Unternehmensberatung Dr. Matthias Vieth

Innovativeness, complexity, multidisciplinarity, and limitability are the essential characteristics of your customer projects. These requirements demand that your resources focus on the planning and implementation of customer-specific solutions. But since resources should not be employed for the development of innovative, individually planned organizational structures and processes, an effective and efficient project management system plays a key role in the success of your company.

Four good reasons why you should dedicate time to the continuous improvement of your – possibly already available – project management system:

1. Customers pay for the solution to an actual problem and not for the solution’s development. Your company differentiates itself from others in the market through the problem solution – faster, better, cheaper – and not through the manner of planning and realization. However, it is the planning and realization that really make the difference in terms of results for your company.
2. Customers place the highest demands on the complexity and variability of tasks in projects. It is therefore essential that projects which depend, e. g., on the project team are not conducted according to varying processes and structures in order to remain as simple as possible.
3. Usually a large number of complex and variable tasks with partially specified capacities must be completed according to a strict schedule. If the project team employs a considerable part of its capacities for determining basic organizational conditions and processes for planning and realizing projects, missed deadlines and all the associated negative effects on the company’s results are pre-programmed.
4. Customer projects demand interdisciplinary project teams which also include international members. These project teams must be able to put all their expertise and creativity into providing a solution for the customer's requirements without having to agree on the basic organizational structures and procedures first. A 100% effectiveness of project teams would initially occur, if the members of the project teams can rely on comprehensive structures and standards that do not demand the application of tedious learning curves.

Under these aspects, it really is worthwhile to take some time to consider the design and effectiveness of your project management system and the minimum standards it defines.

We can offer you support if you have any questions relating to the design and effectiveness of your project management system, e. g. if you wish to know more about the relationship between the line and the project organization. We can advise you on how to incorporate the experience gained from other projects when planning new ones. A further interesting aspect is the question of how risk and quality management can be integrated into project management to ensure so-called “non-conformance costs” are minimized.