APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION with staff and management in multiple locations supporting video, voice, data and security services, and news channels with online and interactive services to 2.5 million+ residential and commercial customers was struggling to control its workload and meet critical project deliverables in the absence of a vice president and in the face of a major, enterprise-wide, high-risk project. The team had lost credibility within the organization and there were deep concerns about its ability to manage priorities and effectively support key business initiatives
Project Focus
Identify critical operational deficits in processes and practices, prioritize the issues and support the director-level leadership team in implementing recommendations to address them without major structural changes which would be tackled once a new vice president is on board
Operating Benefits
- Within 6 months the department is delivering reliable and timely projects and managing to priorities aligned with company goals and is a key contributor to successful pilot of major system migration
- Department leaders know status of projects and track time spent by categories
- Department leaders working as a team with consistent expectations, priorities and management practices
- Work accepted is aligned with company priorities and reasonable delivery expectations
- Project management and people management roles are clarified and functioning effectively
- Alleviated project disruption from fire-fighting/maintenance needs due to single-threaded skills coverage with 2-deep and 3-deep cross training for 250 of 1,000 different skills identified in first four months; 3-deep coverage for 33% of skills and 2-deep coverage for ~ 65% at seven months
- Meetings and communications effectiveness is significantly improved, mitigating costly communications errors and unproductive meeting time (>50 hours/week saved)
Key Changes
- Developed a project database that the department must manage, measure and report on – projects are visible, prioritized and reporting information is in place
- Designed and deployed a work controls measurement and reporting program to help management monitor and manage work activities
- Established an effective meeting process that includes ongoing evaluation of meeting/communications structure and practices
- Clarified roles and standardized functional definitions (project management, requirements analysis, etc.)
- Provided management skills development and individualized coaching program for department directors and managers
