How to Correctly Implement Project Execution
For a PMO, it is crucial to create a structured, consistent project planning discipline among your teams that aligns all of your resources into effective activities that not only meet deadlines and budgets but will advance business strategy. Only to the extent that you can manage the elements of project execution in one place will you be able to consistently deliver repeat portfolio successes and institutionalize project execution best practices (or avoid common pitfalls). This will only be achieved through coordinated, controlled and complete, top-down strategic project execution.
This Project Execution eBook includes:
- Introduction: The Well-Run PMO
- Three Common Challenges that Derail Project Execution
- Three Essential Capabilities to Gain Productivity and Clarity During Project Execution
- Exemplary Execution: ROI Achieved by Companies That Excel
Introduction: The Well-Run PMO
A well-run project management office (PMO) brings exponential value to the company. Research that explored the top 25% of project management offices, found that an effective PMO can have a significant business impact, including:
- 43% improvement in strategic alignment
- $175K cost savings per project
- 25% decrease in failed projects
These results are achieved through a coordinated, controlled, and complete, top-down effort. This starts with an efficient project intake process, followed by comprehensive portfolio management, where the most valuable mix of projects is compared and prioritized. Next, it is crucial to create a structured, consistent project planning discipline among your teams that aligns all of your resources into effective activities that not only meet deadlines and budgets but will advance business strategy. Only to the extent that you can manage the elements of project execution in one place will you be able to consistently deliver repeat portfolio successes and institutionalize project execution best practices (or avoid common pitfalls).
It's Time to Deliver
Project execution is the phase of project management that delivers the actual work, outputs and deliverables of a project (see graphic, to the left). Teams complete activities and check off deliverables, delighting—or dismaying—their customers at the end. As Rupen Sharma, PMP, a worldwide portfolio manager for the technology industry, puts it in his blog, “Your project plans are worth nothing without an impeccable project execution.”
For project managers, the execution phase consists of managing people, processes and distributing information. However, there are two key linchpins of project success during this phase: communication and risk management.iv That’s why, with this eBook, we have gathered specific and actionable project execution best practices in one place to ensure these and other harbingers of project success are virtually guaranteed.
Three Common Challenges that Derail Project Execution
There are three issues that our clients report when discussing project execution challenges:
- They are inundated with emails and other forms of communication so that, finally, "everything is important so nothing is."
- Even simple questions take forever to answer, with team members having to call or email; search for documents on a shared drive, or in platforms like SharePoint—for relief that often comes too late to make a difference.
- It’s difficult to gain project execution mastery when teams are working with a clunky or overly complex tool or a manual system that users don’t adopt.
If these issues sound like yours, follow this guide to create better, more effective project execution processes and leverage the technology that empowers them.
