Technical project management skills and experience contribute 20 to 50% of a PM’s effective performance. Soft skills are much more crucial, especially at the senior level.

Although most experts are reluctant to admit it, most projects succeed with “good enough” project management.

The project team is experienced,
the project manager has done it before,
the project risk profile is manageable,
the technology being used is well established,
and the project clients are prepared
to live with the scope
as stated at the project initiation.

Under these conditions, well intentioned individuals, with reasonable training and experience, can and do deliver projects.

Excellence in project management
is required when these
conditions do not exist.

Services and Examples:

Click on each service to see its description and an example.

1. Individual Project Manager Mentoring and Coaching

2. Project in Trouble Assessment

3. Project Management / Project in Trouble Turnaround

4. Project Risk Identification and Mitigation Action Planning

5. PMO Assessment and Establishment

Related White Papers / Presentations:

"Frameworks for Managing IT Project Risk"

"Enterprise Architecture In Large IT Organizations"

Learning Organizations, Work Flow and Information Technology"

1. Every PM assignment has a clear start and target stop date.
2. The first priority on each PM engagement t is skill transfer through coaching and mentoring, even if the assignment has a large “project in trouble” component.
3. Project management techniques, though important and necessary, are not our prime focus in these assignments.
4. Comprehending organizational culture and working with individual psychology are important components of a successful project manager’s tool kit.

PMI, through its certification programs and affiliates, does an excellent job training individuals in the techniques of project management.
(See “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”, Fourth Edition” for a comprehensive outline of these techniques.)

Project management training covers the 20% of the skills that work in most situations: - the ones in which people are well-intentioned and conflicts are relatively easy to resolve.

The other 80% are much harder to acquire. The “school of hard knocks” is a harsh teacher. It often leads to project failure. A far better approach involves a mentoring/coaching relationship with an individual who has deep project management experience, and knows how to coach others to develop these skills without project upset or failure.

Not every enterprise is large enough to have senior, deeply experienced project managers on staff. Not all such individuals are proven coaches and mentors.

Engaging us to deliver these advanced project management services allows your organization to get the benefits of such experience,
as you need it, when you need it,
for as long as you need it.

Each potential engagement starts with
a free consultation meeting.
Not all of these meetings lead to assignments.
Sometimes, the dialog in such a meeting
clarifies a project management issue,
and identifies an appropriate, internal solution.