Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Enterprise Project Management

Guest Blogger: Ryan Sauer


Many executives today face the frustration of failed projects. Unfortunately, significant money can be lost as well as other detrimental factors such as loss of employee morale. Often, the combination of internal and external influences can lead to this unanticipated and disappointing conclusion.  One way to rise above the inherent problems of individual project management is to adopt enterprise project management.

What is Enterprise Project Management?

While typical project management focuses on one project at a time, enterprise project management focuses on all projects, a grouping of projects or a large, company-wide project. Some of the benefits are these:
·         though enterprise project management looks at the big picture, the principles can be applied to smaller projects as well resources used for enterprise projects can be re-used for individual projects
·         enterprise project management can lead to better prioritizing of projects for the company as a whole

Basically, you could benefit from enterprise project management if you have observed a need for more cohesive organization of projects in your company as a whole.

Realize How to Control the Chaos
Large organizations must deal with highly complex business situations such as mergers, acquisitions, new enterprise technology and government regulation requirements. As an example, imagine that your company is upgrading all routers. To enhance your technology company-wide with this initiative, departments for procurement, technology, business intelligence and security may become involved. Appreciating the interdependencies between departments can be essential. Issues in resource conflict may arise during the process of the upgrade. Confusion and misalignment within the company can lead to missed deadlines, excessive costs and complications within other projects. In order to avoid these damaging outcomes, it is best to successfully manage all departments with coordinated effort.

The Basic Structure of EPM
Most organizations set up an office for project management (PM) or enterprise project management (EPM). The EPM committee includes a lead executive who would assign a team of project managers chosen according to the basic project management methodology selected by the EPM. The executive would create a portfolio of all company projects. This portfolio includes the budget-size of each project per calendar year and also the projects that can be in demand for launch when resources permit. The EPM office also oversees the projects of the company, and reports on whether or not projects are meeting deadlines and budget requirements. Those involved in the EPM are sometimes called a governance committee, and they are available to resolve conflicts that may arise due to interdepency between departments on particular projects. This team also ensures a stream-lined approach for projects on a company-wide basis which creates more consistent workflow and employee expectations.

The Benefits of Enterprise Project Management
If your company suffers from repeated project failures, enterprise project management could help your organization regain control. Due to the numerous variables in play within large business systems, facilitation of project management is not easy. By creating a separate team of enterprise project managers, you can ensure that project management methodology and implementation are streamlined. This will assist all participants in initiating, sustaining and completing successful projects. 

Ryan Sauer is a writer and editor for Bisk Education in association with University Alliance. He actively writes about project management in different industries and strives to help professionals succeed in getting their project management certification. Through the University Alliance, Ryan writes to help enable professionals obtain their PMP certification online.

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