[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 is involved in projects: people write about projects, they take on the role of project manager, they are part of a project team, they receive training in project management and, to establish this project culture, they 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 it has to be a commitment on the part of the organisation. It has to "get on board" and "align" the teams.

Discover a tutorial on how to develop your project culture:

Step 1 - Test your organisation'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 ;

• You are a project manager and want to assess what should be done in your organisation to facilitate project governance;

you can start with a maturity test of your organisation.

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

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

Stage 2 - Manage the stakeholders

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

Project portfolio management is now a strategic skill for organisations. It's together that projects succeed or fail!

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

Henry Ford 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 organisation needs to identify and involve all the stakeholders in the project mode, 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 an overview of the stakeholders to be taken into account as a priority, as well as the type of associated action.

A matrix of this kind makes it possible to start from the current level of stakeholder commitment and to involve them by defining the best possible involvement strategy.

Through this type of concrete action, a project culture spreads and takes its place in the interaction between people , based on concise, controlled and successful communication.

Is this enough to anchor a project culture?

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

Many organisations are now investing in the acquisition and deployment of project management software solutions, to support the cross-functional efficiency they are seeking and the effective mobilisation of each of their stakeholders.

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 strewn with pitfalls.

The collaborative argument is no longer enough.

That's why IQar's project governance experts have designed the PPM SuitePro-G solution. It's a software package designed for all project stakeholders, with the aim of uniting them around the tool , making project management more accessible and spreading a genuine project culture.

And that's not all: its graphical differentiation encourages visual management and provides visibility in real time with :

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

It's a great way of reducing time wasted on emails, meetings and the like.

Propose agile, accessible and more visual project management!

Step 4 - Switch to lean management!

Make it easier for the business units to get involved in implementing the 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 is a product-oriented breakdown of all the tasks that organises and defines the total scope of the project:

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

Visualise and manage workflow with Kanban

Today, the Kanban method is best known as a table-based representation of task progress.

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

As tasks or deliverables progress, you move their card from one column to another. It's a simple way of seeing 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 shows 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 projects into perspective with your deadlines.

Stand out from the crowd with the project weather forecast

Communication elements such as the project weather forecast can be customised, and the imagery of this weather forecast makes an immediate impression and makes it easy to direct reporting towards certain points of attention.

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

Control at a glance with full-colour dashboards

Each of the dashboards implemented 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 colourful, visual approach to project management, using a minimalist, visual approach. Welcome to lean management!

With the aim of spreading a project culture, the SuitePro-G solution offers methodological and pedagogical support, since it has been developed using the recognised and accredited project portfolio governance benchmark: SMP2.

As a result, all the parties involved, through their use of the tool, gradually acquire skills in project governance and management: 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 organisation and get all the stakeholders involved in a project on board, you need a collaborative tool that is also pragmatic, intuitive, methodological, educational, connected and configurable!

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