Blind flight for management

Stumbling blocks in multi-project management

24 November 2017

German Articel

According to a survey by the Institute for Employment and Employability (Institut für Beschäftigung und Employability), managing increasing complexity in collaboration, especially working on projects and managing complex processes, are two of the biggest challenges of digital transformation in organisations.

Companies have to face a highly dynamic and tougher market environment and can hardly afford to waste valuable energy and company resources. Through systematic multi-project management, existing synergies can be used and resources can be planned efficiently in the interests of the company. Nevertheless, many companies still do not use this effective planning and control tool.

Targeted project management and monitoring

Once a project management office (PMO) is installed and has the right tools and methods which allow direct and targeted interaction, new possibilities and options open up for the company. On the one hand, such a multi-project management can be used for controlling the individual departments and project groups and thus ensure targeted control of success. Much more important for the direct creation process, however, is the use of existing synergies in the individual projects. Instead of working blindly and locked into one's own project, results and intermediate steps can be distributed to the various projects and teams via multi-project management, so that these elements can be used by all teams. Double work and high development costs due to a lack of cooperation and networking can be effectively prevented by a good and structured working PMO. The increasing agility of projects and the associated changes in the scope of projects and services also increase the need for bundled project controlling.

Breaking silo thinking

When the different departments of a company deal with different projects, the result is often a "silo" approach among the employees, which is difficult to break up from the inside. Resources and employees are only planned, used and supervised for their own projects. Success is often a long time coming, because even fundamental findings have to be worked out by each project team individually. Important information and available resources therefore always remain within the project team and are not available to other teams or other projects within the company. By using an instance for multi-project management, this problem can be solved more easily and effectively.

Blind flight for management

The managing directors and board members of the companies are responsible for the overall economic success and business development and not only have to approve a wide variety of projects, but also often have to intervene and monitor them.

As the projects are usually decentralized and have different responsibilities and structures, it is particularly difficult to keep track of things and be meaningful. In addition to the "hard" controlling indicators, aspects of content and objectives have to be controlled in order to ensure the success of the project. The comparability of the projects and a direct reference to each other is often only partly given. The management of such encrusted structures is often in a blind flight and has to rely on the performance of the various project teams.

With a multi-project management, this problem can be easily and effectively avoided. In a well-implemented project management office, all results and decision criteria converge and can be presented to the management in an efficient and simple way. Thus, the important decision-makers of a company receive an up-to-date and fact-based overview of the company's current development perspective and the progress of the individual projects in relation to each other at all times. The support of purposeful and user-friendly software can help to reduce complexity and collect, process and present the corresponding data efficiently.

However, the success of a PMO instance depends not least on the careful conception and implementation of roles, tasks and responsibilities in the overall organization. The advantages of a PMO can only be effective if it is adequately anchored in the organization and accepted.

We would be pleased to inform you about the implementation of a project management office in your organisation and the corresponding systemic support.