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Tailored Solutions

25 years of PRINCE2, PMBOK, and a handful of other complex project management methodologies have made no real impact in the success rate of IT projects.

74% of IT projects failed in 2005
– the same % as in 1980

Source: Standish Group and Gartner

It’s not the management of complexity and co-ordination that is holding projects back anymore; we have the tools, processes, and approaches to deal with that.

What prevents large IT projects from succeeding is a lack of project leadership.

Project Leadership : Emotionally engaging and aligning a team to deliver ‘their’ project by effectively communicating the key challenge within the right conceptual frame.

...and this is what we help our clients develop.

Our work with clients balances their often extensive project management expertise with new skills in project leadership.

1) Find the right frame

Are you building a cutting edge billing system, cutting operational expenditure, or making it easy for your grandmother to understand her phone bill? All three might describe the same transformational change programme. The only difference is the ‘conceptual frame’ we are using to describe the project. Just as the best advertising agencies, and political parties, choose the right conceptual framework for their message; we work with our clients to define the best frameworks for engaging staff, stakeholders and customers in making your project a success. How did you choose your frame?

2) Define the key challenge

Too often the creation of the key challenge for a project happens almost instantaneously at the start of a project, and is then set in stone. Later when the true focus of the project occurs, the clarity of the project is lost as multiple goals emerge. Beaufortes works with clients to better define and articulate the key question of their project; bringing clarity and purpose to the project team. Can all of your project team articulate in 20 words or less the purpose of your project?

3) Ignite your project

Communicate, communicate, communicate. To ignite the passion of your project team, you need to understand where they are, and then structure your project to them as a vehicle for getting what they want. Esteem, advancement, challenge, excitement. As with any effective ‘campaign’, project leadership is about structuring and communicating a project so that staff, customers, and stakeholders will not allow it to fail. Do your project team really link the success of your project with their own personal success?

4) Harness grass roots power

Too many projects are created almost exclusively top down, and literally ‘implemented’ onto an unsuspecting team. Unfortunately changes that seem simple from the ivory tower of the design team, are all too late recognized as impossible to implement by the people on the ground. But, with the right frame, challenge, and great communication… those people on the ground can create integrated solutions that work first time. Project leadership drives bottom up activity. Is your solution designed from a distance?

5) Actively align

Projects are dynamic, moving entities, and good project leadership requires the brutal evaluation, and continual realignment of the project team as it moves along. What is life like for people on your project, are the stakeholders getting what they thought they would? Is customer confidence dropping that you can deliver this project? You can only address the problems you recognize, and Beaufortes as a third party can provide an interesting avenue forcommunicating with focus groups of your stakeholders. Do you know what your stakeholders currently think of your project performance?

When you want to discuss how we can worktogether to make your projects fly, please drop us a line.