprises may need a few more weeks given the breadth of their client base and diversity of products or services. However, even large companies can get moving quickly.

Cloud-based CRM tools scale very easily. From a system perspective, there isn’t much of a difference between a CRM user with 10 clients or one with 10,000. Data transfer to the new system becomes the main challenge for large enterprises. Finally, you have to consider employee training needs. A long CRM project could take up to three or four months to complete if there is a lot of data to manage and many people to train.

Upgrading Existing Systems

How long does it take for companies that already use CRM in their workflow? Upgrading a CRM system to a more versatile one is usually an easier process than starting from scratch. System setup time is similar, but your staff can adopt a new platform faster since they’re familiar with CRM tools. Data transfer across systems is also faster since data is already organized.

Whether you’re looking to start fresh with CRM or you’ve got an aging system in need of an upgrade, CRM is always a worthwhile investment. If you need help implementing CRM in your company, contact Project Genetics to learn how we can get your CRM system up and running.