Author: Jana

What Is “Event Chain Methodology” in PMO?

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A project management office (PMO) can take different approaches to mitigate risks and maximize opportunities for ongoing and upcoming projects. These approaches collectively form a PMO methodology. There are different methods that PMOs can use to keep their projects on track, and your PMO doesn’t have to use one exclusively. Consider incorporating Event Chain Methodology into your project management strategy. This method helps you plan against possible threats and evaluate the likelihood of success in meeting deadlines and budgets.

What Is Event Chain Methodology in PMO?

A Useful Approach Within PMO Methodology

Event Chain Methodology, as its name implies, aims to plot out a chain of events that could occur throughout the lifetime of the project. It starts with the expected chain of events; these are the individual steps and processes you will execute in sequence. You will need to plan out your project carefully before attempting to build an event chain. Once the ideal sequence is clear, you’ll proceed to identify variables that could disrupt the event chain.

These variables represent threats and opportunities. For example, suppose your project currently has 10 people assigned to it. What would happen if one or two people quit their jobs and abandon the project? How would that impact the time it takes to complete certain steps? Conversely, what would happen if a client dropped a particularly complex feature from the job description? How much faster could you finish the project? Event chain methodology encourages you to consider these variables.

Calculating the Domino Effect

Each variable in the event chain needs to be given a probability of occurring. With this probability set, it’s possible to run the entire event chain through a computer to crunch the numbers and determine how likely the project is to finish on time and on budget. Depending on the complexity of the project and the number of steps involved, these calculations can take a while to complete.

Once your project has been processed, you’ll be able to identify the most likely disruptors. You can also see which adverse events would trigger the biggest problems in your event chain. Some inconveniences may be minor and only require minimal work to correct. Others may stall your project for months. Identify the biggest threats and make mitigation plans. These contingencies can be included in your event chain so that if an issue arises, your mitigation plan goes into action.

Visually Representing the Event Chain

Event chains are best presented through a multi-layered Gantt chart. Each step in the project is laid out in sequence with bars that represent the time each step should take. Event chain diagrams use downward arrows to signal an adverse event. Downward arrows should point to actions in a mitigation plan or an alternate version of the next step, perhaps with a longer bar to reflect the additional time needed to resolve the issue. Conversely, upward arrows represent positive events.

With the right help, you can minimize the risk of setbacks and make it easier to overcome obstacles with solid contingency plans. Contact Project Genetics to speak to a project management expert and learn more about how we can keep your projects on track.

Corporate CPR Episode 69: Building and Retaining a Solid Team

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss what the steps are to building and retaining a solid team.

Mark Oristano has led a life a lot of sports fans would envy spending 30 years in the NFL broadcasting games for the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers. Plus a good portion of that time was spent working several jobs in the front office of one of America’s most famous and successful teams, the original Dallas Cowboys.

Mark worked under legendary Cowboy president and GM Tex Schramm learning his management style – a style that kept employees engaged and working for the team for decades. Tex also created a front office system that was the envy of the pro sports world.

Key Takeaways:

What was the measure of success for your team?

Success on the field was winning the Super Bowl. Success off the field was helping the team win the Super Bowl.

During the season, everything was run by checklists and procedures set in place. During the off-season, all of the checklists and procedures were re-evaluated to see if they should change or improve based on how the season went.

How do we keep great people?

  • Hire the best people you can find. They will cost you more up front, but it’s worth it.
  • Train them your way. Explain why you do things the way you do them to gain adoption.
  • Let them do their jobs. Don’t micro-manage.
  • Implement the Golden Rule – treat your employees the way you want to be treated.

How do you find the right talent that is a good fit for your organization? You want people who:

  • Understand the basics
  • Are eager to learn more
  • Have a desire to be a part of the team

How do you set up a new hire for success?

  • Give employees permission to not know the answer, but be able to find it and bring it to you.
  • Convey to employees that they all have a role to play. If they take care of the little things, the project will work. Everyone’s contribution matters.

3 Top Takeaways:

  • Decrease turnover. It costs 1/3 of the departing employee’s salary to replace them.
  • Be certain that you are receptive to your employees’ ideas, problems, and thoughts.
  • It’s not about you. It’s about the team.

Connect with Mark Oristano:

Website: https://www.leadwithprinciple.com/

Mark’s course: https://www.leadwithprinciple.com/courses/lead-with-principle

Corporate CPR Episode 68: Optimizing Operations Within Your Organization

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how to optimize operations within your organization.

Tommy Yionoulis has been in the restaurant industry for nearly his entire adult life. He has a BSBA from University of Denver’s Hotel Restaurant school in addition to an MBA. This former stand-up comic turned SaaS founder, has extensive experience helping businesses become more efficient and profitable through process, accountability, and data.  He’s currently the Managing Director of OpsAnalitica, an Operations Analytics platform that focuses on managing and measuring daily team activities for large multi-unit businesses.  Tommy believes that the next big technological disruptor event for many businesses is going to be implementing Operations Management software to shape the future of work and beat our competitors through better, more consistent daily operations.

Key Takeaways:

Why do we need to optimize our operations?

We are not suffering from a lack of knowledge, but too much information and too many things to track. The human brain can only keep a few things in mind at a time. Leaders have already identified the things that they know they should do to stay on top of things, but they cannot translate that knowledge into consistent action at the location level. Often, an employee missing one step in the middle of a multi-step process will cause the process to fail.

What are the symptoms that indicate a problem? What is the trigger point?

Unfortunately, without implementing operations management software, an organization may not realize they have a problem. KPI indicators will lag. For instance, by the time the sales numbers indicate a problem, the business has been suffering for a while, and it may take years to win customers back.

How does the solution get you more instantaneous feedback? What is being measured and how does an organization know what action to take?

At the location level – It takes the guesswork out of running the business by scheduling a series of tasks and checklists.

At the upper level – It allows teams to be more effective and efficient. Corporate brings on people to manage multiple locations. The solution allows these managers to watch what’s happening in real-time. When there are issues, the solution alerts the managers.

How do you avoid “death by checklist”?

Checklists often need to be done at busy times, so they need to be focused and smart. Real-time collaboration can allow several people to check things together and be more efficient. Randomization helps ensure good coverage over a series of things that need to be checked as well.

How can a business promote adoption of the system?

Adoption is dependent upon the priority structure of the business. Part of the systems can be time-based to ensure things are done at the optimum time and promote accountability. Process and systems-driven businesses are the ones that succeed.

What are some of the key things a business should think about when wanting to optimize its operations?

  • Get started soon. Let the data influence you over time to make it better. Don’t wait to figure it all out.
  • Keep the process simple and track everything.

Top Takeaways:

  • Operations management is the next technological battlefield that we will all be in. In the multi-location business of the future, you’ll be collecting data from 5 places:
    • POS
    • Internet – social media
    • Checklist platform
    • Robots
    • Sensors
  • The key will be to bring all of that information together and turn it into real-time actions that solve the problems that are affecting the customers. Jump in on an ops program to get the data and take it seriously.

Connect with Tommy Yionoulis

Website: https://opsanalitica.com/

4 PMO Best Practices to Use During Mergers and Acquisitions

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Mergers and acquisitions are exciting times for a company. However, when not managed properly, they can produce more problems than benefits. A project management office (PMO) can take a leading role in integrating a new organization into your company while also making sure that projects from both businesses continue to run smoothly. PMO advisory during M&As is essential. Consider four best practices that PMOs should employ during M&As.

4 PMO Best Practices to Use During Mergers and Acquisitions

1. Separate Internal and External Projects

Both businesses in a merger or acquisition likely already have several external projects underway. External projects are customer-facing activities: new products or services, customer support projects, or sales and marketing initiatives. However, M&As also call for new internal projects. You have to integrate filesystems, unify the software that teams from both companies will use, and bring your new staff together. The PMO needs to keep external projects running while organizing internal projects to solidify the new company.

Consider creating teams with members from both organizations for internal projects. This minimizes the potential for resentment from team members of the company that’s been absorbed. It also eases fears of massive layoffs after a merger. Keep external project leads in place to avoid disruption. However, you may want to add a few experts from the recently acquired company to provide a fresh perspective and leverage their knowledge of the market.

2. Focus on Change Management

M&As mean change for everyone. Unfortunately, most workers are resistant to change. When people become proficient with your company’s processes, they worry that change will affect their performance or possibly add to their workload. It’s important to manage these changes and communicate clearly to everyone in the organization. Help people understand what changes will take place, when they will occur, and the benefits that will come from them.

The more you can get teams involved in change, the better the results. Set up pilot groups for testing so that you can get employee feedback. Listen to complaints and take suggestions into consideration. Allocate time to make adjustments to new processes; don’t expect to redesign everything perfectly on paper on your first attempt.  

3. Adjust Deadlines and Stay Vigilant

Speaking of time, you may need to adjust project deadlines across the board. M&As are complex and can create unforeseen challenges for both internal and external projects. Trying to impose original deadlines may only lead to frustration. It’s important to keep expectations realistic.

Monitor project progress more frequently during M&As than you normally would. New problems can arise quickly, so it’s vital that you stay in communication with project leads and immediately address any issues that appear.

4. Call for Additional PMO Advisory

Your existing PMO team may not be large enough to handle the extra demand brought on by your merger or acquisition. If your PMO is at capacity and is struggling to keep up with the additional tasks at hand, consider bringing in expert assistance. PMO consultants can help you stay on schedule and streamline the integration of both teams.

Contact Project Genetics to speak to PMO professionals and learn more about how we can help your M&As stay on track.

Corporate CPR Episode 67: How Culture Impacts the Health of Your Organization

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how culture impacts the health of your organization and what you can do about it.

Sophie Theen, an award-winning people management expert and author of The Soul of Startups: The Untold Stories of How Founders Affect Culture (Wiley: August 2022), helps business leaders reimagine the role of talent management in the financial services industry. With a deep understanding of how founders can affect culture, Sophie has profiled both successful and unsuccessful founders to offer insight on how a company’s cultural paradigm shifts as it grows from a startup to a scale-up to an enterprise. She is a recognized mental health first aider and delivers engaging and insightful presentations on creating an immersive recruitment and onboarding experience, diversity and inclusion, and getting executive and investor buy-in for HR initiatives.

Key Takeaways:

Founders have an impact on shaping the culture of the company throughout the life of the company, but especially in the beginning stages. They should be intentional and ask themselves:

  • What is the company that I want to build?
  • What type of culture do I want – How do I want my people to look, feel, and emote within the business?

Then, every action a founder takes needs to help usher people toward that direction.

Founders lacking certain soft skills in areas they want to create are smart to hire people with those skills to help create the culture they desire.

Culture change management – To change a failing culture, identify:

  • What are the known behaviors?
  • What are the YES behaviors?
  • What change has impacted other people?
  • What new changes do we expect to see in the future?
  • How do we implement transition – through tools, changing the way we work, or collecting more feedback.

How do you approach change regarding behaviors in your culture?

  • What are the goals we are trying to achieve?
  • What are our limitations?
  • What are the behaviors hindering our progress?

What should a founder put in place as the company scales to keep the culture on the right track?

  • Start by having self-awareness and understanding your own weaknesses.
  • Make sure you have hired others that have the ability to be strong in those areas.
  • Empower others to help shape the culture as you desire.

Recommendations for HR people

  • Don’t try to tackle it all on your own.
  • Work together with the CEO and the founders.
  • Communicate to leaders to help them understand how a culture change will improve the company.
    • Fewer people problems to manage.
    • Ability to deliver better products to our customers.
    • A healthier working environment that is easier to scale.

3 Top Takeaways:

  • Culture continues to evolve. It doesn’t stop at any point in time.
  • It is a collaboration with every single person in the business. Everyone matters.
  • Leaders – don’t try to do it alone.

Connect with Sophie:

Website: https://www.sophietheen.com/

Book: The Soul of Startups

Corporate CPR Episode 66: Stress is Costing Your Organization

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how stress is potentially costing your organization millions of dollars.

Ed Beltran is a contributor for Forbes and Fast Company where he writes about employee reboarding, the relationship between stress and performance, and how the Metaverse will shape business. He brings 20 years of expertise in finance and operations and has been a leader at Fierce since 2017, a leading communications firm that has worked with 300 of the fortune 500 companies.

He holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from Arizona State University in Accounting and Computer Information Systems, and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He has held an active CPA license since 2004 and holds certificates in Entrepreneurship from Wharton and Harvard. Prior to joining Fierce, Ed was Head of Finance with large multinational organizations such as Agilent Technologies, Avnet Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers, Arthur Andersen as well as advising and supporting start-ups and early-stage companies.

Ed is an avid road bike cyclist clocking 120+ miles a week year-round helping his mental, physical, and spiritual balance as he puts it. He is passionate about helping those who don’t have the privilege, background, or resources to be fully prepared to engage in effective conversations at different levels in life (College, Professional, Personal, Parenthood).

Key Takeaways:

Stress statistics from the workplace:

  • $300 billion is lost annually due to stress
  • 81% of workers acknowledge that stress affects their work negatively
  • 48% of all workers report crying at work due to stress

If someone says something offensive to you, you have three options.

  • You can walk away upset – This harbors stress, and you will have a biological response.
  • You can tell coworkers about it – This amplifies toxicity in the workplace.
  • You can engage the person in conversation – This typically will clear up a misunderstanding.

How can you identify the source of the stress?

  • There are apps that will integrate with wearables and attach context to the biometrics through GPS data and calendar data and give the user meaningful information to identify when they experience stress the most.

How can a person combat the physical stress that comes with having multiple problems to solve throughout the day?

  • Self-awareness – Understand that this is a source of physical stress for your body.
  • Mindfulness – Set the expectation for yourself that this is your job and is what you are paid to do. Shift your mindset to prepare for it in a positive way.

In a Harvard Business Review study, respondents answered this question – What is your biggest drain on resilience at work? These are the tangible interactions people are having that create stress and impact their resilience. Having skills to deal with each of these situations will increase resiliency and improve productivity.

  • Stressor – Dealing with difficult relationships or politics in the workplace.
    • Skill – Knowing how to give proper feedback in a tactful and non-confrontational way.
  • Stressor – When the volume or pace of work stretches me to my limits.
    • Skill – Culture is defined by interactions every day. Leadership can encourage employees to share when the workload is stretching them so that options for delegating or prioritizing can be discussed. Leaders can also be intentional about balancing transactional conversations with personal conversation so that employees feel valued.
  • Stressor – When I feel I’m being criticized personally.
    • Skill – Knowing when to confront and how to hold people accountable while maintaining a team mentality.

Top Takeaway:

Every day you wake up with things on your mind that you need to address. These are your top stressors. Tackle them right away with tried and true skills to decrease your stress level.

Connect with Edward Beltran:

Website: https://fierceinc.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardjbeltrancpa/

5 Key Success Factors for CRM Implementation

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Businesses of all kinds are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience. CRM technology provides tools that help to improve that experience so that clients walk away completely satisfied. However, implementing a CRM system presents some unique challenges. Here are some of the most important aspects of successful CRM implementation.

5 Key Success Factors for CRM Implementation

1. Clear Vision and Goals

One crucial part of successfully implementing a CRM system is having clear reasoning for using the system that your entire team understands. From top to bottom, your entire organization needs to understand what the goal is behind making the change. When everyone has the same vision in mind for the future, it will be easy to keep everyone on the same page throughout the implementation process.

2. Adoption Across the Board

No matter how good your CRM system is, it won’t matter if your team isn’t utilizing the system. While some long-standing team members may have a certain attachment to their older tools, it’s important to get over this hurdle. You need your entire team on the same page to fully gauge the effectiveness of the CRM system and to provide your customers with a consistent experience.

3. Effective Training Methods

Change can be difficult for many people, especially when it comes to work tools they’ve been used to using for years, so it’s important to do everything you can to help your team through the transition process to a new CRM system. Comprehensive training on the new CRM system for your whole team is vital. While you may need to shift your resources around to achieve this training, the benefits you’ll get later make the process worth your while.

4. Gathering Data

If you aren’t able to measure meaningful statistics related to your CRM system, you won’t be able to determine whether or not you’ve successfully achieved the goals you set out to reach. Having tools in place to gather data related to your customers’ experience and the ease with which your team is able to use the tools, as well as other critical data points, will put you in a position to effectively refine the CRM strategy based on what works.

5. Choosing the Right Partner

Having the right help on your side throughout the implementation process will help to make the transition to your new system as smooth as possible. Expert advice from professionals who have been involved in implementation projects before will give you a solid base of knowledge to work from. The guidance you receive will help you achieve the goals you set out to tackle when you decided to adopt a CRM system.

Ready to take your business to the next level? Our experts are ready to work with you to develop a strategy that is specifically suited for your business. Contact Project Genetics today and let our experts assist you in getting your business on the road to success!

Corporate CPR Episode 65: User-Centric Innovations

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how to develop an organizational strategy for user-centric innovations.

Prior to founding UXReactor, Satyam Kantamneni led various in-house design organizations such as Citrix and PayPal. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School. While at Harvard, Satyam realized that most businesses aren’t leveraging the full power of User Experience (UX) Design as an engine for strategic growth. So, he resolved to change that. Through UXReactor, Satyam demonstrated that UX can and should drive enterprise-wide innovation and business outcomes. UXReactor has enabled its clients-partners to generate hundreds of millions in additional revenue from user-cen- tered innovation. Satyam is passionate about user-centered innovation and he is authoring a book titled User Experience Playbook: A Practical to Fuel Business Growth, which will be released in April 2022.

Key Takeaways:

4 questions to ask anyone in the organization to see if you are user-centric:

  • Who are your top users?
  • What are their top pain points and needs?
  • What are YOU doing about it?
  • What is the measure of success?

Successful organizations have the:

  • Right people
  • Following the right processes
  • With the right mindset
  • In the right environment

Getting feedback from users requires the right people. Researching is not just talking to users. There are three types of research:

  • Formative research – Understanding what the pain points are that are not being articulated.
  • Validation research – Making sure what we have built is validated with users in a consistent manner.
  • Sensorial research – Constantly tracking the satisfaction level of the users.

How do you cross the gap between what the user thinks they want and what they really need?

  • Focus on the users’ behavior vs what they are saying.
  • Observe them. Spend time with them, and propose something really useful for them.
  • Create a way to experiment and validate your solution.

How to balance innovation and stability

  • Run experiments from a user-centric perspective.
  • Vigorously act on the results in a way that is measurable.

Should you ever focus on your competition, rather than your user?

Know your competition, but focus on how what they are doing relates to what your users care about.

Top Takeaways:

  • A user-centric innovation or mindset is a success formula. Keep leveraging it and activate around it.
  • Focus on having the right people following the right processes with the right mindset in the right environment.
  • Experiment with this in an effective and deliberate manner or you may end up just reacting to the competition.

Connect with Satyam Kantamneni:

Website: https://uxreactor.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kantamneni/

Email: satyam@uxreactor.com

Book: User Experience Design: A Practical Playbook to Fuel Business Growth

What Is ERP Implementation and Why Does It Matter?

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Efficiency and adaptation are crucial to maintaining an optimal business environment. Read on to learn more about one of the drivers of these cornerstone goals: ERP implementation.

ERP Defined

The term ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. An ERP system consists of software that enables the automation of business or project processes into one central platform. As a result, aspects such as supply chain operations, financing, human resources, manufacturing, and sales can be linked and managed from an integrated system.

Phases of ERP Implementation

During the first step of implementation, a project team will gather important data about what different groups within the business or project need and what problems persist. After defining the ERP system’s requirements and planning for its framework, the team will evaluate currently existing processes and determine how these processes can best be redesigned and software customized so that seamless migration of data onto a new system or into the cloud can occur.

For the development phase that follows the planning and design phases, software will be configured and data import will commence. In addition, documentation and training manuals will be prepared. Then, the testing phase will begin so that major issues can be addressed and corrected before the system is deployed and goes live. Once the ERP is deployed, the support phase focuses on acclimating users to the system, fixing emergent problems, and upgrading software as needed.

Why ERP Matters

An organization may choose a new enterprise system because it wants to improve, modernize, and streamline an existing system, because the system is nonexistent or needs a complete overhaul, or following a merger and acquisition.

A successful system will yield many benefits. Consolidated data can be more easily assessed, analyzed, and compiled into insightful reports that are invaluable in making good data-driven decisions. Furthermore, departments that otherwise may have no meaningful coordination or interaction become more cross-functional and adaptive and benefit from a more comprehensive base of knowledge. As a result, overall workflow improves exponentially, and time and money are saved. Long-term, agility, optimization, and impact are the rewards.

 

The Value of Smooth Implementation

Every step of the implementation process is of tremendous consequence. Planning helps underpin an organization’s central goals, whether it be changing cost structures, technological advancement, increased operational efficiency, or another consideration. Understanding these aims helps outline a budgeting and scheduling plan while laying the foundation for deeper goals, such as innovation and growth.

The development phase builds on planning and requires a team of experts that can merge all of those plans into a sustainable system that considers company culture and risk tolerance. Gaps in documentation or delays in migration will complicate the testing and deployment phases, where the true markers of a system’s viability occur. The system will only be as efficient as the individuals who use it, which is why the support phase should never be overlooked or downplayed.

For the most current ERP solutions delivered with precision, customization, and expert commitment, contact Project Genetics Management Consultants, where success every step of the way is in our DNA.

Corporate CPR Episode 64: How to Have an Effective Revenue Strategy

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how to have an effective revenue strategy.

Falkon CEO and Co-founder Mona Akmal is a product and engineering veteran who builds resourceful, kind, and output-driven teams that create and scale success-enabling products. With a passion for crafting elegant solutions to technically difficult problems, she has grown teams, businesses, and many products at Microsoft, Amperity, Code.org, and Zulily.

The impact of Mona’s work includes ramping from $0 to $11M in ARR and 15 household brands as happy customers at Amperity; from 10M to 100M students learning computer science on the Code.org platform; and from 1M to 1B docs in the cloud with OneDrive and Office.

Key Takeaways:

  • Engineering and Business intersect by focusing on
    • efficiency
    • balancing the entire equation with analytical thinking
    • processing many variables to optimize an engine/business
  • Challenges facing organizations in the Go To Market space
    • Siloed points of view. Various departments focused only on their departmental issues, and not net revenue retention.
    • Teams focused on execution and not thinking long-term.
    • Misunderstanding of the purpose of culture and operating principles.
  • Indicators of a silo problem
    • Ask different teams why they are not performing and they blame each other.
    • Conflict between senior leadership.
  • How to fix the problem
    • Executive leadership members are the neutral parties and need to do a good job of having a great data strategy, so there is a system of truth.
    • Have shared objectives.
    • Bottoms up feedback. Have conversations with average employees to gain non-digital data – very valuable perspectives. This will help gain a more full picture of the truth.
  • Recommendations for key metrics to focus on
    • Input metrics – who you are targeting, how you are targeting them.
    • Marketing activities and ROI on campaigns and channels.
    • Sales development activities – conversion numbers.
    • Employee productivity – cost vs output.
  • Recommendations for accurate and effective data
    • Data has to be directionally accurate. Focus on the trends, not the details.
    • Invest in operations – marketing and revenue.
    • Make employees’ lives easier by investing in the tools that will help them be productive.
  • AI trends within GTM
    • Conversational intelligence and coaching driven by AI.
    • Data governance – anomaly detection and data cleaning driven by AI.
    • AI GTM intelligence tools that will look at massive amounts of activity data and pinpoint the key things to focus on to maximize your revenue engine.

Top Takeaways:

  • Reflect on whether your objectives and key results as a senior leader are representative of a silo or not. Make sure you are also focused on revenue.
  • Invest in a good data strategy and spend 50% of your time focusing on the future.

Connect with Mona Akmal:

Website: http://falkon.ai

LinkedIn Falkon: https://www.linkedin.com/company/falkonai/

LinkedIn Mona: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mona-akmal/

The expert guest was booked via The Expert Bookers, www.expertbookers.com.