Delivering Great Projects

Over the years an awful lot of literature and technology has sprung up to help us manage work more effectively but it's important to remember that all we're trying to do here is deliver a great end result to a client. The most elaborate project schedule and comprehensive project methodology is pointless if the end result fails to delight the client!

In one of my previous roles I used to look after an awful lot of concurrent projects, the last time I counted they numbered 816! Each followed a rigorous internal set of standards intended to assure success. I also had a large team (around 100 Project Manager's) to look after these projects, each had been accredited and was reasonable experienced. Despite this many went off the rails and only a few could really be deemed a real success by the client. Perhaps interestingly, some of the most successful ones were those that had not only left the tracks but had demolished several buildings en route! In each case I set up a 'War Room' with all the key stakeholders to understand what had happened and what we needed to do to re-track.

The key characteristic of these sessions was the breaking down of organisational boundaries and an honest appraisal of not just the stated requirements but the business drivers. Essentially we sat down with the client to work out what we all wanted to achieve to be successful. It didn't just feel good to us, our clients were initially cautious but soon loved being this close to a real project. No more sanitised project reports or filtered issues and risks, we all saw the full picture and worked as a team to deliver the end result.

I won't try to kid anyone here, working for an outsourcing business does put up a number of boundaries, this approach only worked where we could wheel in some senior people and the client was prepared to meet us half way. However, it did open my eyes to how a project delivery organisation could work!

It should come as no surprise then that we apply a very unique aproach to running projects at MINX. We don't try to nail our clients into a set of T&C's that will protect us in the event of a dispute. Instead we try to build a deep understanding of requirements, business drivers and add our own input in terms of deeply skilled and experienced consultants to help define the best end result we can. We accept that things change but rather than just protect ourselves with a change process we help our clients to factor in room for those changes.

The result has been consistent Cisco Excellence achievement from the Customer Satisfaction programme. We also measure our own performance via a comprehensive questionnaire. Across the past quarter we have averaged 97% across all categories. We use these scores to help us target performance improvements. Its also a great way to measure people as its a measure that they can directly relate to and affect.