[TUTORIAL] How can you develop a project culture in your company?

It's more than obvious: the notion of project is omnipresent in companies.

Everyone does projects: we write about them, we assume the posture of project manager, we are part of a project team, we train in project management and, to consolidate this project culture, we invest in project management software.

However, a project culture cannot be decreed. Nor can it be enhanced by the sum of the actions implemented.

A project culture has to be built up over time, and must be a commitment on the part of the organization. It must "embrace" and "align" teams.

Discover a tutorial on how to develop your project culture:

Step 1 - Test your organization's maturity

If you are a :

• Manager and wondering what impact projects have on your operational management:
• workload management,
• roles and responsibilities,
• managerial alignment,
• arbitration and decision-making,
• management tools,
• methodology ;

• As a project manager, you want to assess what needs to be done in your organization to facilitate project governance;

you can start with a maturity test of your organization.

IQar has developed one: in just 20 minutes, you'll receive a detailed expert report enabling you to take stock of your organization's project governance and management maturity.

☝️ Have the test carried out by several project stakeholders and obtain a collective analysis.

Step 2 - Manage stakeholders

The relevance of more cross-functional management, the need to define a common language and improve all management processes, and finally the generalization of more collaborative working, have changed the codes of " project mode ".

Today, project portfolio management is a strategic skill for organizations. Projects succeed or fail together!

However, the positive or negative, but significant, influence of each stakeholder remains the key to the operational implementation of any management approach.

Henry Ford once said: "Coming together is a beginning; staying together is progress; working together is success."

Not so simple from an operational point of view!

To succeed in strengthening its project culture, an organization needs to identify and involve all project stakeholders, whether external or internal.

The PMBOK guide recommends assessing the impact and/or support of each party using a power/interest matrix. This representation provides a synthetic view of the stakeholders to be taken into account as a priority, as well as the type of associated action.

Such a matrix makes it possible to take the current level of stakeholder commitment as a starting point, and involve them in defining the best possible involvement strategy.

Through concrete actions of this kind, a project culture spreads and takes its place in people's interactions , supported by concise, controlled and successful communication.

Is this enough to anchor a project culture?

Step 3 - Equip yourself with a pragmatic, intuitive PPM tool

Today, many companies are investing in the acquisition and deployment of project management software solutions, to support the cross-functional efficiency and effective mobilization of all stakeholders.

In this respect, so-called "collaborative" tools are all the rage... but are these tools also pragmatic and intuitive for deploying a project culture?

There's nothing worse than having to train and get to grips with a new tool when we don't have enough time for the essentials! Make no mistake, training in project management software will never be a priority for your business.

Using such a tool may be an obvious way of improving efficiency and productivity, but for some it may be more of a constraint.

It's easy to remain attached to old methods, and even if we talk about digital transformation... adopting new processes is often a journey fraught with pitfalls.

The collaborative argument is no longer enough.

With this in mind, IQar's project governance experts have designed the PPM SuitePro-G solution. This software is designed for all project players, to help them unite around the tool , make project management more accessible and spread a genuine project culture.

And that's not all: its graphic differentiation favors visual management and provides real-time visibility with :

• dashboards,
• diagrams,
• intelligent pictograms to encourage arbitration and collective decision-making.

A great way to limit time wasted on e-mails, meetings and the like.

Propose agile, accessible and visual project management!

Step 4 - Switch to lean management!

Make it easy for the business to get involved in implementing action plans.

Its Project Breakdown Structure (PBS), created during the planning phase, provides an overview of all the work that needs to be done to complete the project.

It's a product-oriented breakdown of all the tasks that organizes and defines the total scope of the project:

• tasks,
• assignments,
• duration,
• costs,
• products/deliverables,
• dependencies,
• project constraints.

Visualize and manage workflow with Kanban

Today, the Kanban method is best known as a tabular representation of task progress.

SuitePro-G offers a default kanban, but you can also customize it.

As a task or deliverable progresses, you move its card from one column to another. A simple way to see where each task is in the process.

Master the roadmap in all its states with an interactive Gantt chart

The Gantt chart is a project management tool that visualizes the tasks to be carried out and their interdependencies over time.

With SuitePro-G, you can manage your projects in "roadmap" mode, putting the workload and budgets allocated to each project into perspective with your deadlines.

Stand out from the crowd with project weather

Communication elements such as the project weather forecast can be customized, and the weather imagery makes an immediate impression, making it easy to focus reporting on specific points of attention.

The result is a more precise view for management and other steering committees, easily converted into a PDF report.

Control at a glance with colorful dashboards

Each of the implemented dashboards provides graphical information relating to its object. For example, a Workload Plan TDB will enable you to assess and anticipate the workload of an individual or a team (projects and non-projects).

Our SaaS project management tool opens the door to a colorful, visual approach to project management, based on minimalism and visuals. Welcome to lean management!

In keeping with the aim of spreading a project culture, the SuitePro-G solution offers methodological and pedagogical support, since it has been developed integrating the recognized and accredited project portfolio governance benchmark: SMP2.

As a result, all stakeholders gradually acquire project governance and management skills through their use of the tool: a common language, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, controlled planning and shared communication.

Cultivate your project culture

In short, if you want to anchor a genuine project culture within your organization and get all project stakeholders on board, you need a collaborative tool that's also pragmatic, intuitive, methodological, educational, connected and configurable!

Promotional article. Expert contributors are authors independent of the Appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are their own.