Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
Aristoteles
Photo by Shiva Smyth at pexels.com
Recent conversations with colleagues made me think about the notion of ‘Organisational Excellence‘. I found the subject quite interesting and a little bit controversial.
What makes an organisation ‘excellent’?
Are there actionable levers for excellence?
Is excellence a durable attribute that stands against the changes in markets and society?
How can principles of excellence be passed on to the staff?
Can ‘excellence’ be taught and nurtured?
Would there be a relationship between project management and the company’s excellence?
And, importantly, how are the new generations seeing the matter? – these are just some of the questions that came up in conversation.
I did a little research and I also reflected on personal learnings – here is my take. I hope this is of interest!
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
For many, at the arrival of the New Year there is the tradition of making a “resolution”, a promise to oneself or a decision to do something. This is generally intended to improve one’s behaviour, profession, knowledge or lifestyle, in some way, during the year ahead. I have always had mixed feelings about this practice, but tried to do it anyway. The process for me always begins with a blank sheet of paper, a pen and a cup of coffee.
Due to personal and professional circumstances, this time I feel particularly uneasy about the process. Uncertainty, stressful situations at home and at work, unplanned changes have been the recurring themes for the last year and made me feel very insecure. In any case, I am making an effort this year and two things are on the radar for me, from a professional side.
The first is the intention to read more attentively the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risks annual report (link). I was used to reading this report in the past, but I did not pay much attention in 2020 and 2021. I think that the 2022 report will be very interesting in helping with the understanding of the wider context, in sensing what the experts are seeing and ultimately in providing guidance to projects and initiatives in “this time of unparalleled disruption and complexity“.
The second resolution is to reacquaint myself with the fundamentals in risk management. In the last issue of the “Enterprise Risk” magazine of the IRM (Institute of Risk Management) I read about the revision of the classic textbook, “Fundamentals of Risk Management”, now in its 6th edition. This book helped me in going through the training with the IRM. In the words of one of the authors now “the emphasis is much more on seeing risk as positive rather than a constant threat“. I think this is a real challenge and I am looking forward to seeing how this is approached. The shock on projects and companies’ operations caused by the pandemic is not over yet. It is going to be interesting to watch how the attitude of project managers and operations’ leaders toward risk management will change with the persistence of threats and uncertainties. It will also be interesting to see how other new, disruptive risks and technologies (digital, societal, new financing etc) are now covered in the book. [The challenge for me, first of all, is about .. saving the money to buy the book, as it is expensive…]
A refocus on risk management is going to be the priority for me for 2022. What is your New Year’s resolution?
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
My nephew is telling me of his adventures (and misadventures) during his field work in Cyprus for his final project of the Master at the university. He has lots to pack in a short period of time, with a variety of very operational tasks to be planned and executed with his colleagues, while maintaining focus on the objective of his short stay. He is operating in a new and challenging environment, with an interesting team dynamics and an original project leadership.
We happened to discuss the differences between planning and scheduling. I thought I knew the difference, but I confess that I tried to dodge the question. In the end, I had to read a few articles in order to provide him with a sensible answer. I also realised that in other articles on this blog I may have used the term “planning” and “schedule” as synonyms.
Maybe this is not entirely correct? Let’s see if you agree, see the new article now available under the Pages section (link). As usual, I will be happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
One of the first articles on this blog was about Planning software, published back in October 2019 (such a long time ago!). In that article I tried to navigate the vast list of solutions available on the market. Recently I was pointed to a review of top Project Management Software products by G2.
G2 (formerly G2 Crowd) is a peer-to-peer review site headquartered in Chicago, Illinois (USA). The company focus is the aggregation of user reviews for business software. G2 scores products and sellers based on reviews gathered from their user community, as well as data aggregated from online sources and social networks. Together, these scores are mapped on the proprietary G2 Grid® (see example below), which readers can use to compare products, streamline the buying process and quickly identify the best products based on the experiences of the peers.
G2 Grid for Project Management Software
This is the link to the G2 assessment of Project Management Software.
On the website there is also a useful guide to assist through the selection and decision-making process for choosing the suitable product. I found the section about ‘Project Management Software Trends’ quite informative.
From the website it is also possible the reach the website of the individual vendors.
Those interested in investing for a planning platform should definitely have a look as things have definitely changed over the last few years.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
In the “Three Burning Questions”
series we talk to experts, practitioners and professionals from sectors and
disciplines that have a relevancy to the project management profession. We ask them three “burning” questions related
to their area of expertise and competence.
In the third interview of the series we have been talking of “Collaborative Project Management” and the BrightWork solution with Billy Guinan, Demand Generation Manager at BrightWork.
Billy is a Demand Generation Manager at BrightWork, a project and portfolio management solution for Microsoft SharePoint. In his role, Billy is focused on delivering practical content, tools, and guidance that help customers successfully manage their projects and portfolios with SharePoint. BrightWork offer a Free Project Management Template for SharePoint as a starting point for customers who want to transform SharePoint into a project management solution.
“Thanks Billy for talking to us today. BrightWork have published an interesting handbook, entitled “Collaborative Project Management: A Handbook”. As you state on your website, in recent years there has been a shift away from the traditional managerial hierarchies to a much more collaborative approach to managing projects, which emphasizes teamwork and cooperation. A collaborative interaction is at the core of every project team. I guess nowadays all project managers strive for a collaborative project management framework for their projects!
PMDG: You state that “…. the more teams collaborate, the more obstacles they face”. For our readers, could you expand on that? What are the key obstacles?
Billy: Here at BrightWork, we find that our customers are increasingly working on projects that are designed to be delivered collaboratively with a team. But in the modern workplace, these teams can be spread across different departments, locations, and even cultures. So ironically, with remote or distributed teams, the desire to collaborate actually makes project management more challenging.
At the end of the day, clear communication plays a vital role in supporting effective collaboration, but as you probably know from experience that doesn’t always happen. Some of the most common obstacles to collaboration that we see on project teams include:
Silos within an organization
Too many tools and processes within teams and departments
No support or vision from senior management
Previous negative experiences with collaboration
Personality clashes
Forcing collaboration from the top-down.
All these challenges make choosing the right tools for collaboration critical. For many teams, email, spreadsheets, and phone-calls remain their primary communication tools – none of which are particularly suited to modern collaboration.
PMDG: The BrightWork solution is based on SharePoint On-Premises, the collaborative platform from Microsoft. What are the features of the BrightWork SharePoint solution that would make it stand out over other project management software solutions?
Billy: BrightWork realizes that when deploying a project management solution, there are two key factors to consider:
The amount of project management that your project
needs to be successful.
The amount of project management that your team is
capable of taking on.
Selecting from this range of project management templates, it is easy for project managers to kick-off a project the right way. Each template is set up to mimic project management processes, so they guide project managers through the stages of initiation, planning, managing, and closing a project:
For senior executives, BrightWork provides visibility across the entire portfolio of projects – including project statuses, resource allocation, and new project requests:
BrightWork allows for any number project sites to roll up to portfolio dashboardsto provide a summary of all the projects across the organization, with the ability to easily drill down into individual project sites for more information. BrightWork also enables seamless collaboration for the entire project team. With BrightWork, each project gets its own collaborative site where all the project information is housed. Team members always know where to go to for project updates and to find their responsibilities:
Finally, BrightWork is designed to help your organization continuously improve its project management practices. As I mentioned above, you start quickly by selecting one of the out-of-the-box templates with the right amount of project management.
PMDG: Interesting to learn about the flexibility, attention to customer needs and forward-thinking attitude that BrightWork is offering. I guess the final question is about the future – What is the challenge that BrightWork is seeing for the future of a project management solution?
Billy: One of the shifts we’ve seen in organizations is a growing prevalence of what we call “Project Managers by Accident,” or PMBAs for short. As the structure of the modern workplace is becoming more and more flat, we end up with team members who are inexperienced in formal project management, but need to manage projects as part of their job. So in order to enable successful project management, you need a tool that supports both the experienced PMP and the inexperienced team member.
Another challenge aligned to this is that different teams, divisions, and departments within the same company will have varying needs and distinct ways of working. A lot of the time, all of these groups will end up using different tools to collaborate and manage their projects.
So even if the organization
already has a project management tool in place, if it is too difficult to use,
or is not suited to the needs of a particular team, they will just go find one
that works for them. Instead of having all projects managed on a centralized
platform, you end up with projects, documents, and information stored across
lots of systems, with no visibility into the big picture.
That’s where a tool like BrightWork can be immensely helpful to an organization. Project management will continue to evolve into a much more collaborative endeavour, so organizations must find a tool that is flexible and highly configurable to provide the right level control that each team needs. Project management solutions should support your processes, rather than you having to change your processes to support the solution.” –
Thanks Billy. We leave you here with Billy’s Final Thought:
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain
I hope that this post is of interest for our followers. Should you want to have more information, please check BrightWork website or contact Billy directly (wguinan@brightwork.com).
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager at GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
Project Management Discussion Group 