By Tim Cermak (@timcermak) Jul 19, 2012 I cannot recall a time that it was clearer that companies should (and can) leverage project management and collaborative business platforms to enable a culture of accountability, predictability and process repeatability. Business trends, research and economic statistics are proving that successful organizations are benefiting from the effectiveness of project collaboration, communication and reporting across the enterprise, thus improving bottom-line performance. The Business Problem Companies today face the challenge of determining what is happening both within their organization and externally in their marketplace. Information such as who is working on what and the progress of directives is fundamental and yet it is often elusive. The objective is for teams and individuals alike to rally around their work activities, focusing their efforts on many things simultaneously in order to deliver timely results. However, executives are reluctant to introduce complicated systems or drastic changes at a time when market performance and a strong balance sheet are essential. No Magic Bullet The only way for companies to improve their business is to know what is happening, who is doing the work and what the outcome really is. People need to easily be able to collaborate on jobs and with colleagues, communicate with many people, and easily report the facts. This needs to be a change of work habits with a limited number of steps. Companies cannot improve performance and the bottom line by introducing a multiplier number of steps, actions and hoops to jump through as part of "change" and expect positive results. Executives need to work from the top down, in a transparent yet governed environment. Individuals need to work bottom-up, and across, to make more of an impact and be part of the solution — not a drag on the process. Project management remains a growing science and practitioner competency that delivers quantifiable results: it’s a proven business practice. Project management brings us virtually everything in our work and home life, from entertainment, to new structures, to special occasions. How each project is defined and managed varies widely. The trend of project management as a fundamental benefit in the corporate world is to collaborate and deliver results. People need the ability to deliver "just the right amount" of project information to business users. That means having a culture that elicits just enough input to provide the appropriate amount of data for decision makers to realize peak results. Too many project details and you begin to constrain the decision makers’ ability to quickly identify the right decisions. Limited project details marginalize the effectiveness and value of project management all together. Project Management On Your Terms (PMOYTsm) Productive employees lead to positive results. Provide workers with the right tools and direction, and your bottom-line will improve. The workforce is diversifying more, globally, and is doing so in a way that enables more autonomy, innovation and participation of teams based on their collective skillset, locations, experiences, etc. Companies have been transforming their businesses to better adapt to the evolving work force. The socialization of the work force and sharing of information is critical to the success of this team diversification movement. Corporate executives recognize that generational differences impact the corporate culture. The new, aspiring influencers are comfortable with the freedom of expression, ad hoc technologies and combining many different processes to get the job done. The more seasoned subject matter experts who have experienced the ebb and flows of economic shifts try to balance bleeding edge technology with proven practices to optimize the execution of tasks. It would be nearly impossible to design a technical and/or process-automation solution that meets the needs of all workers. So how about allowing workers the advantages of using the technology and processes with which they feel most comfortable, while enforcing expectations, governance and tracking towards predictable outcomes?

By Simon Buehring

11 Jul
2012

Time is running out for London-based businesses which are advised to plan ahead in order to avoid disruption to their business during the London Games. With only 2 weeks away from London's largest ever sporting occasion, businesses need to plan how staff will travel to work during the games.

There are currently 3.5 million journeys a day on London Underground. Another 20 million trips will be made just by spectators during the London Games. On the busiest day of the games, three million more trips are expected. Businesses near to games venues will be particularly affected.

The getaheadofthegames.com website has been set up to help and support Londoner's to prepare for the games. It recommends that London businesses analyse the impact of the games on their business, staff, customers and visitors. Details of expected delays and congestion at stations and intersections can be found on their website. Businesses are advised to re-time travel to work, plan alternative travel routes, or failing that, plan to take alternative forms of transport.

Based upon the advice and information given on the Get Ahead of the Games website, Knowledge Train, a London-based project management training company, has put together a cartoon containing a fictional analysis of the risk of travelling to work during the games.