The Journey to Modernized Project and Work Management

Imagine if you will, a company that accepts ideas from numerous sources, employees, customers, executives, experts in strategy and the market, and AI, regarding what new products, services, projects, or enhancements would be beneficial to better accomplish the mission of the organization. Those ideas are constantly evaluated utilizing predictive analytics and near real-time operations and market data, in conjunction with historical delivery success and benefit harvesting data to select the optimum set of portfolio investments to achieve the mission of the organization.  

People at this company work within the tools and methodologies that make sense for their specific jobs, and information is gathered across the organization through the natural flow of work, and without the need for manual out-of-process steps and manipulation or duplication of information. As work is planned and accomplished, information is evaluated in near real-time, to develop deep insights into the contentedness of customers, the well-being of employees, the health of the organization and its investments, and the ongoing likelihood of accomplishing the stated objectives of the company.  

Workloads and future personnel needs are understood to prevent valuable employees from being overtasked and burned out, or over-hiring and the resulting layoffs. Redundant, manual, low-value, and low-interest work is all but eliminated, allowing everyone in the organization the margin of time to embrace a culture of continuous improvement and to implement the changes that will drive the organization to new and higher levels of performance. Now, the entire company is focused on achieving and managing excellence, and continuously and holistically, optimizing to drive to higher and higher levels of success and satisfaction. This is a company people want to work with and competitors want to emulate.  

It's a dream you say? Maybe, but this is the dream and the promise of Modernized Project and Work Management. In the history of contemporary project and work management, we have never been closer to realizing this dream than we are today. Through the utilization of modern technology platforms, the incorporation of AI, and proactive change management, we can truly begin to connect the historically disconnected people, processes, systems, data, priorities, to strategies, goals, and objectives that have until now, prevented us from reaching this level of efficiency and efficacy. 

In the past, the answer to this challenge was often to homogenize all tools. This approach required many in the organization to replace the tools that they are accustomed to using to accomplish their jobs and that might make the most sense for their function and the methodology, with the lowest common denominator tool. That is not necessarily the answer any longer.  

With the modern platforms and collaboration tools at our disposal, and that statistically, you may already be using in your organization (i.e. Microsoft), we can immediately begin leveraging current toolsets, customizations, processes, and the data that you have been collecting for years, to enable collaboration, automation, AI, and value. The process of modernization is a journey, however. 

While investments in the modern platform will pay dividends immediately, developing a strategic roadmap of value points and the objectives that will allow you to accomplish those value points over a long-term horizon will provide exponential returns on your investment. The visual below shows a multi-year journey where incremental investments over time and the resulting example value points achieved, build upon themselves, creating an ever-increasing capability and return, and propelling the organization to becoming a higher-performing enterprise.  

Although there are many examples of business problems that can be solved through the achievement of related value points over a modernization journey, one that we encounter often and stated in various ways is distilled into this problem statement “We do not know all of the work going on, if it is the right work, or what we should say no to.” The overall objective or value point here is the obtainment of a holistic view of all work in an organization and its comparative priority. Practically the journey to obtain the incremental value points and achieve that overall objective might look like the below. 
 

As you can see in the example above, a modernization journey will often encompass functional changes as well as technical changes and the requisite communications and change management steps along the way to ensure adoption and ultimately success. We start the journey by understanding the destination and the “Why” behind it. We then build a roadmap of incremental steps on the journey, each bringing its own value, and building to a greater purpose and benefit, as well as making the destination more accessible for all involved.  On our journey, together we will begin by preparing your organization to leverage the modern platform and then begin we connecting systems, processes, data, people, priorities, and strategy to better fulfill your mission.  

Having a guide on your modernization journey can help make it as easy and rewarding as possible. If you have questions or need help envisioning the possible, understanding the value path, developing your roadmap, or connecting your systems, data, processes, and priorities to achieve your goal of becoming a higher-performing organization, please feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear what I can do for you. I am happy to be of service.