I work in a project-oriented organization which complies with the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) project management standard and practice. Depending on the type, size, duration, resources and other factors of the project, some of them would pursue the full project life cycle which consists of four phases: Initiation, Planning, Implementation, and Closing (Watt et al., 2014), and some of them would be deferred or terminated after the initiation phase.
I was involved in a recent project that was successfully executed and put in service at the end of 2021. The overall goal of the project was to deliver a replacement for the existing time entry solution which did not provide either the ideal business process or technical solution. The existing solution required a high degree of manual intervention that caused invalid data, strenuous corrective actions, and payroll inefficiency. Before the start of the project, a project charter (i.e., statement of work) was issued by the project initiator and the project sponsor to authorize both the project and the project manager (Brown, 2005). It highlighted the requirements, business needs, assumptions and constraints, and summary schedule. After the authorization of the project, a comprehensive and detailed project plan that led to the success of this project was put in place by the project manager. The project plan started with a scope statement, then followed by key deliverables, key milestones, schedule, cost estimates, quality management, project organization, and risk register. Additional project documents included the communication plan, change management plan, and training plan. The overall goals were clearly communicated to the project steering committee, project team, and all the stakeholders by the change management team. The entire stakeholder group consisted of 2,100 employees from 10 different key business units in the organization.
Since the project implementation phase started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the biggest challenge of this project was the shift from planned in-person training to all online training within a very short period of time. On the one hand, some of the barriers encountered by the employees were lack of time for training when the normal business operation was affected due to the pandemic, and frustration in dealing with unsuitable technologies while having to utilize the new technologies (e.g., lack of internet accessibility in the field and limited in-person training and technical support). On the other hand, project members faced barriers such as getting instructors comfortable with online delivery and learning how to use the available virtual technology (e.g., Webex) in a tight timeline, and providing support and sustainment in an on-going virtual learning environment.
Reflecting on these unexpected barriers, this project demonstrated the standardized project management approach with a set of concepts, tools, and techniques to execute projects on time and on budget was ill-suited to address changes where uncertainty was prevalent in large project (Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2016). If I could make changes in the planning of this project, I would apply design thinking methodology and practice to address the imperatives of project management in the uncertain context. Firstly, the use of prototyping in design thinking allows effective communication and understanding to discover unspecified training needs and expectations of stakeholders (Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2016). By encouraging interaction and involvement of stakeholders in the design process, project risks can be identified and mitigated at the early stage of the project (Gay, 2016). Secondly, I would create a more extensive evaluation and metrics for training assessment and incorporate design training tools that “enables the reuse of knowledge from one project to another” (Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2016, p. 152) to foster training sustainability and future learning.
In conclusion, the project successfully delivered a more stable technology platform for time entry, improved reporting accuracy, and reduced IT storage and support costs. This project was nominated for a Collaboration Award in my organization. Despite all the challenges we had to overcome, I was proud to be part of the project team.
References
Brown, A. S. (2005, September 13). The Charter—Selling your Project. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/charter-selling-project-7473
Gay, B. (2016, March 1). Design thinking & project management. [PowerPoint slides]. Slideshare. https://www.slideshare.net/brussik3/design-thinking-project-management
Mahmoud-Jouini, S. B., Midler, C., & Silberzahn, P. (2016). Contributions of Design Thinking to Project Management in an Innovation Context. Project Management Journal, 47(2), 144–156. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.21577
Watt, A., Barron, M., & Barron, A. (2014). 3. The Project Life Cycle (Phases). https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-3-the-project-life-cycle-phases-project-management/