February 14, 2024 • 25 mins
Unlock the full potential of project management with Mounir Ajam's expert insights on the Uruk platform in our latest podcast. With over three decades of experience, Mounir delves into the transformative power of aligning project management with business operations, revealing how to tear down silos and tailor project approaches with finesse. Get ready to decode the trifecta of project success — people, tools, and process — and understand why the Uruk platform is poised to redefine digital value delivery. Whether it's enhancing speed to market or adhering to your budget, Mounir’s wisdom on sustainable project foundations and the strategic leverage of a stage gate life cycle model is an unmissable masterclass for anyone looking to excel in project management.
Dive deeper into the world of efficient project navigation with Mounir’s guidance on managing project life cycles and stage gates on the Uruk platform. Learn how to employ simplified or advanced modules to address the varying complexities of your projects, and how the platform's evolutionary approach can boost your organization's project management maturity. Get to grips with the flexibility of the Uruk platform's registration and exploration options, and how its risk-free trial plans are designed to fit both individual and organizational needs. Join us as we explore these robust modules and future enhancements destined to revolutionize project management, all shared by the seasoned expertise of Mounir Ajam.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Good day, howdy, and welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam.
My core passion is projectmanagement in community.
I come to you with at leastclose to 35 years of experience.
My eagerness to share knowledgeand to mentor and coach groups
help organizations transform theway they manage project to a
(00:30):
higher level.
4pm's tent in this case isshortened for us for what we
call value, which means project,program, product and portfolios
, so a lot of our topics will bearound this 4pm.
Let's get going.
Good day, my name is Munir Ajam.
(00:54):
I am the founder and CEO of theproject manager.
In this presentation, I will besharing how do we, or how to
manage project on the Rookplatform.
So we will have a generaldiscussion about the philosophy,
the approach, the concept, themindset that we follow in
managing project and what wehave implemented inside the Rook
(01:16):
platform.
So let's get going.
First, I'll have a couple ofslides on general concept and if
you've been following us, youprobably heard us talk about
these things many times beforein many videos and blogs and
even broadcasts, and the ideahere is that in order, obviously
, to manage project, we need tohave a well defined, sustainable
(01:38):
foundation, and that foundationcriteria that we've been using
is that we need to integrateproject management with the rest
of the organization.
So, basically, projectmanagement is not just about
being pure technical work.
It has to integrate with thebusiness and the operation and
other aspect within anorganization, in other words,
minimize the effect of silos oreven break them if possible.
(02:02):
It should cover the entirevalue delivery lifecycle,
project lifecycle.
We might use different names.
The names we've been using isvalue delivery.
It has to be customizable tofit various domain, domain,
vector, sectors Sometime we havedifferent people use different
(02:22):
terminology and it has to beadaptable to fit the project
type, size, complexity and othervariables.
These are some of the coreprinciples that we follow for
our project managementmethodology and the approach we
use.
In the Rook platform.
We are publishing another videoon the six components of
(02:42):
project management methodology.
That would be a good video towatch along with this video as
well.
Finally, in this kind of concepthere, what we're saying it has
to be built on the three pillars.
I think many of us agree on.
In order to achieve success inproject, we have to have as a
(03:03):
foundation at three pillars,people, basically meaning
competency, people, competentpeople, tools and technology and
process and method.
Obviously, in a technologysolution like the Rook platform,
it may be, it sounds like itfit under the technology area.
However, it's really alsoinclude the processes.
(03:23):
It's why these two circles here, or two pillars, are green,
because the platform is not atool, it's basically a built-in
process with numerous method and, of course, we also touch on
the orange area of how can wehelp people become more
competent.
Because obviously, with theprocess and technology, that one
(03:44):
factor, the other factor is theknowledge portal and other guy
that we are including inside ourplatform.
Second item here we want tohighlight is obviously, why, why
this approach?
What is the value of thisapproach?
Because it's a unique valueproposition of Rook project
management and Rook platform andhere what we are saying is that
(04:06):
a collaborative, highlyadaptive digital value delivery
maybe few words here to describewhat we are trying to do so
value delivery solution empowersorganization to lead their
projects from vision to success.
Now, obviously this is soundlike maybe a just general
(04:28):
statement, but it's the benefitof such a value delivery
methodological approach.
If we look at and we relatethat to basically the concept of
a project lifecycle stage gatemodel, there are research that
shows that a effective projectlifecycle stage gate model can
(04:49):
help increase the speed tomarket of your product
development work.
It's also give you more thantwice more likely to help you
achieve budget on time.
That is come from stagegatecom.
You can visit the site andcheck for yourself On.
On capital project, there may besome good reference there Come
(05:11):
from the independent projectanalysis company, but this
information here comes from aspecific book called capital
project and basically what it'ssaying is if you follow a proper
stage gate lifecycle model, youshould achieve better results
than you anticipate.
So let's say you haveanticipation when you launch a
project you're going to achieveX value.
(05:33):
If you properly and you have aneffective system in place, you
will achieve X plus.
And in that book the result was5 percent increase on the net
present value.
And if you don't follow or semifollow, but in general if you
don't follow a well-definedprocess, you could actually,
(05:56):
even though your project mightstill be kind of completed and
the product of the project isput in use, you're likely to
suffer about 45 percent decreasein your anticipated net present
value.
This is what reference.
Other references could showsimilar results.
So we're done with the generalconcept.
(06:21):
Let's zoom in on the idea of theplatform itself.
How do we manage product insidethe platform?
Now I have to state right nowthis is not a demo.
We will be publishing numerousdemos on various functionalities
and modules of the platform.
This is more to understand theprinciples and the philosophy of
how the platform works.
So to manage a project sorry.
(06:45):
One more clarification this islimited to project management in
general.
Of course, we have othermodules and sections of the
platform, such as community ofpractice, such as administrative
portfolio management, programmanagement.
The focus here is on the projectmanagement element, or how do
we manage a project inside theplatform.
(07:05):
So we look at that as theproject management section
inside the platform and we breakthem down into two parts.
First, obviously, we have toget the project inside the
platform.
So that is usually very easyprocess and they can be
accomplished very quickly.
So set up a new project in theplatform and then, once we have
(07:25):
the project set up, then we needto go and, of course, set up
and ready.
That means we can start tomanage an existing project,
because that project will bealready existing inside the
platform.
There are two areas.
Each one of them have steps.
I will cover them next.
If we look at the setup of thenew project.
What are the steps required?
Within that section?
(07:46):
There are five steps and therecould be more in the future, but
for the time being there arefive steps.
Step number one when you clickon set up a new project on the
platform and when you see a demo, you will be able to see
visualize these steps as firstyou.
They will come up form.
They will be a form that youhave to complete.
That's what we call the projectprofile.
Obviously it's a project title,project numbers and any other
(08:10):
relevant information in thatform.
So that's step number one.
The output of that step is nowwe have a project added to the
future database in the system,which means, let's say, sometime
organization might want toupload into the platform 50
projects from their strategicplan.
That's fine.
You can do it all as part, stepone, step one, step one on all
(08:31):
these projects and again, whatthat does is that project will
be included into the futureproject list, which we used to
call the parking lot, but Rightnow we are using we call it the
future, which means the projectis not active yet.
I so it's only future forconsideration and will stay
there until step two.
(08:52):
Step two is when a projectsponsor or senior manager Would
go into the system and activatethe new project and when that
happened they assigned PM.
Now notice the footnotes here.
In some organization, weunderstand they may not be a
project sponsor role.
That is specified and defined.
However, someone a manager, asenior manager will still need
(09:14):
to go activate the project.
Otherwise, every team membercan go and start initiating
project and managing project onthe platform.
Who's no god governance orcontrol.
There have to be a step ofgovernance.
So at least to activate aproject, which mean, in a way,
activating the project, isauthorizing a PM to work on the
project.
That would require a step wherethe sponsor Need to do, or a
(09:38):
senior manager.
Once that's done, the projectis handed over to the assigned
PM.
Notice we need to assign theproject manager and the project
manager in this case will needto go and select a tailored
method.
Now there are many ways toselect a tailored method.
We have what we call a TMStailored method selection
questionnaire in the platform,where you go, where you go and
(10:00):
start answering question andObviously those questions are
related to the method that wehave already built into the
system, if there are some methodout there that we have not
built into the system.
You'll probably not find thecriteria for them there.
In that case you will findsomething called the general
project.
Or we could have in here aproject that had or tailored
(10:22):
method that we have built foryou as a client.
You know, when you we onboard aclient, we could build a few
tailored method for you and theywill be in the system.
So in this case your projectmanager will go and will only
see your tailor method, thetailor method that we built for
you, or they can see only ourmethod, or they can see both.
That flexibility is there.
So there will be aquestionnaire where you know,
(10:45):
question by question, and thatwill open at the end of this
questionnaire, that the TMS thatwill be the system would
recommend One, should be onesometime.
It might recommend more thanone, but it should narrow down
the choices to one method thatis the best fit for the purpose
you just specified.
(11:05):
And that is a an easy process.
You can go and you can see therecommended method, you can read
about it, you can see theproject lifecycle and if you
don't like it, you can go back.
Now, of course, if what youneed is very unique.
Maybe in that case that wouldrequire us to work with you to
develop a specific tailoredmethod for you and then add it
(11:26):
to the system, so that stepnumber three is selecting a
tailor method from what itreally exists.
Once that's done, then we go toanother step and step four and
five could be interchangeable.
It's basically the four definedthe reporting frequency how
often do you want to producereport?
Now, that's I mean you know,obviously, to actually generate
(11:49):
a reporting system.
You can do it any date, anytime.
You don't need any specifictime set.
However, sometimes you know,when you produce performance
short executive dashboard, youmight want to agree on a
frequency within theorganization.
The organization could have apolicy set for all project or
maybe leave it up to everyproject based on the condition
of the project.
It's a site, so you could beweekly, to be bi-weekly, monthly
(12:11):
or even quarterly, depend onhow long is the project.
So here you will define thatand that's very.
This is part of thecommunication module, but we
created a shortcut for it herebecause that become important.
That set basically the criteriafor all the performance charts
and the executive dashboard forthe system.
(12:32):
So if you agree on weekly, forexample, every Friday.
You can.
Actually the system should beable to automatically generate
many of the report.
Some of it might require youractual input.
And then, step number five, youlink to a schedule.
What we are trying to do and weneed to do better job in this
area Is that for every tailoredmethod we built, we can agree on
(12:57):
, develop a template schedule inthis case, ms project and
basically the reason for thosetemplates is to help you, to
help the project manager,minimize the work.
So if there are a lot ofcommencing for example, the life
cycle of a project, the stages,right, if all of these are
already defined, why do you needto recreate them?
We are giving you a scheduleand then you can go and modify
(13:18):
it.
The intent of the schedule isnot this is a complete schedule.
This is only a template whereyou can go and modify it, and
usually we will have a demo onthis specific one.
We follow the principle ofrolling wave planning, which
means you plan every stage asyou move forward.
Was that done then?
Basically, you have thisproject set up in the system.
(13:44):
So next, what happened?
Well, you need to manage anexisting project and for that,
really, there are two majorparts, however.
We are showing them here asfour different sections of the
platform that would help in thisarea, and these are PLC
management, stage management,supporting action and
(14:04):
performance management.
Let's explore each one, for PLCmanagement is basically
covering the entire lifecyclethe project lifecycle, the
product lifecycle, the valuedelivery lifecycle, whatever you
like to call it.
For us, it's important to befrom vision to operation and
even beyond, and in that case,what you see here in the green
we have other videos on thistopic, so I'm not going to go
(14:25):
into detail the green istypically what very common type
of lifecycle that we see in theindustry.
What Rook have done is modifyand add energy discover phase
and in order to emphasize thatas part of the project lifecycle
, and then we added theoperation readiness and
operation, energy operationstages, which you can see in the
blue in the bottom part.
(14:46):
So this is how we use, with theidea of integrating project
management with the business andoperation.
The intent here, what you seehere.
This is a standard model.
However, the intent is thatthis screen in the platform,
this lifecycle, would depend onthe data method selected.
(15:07):
On some project, you could havefour stages only.
In some project you could havemaybe 12 stages.
In this specific model thereare none stages of the stage
game.
So part of managing project ismanaging the project lifecycle,
which means managing across thestages.
That's one part of how wemanage project inside the
platform, which means we have togo from zero all the way to the
(15:29):
end, stage by stage.
Which brings us to stagemanagement, stage management in
general.
Any typical stage again,regardless how many stages you
have in the lifecycle, whetheryou have four or ten, they're a
difficult stage there to producean output which we call stage
deliverable.
(15:49):
And that's the stagedeliverable must go through a
stage gate, a decision point.
I know some people hate thatterm and they said, ah, we don't
want to use stage gatemanagement.
You do, whether you realize itor not.
If you have, if you need tomake decision on a project along
the lifecycle typically that isanother way is a decision point
(16:12):
at the gate.
Again, you can call it whateveryou want.
However, that's in principle.
Now, what's the purpose of thegate?
Obviously to verify the stagedeliverable has been completed,
bear the company standardguideline and expectation.
That's part one, and the secondpart of the question,
especially in the early stagesis that are the condition of the
(16:33):
project still valid?
Is the feasibility of theproject still valid?
Is it still the decision ofmanagement to proceed In that
case, go or no go?
So the stage gate will servethat purpose.
So in the early stages, thestage gate have two purpose
verifying the work of theprevious stage and authorizing
(16:54):
the team, the PM, to go on tothe next stage, not all the way
to the end, only to the nextstage.
That's the idea of the stagegate.
Some people call these killpoints In case you want to kill
the project.
It's here when you want to killthe project.
So that's the idea of whathappened in every stage.
Now, how do we manage everystage?
And that is, we have built intoa system two different modules.
(17:18):
The first one we call itsimplified stage management,
which is obviously it's relatedto the process group concept is
that you plan the stage.
Authorization happened at theprevious gate.
So you plan the stage, youimplement the stage work, you
control and manage throughoutand then, when you're done, you
close.
And the advanced stagemanagement this is resemble more
(17:41):
like the ISO and PMI processgroup.
However, notice we have sixprocesses here, so which we have
to authorize Again.
Authorize could disappear ifbecause that automatically
linked to the previous stage.
However they are.
You know we always believe thatthe stage has to be authorized,
(18:01):
even when you know when youhave a gate approved, you might
have some have some specialcondition or instruction that
the sponsor want to pass on tothe PM.
That is where what you can dowith the authorize, then we plan
the management of the stage, weplan the detail of the stage,
we go implement, we monitoringcontrol throughout and where we
done we close.
So these are two modules in thesystem.
(18:24):
Most method will have alreadythese predefined.
So if you're working on mostlymicro to small project or the
early stages of the project,most likely going to see the
simplified already built in.
If you work on large, complexcapital project, you know and
you are the engineering stage orthe construction stage, most
(18:44):
likely going to find theadvanced already set for you.
However, in some cases we giveyou a choice when you go on to
stage management.
You can choose whether you wantto use the simplified or
advanced.
So obviously, simplified isvery simple, quite extremely
simple, which means you can planthe stage in five minutes,
depending, off course, on thestage, or it can be longer,
(19:06):
whereas the advanced actuallyhave.
Under these six set of processes, there are about 60 steps that
need to be completed for these.
Now, obviously, not everythingneed to be completed every in
every stage.
However, there are many stepsto come.
So we manage across the stages.
We manage every stage.
But also, in order to do this,we need to manage what we call
(19:28):
the supporting action, pmfunction.
Some of these what PMI callknowledge areas, iso columns.
Basically they call themsubject area.
I think French too, called themscene.
There are different things thatneed to be managed.
We need to manage scope, costschedule.
As you can see here, there aremany modules that we are either
(19:50):
we have built or building insidethe platform.
Of course, depending on youroption, you have the choice of
using them all or maybe skippingsome of them.
That's a decision fororganization.
Obviously, if a company come tous and said we want to use the
RU platform and they're new toproject management, they haven't
(20:11):
used a lot of projectmanagement.
One great advantage of theplatform is we can gradually
build in their maturity, whichmean we can start with only
managing the lifecycle and then,as they are ready to take on
more areas, we can start to helpand work with them to get them
on board on all these differenttopics.
Now, the difference in the colorshading here of this topic is
(20:33):
that the light I don't know isnot green.
I'm not sure what greenish kindof.
These are built already in theplatform but in very, very basic
functionalities and the intentis we're going to replace them
all.
And the dark green are thesethat we are built before as
(20:54):
simplified basic module and wehave already upgraded them and
make them quite a bit robustmodule which maybe eventually
down the road each one of thesecould become an independent tool
that we could even sell it as aseparate product.
So right now what we have issustainability management has
(21:16):
been built, task management,document management, capture,
lesson learned.
The other areas are still inthe simplified module and
gradually, almost every week ortwo, we will be converting one
of these into a to become adarker green.
So, for example, this team willbe working next on issues
(21:41):
management, project success,communication management, team
management.
These are some of the modulesthat are already in the queue.
So in a month or two, thosetopics that I just mentioned
will be darker green as well.
The radish one are things thatwe want to build, but we don't
have anything in the system onthem yet, but they will be added
(22:03):
down the road.
The intention is by the end ofthe year, most of this will be
already fully operational.
Now, of course, as we said someof this already, even the light
, the greenish one they arethere.
You can actually use them, butthey are very basic
functionalities.
Now the last topic remember inmanaging, we are using project.
(22:23):
We manage across the stages.
We manage every stage.
We manage supporting action.
We also need to monitor incontrol and verify and check
performance.
This is an area where probablymost executives would like to
come into the platform for whereit provides a transparent and
real-time single source of truth.
Maybe that term that might needsome explanation, maybe later
(22:47):
today, but in general, when wetalk about performance
management in the platform,usually there are three modules
reporting module, where wegenerate report, in case you
want to send somebody a PDFreport.
Performance chart, where you cango and see the chart.
And then an executive dashboard.
Now, of course, this will befor project and program.
They will be quite similar.
(23:07):
What I didn't say.
These will also apply.
They will be portfolio chartand performance management.
But right now in thispresentation, I'm focusing on
managing a project, so we willnot go into the other areas.
This is an example of some ofthe design that will go into the
platform.
There are different charts.
There will be pie chart, therewill be donut chart, there will
(23:29):
be radials, there will be, ofcourse, column chart, bar chart
you name it Depending on thesituation and what is the best
way of presenting the data.
We will show that.
I cannot show you the executivedashboard yet.
That is the work that actuallythe team is starting to work on
(23:50):
right now.
So hopefully by the end ofJanuary or February, we will
have those updated performancechart and executive dashboard
and with this we say thank you.
You can always, of course,follow us and register on our
(24:15):
website.
You can go and explore theplatform and if you'd like to
have a tailored demo or aone-on-one discussion that is
open, honest and non-obligatorydiscussion, then you can always
follow my currently links andschedule a meeting with me Now
to explore the platform.
(24:36):
You can explore it today as anindividual.
There are trial plans 30 daystrial plan.
You can explore as anindividual, so which means you
go in as a single user or youcan explore as an organization.
If you'd like two, three peopleto go explore together, you can
create an organizational trialplan and explore.
(24:58):
Also, there is the option wehave a 60-day money bag
guarantee.
We can discuss even where wecan onboard you on the regular
account and there is no risk foryou up to 60 days, and so
please feel free to reach out.
(25:18):
With this, I will end thediscussion and wish you success
today, tomorrow and always.
Good day, howdy, and welcome to the 4pm podcast.
My name is Munir Ajam.
My core passion is projectmanagement in community.
I come to you with at leastclose to 35 years of experience.
My eagerness to share knowledgeand to mentor and coach groups
help organizations transform theway they manage project to a
(00:30):
higher level.
4pm's tent in this case isshortened for us for what we
call value, which means project,program, product and portfolios
, so a lot of our topics will bearound this 4pm.
Let's get going.
Good day, my name is Munir Ajam.
(00:54):
I am the founder and CEO of theproject manager.
In this presentation, I will besharing how do we, or how to
manage project on the Rookplatform.
So we will have a generaldiscussion about the philosophy,
the approach, the concept, themindset that we follow in
managing project and what wehave implemented inside the Rook
(01:16):
platform.
So let's get going.
First, I'll have a couple ofslides on general concept and if
you've been following us, youprobably heard us talk about
these things many times beforein many videos and blogs and
even broadcasts, and the ideahere is that in order, obviously
, to manage project, we need tohave a well defined, sustainable
(01:38):
foundation, and that foundationcriteria that we've been using
is that we need to integrateproject management with the rest
of the organization.
So, basically, projectmanagement is not just about
being pure technical work.
It has to integrate with thebusiness and the operation and
other aspect within anorganization, in other words,
minimize the effect of silos oreven break them if possible.
(02:02):
It should cover the entirevalue delivery lifecycle,
project lifecycle.
We might use different names.
The names we've been using isvalue delivery.
It has to be customizable tofit various domain, domain,
vector, sectors Sometime we havedifferent people use different
(02:22):
terminology and it has to beadaptable to fit the project
type, size, complexity and othervariables.
These are some of the coreprinciples that we follow for
our project managementmethodology and the approach we
use.
In the Rook platform.
We are publishing another videoon the six components of
(02:42):
project management methodology.
That would be a good video towatch along with this video as
well.
Finally, in this kind of concepthere, what we're saying it has
to be built on the three pillars.
I think many of us agree on.
In order to achieve success inproject, we have to have as a
(03:03):
foundation at three pillars,people, basically meaning
competency, people, competentpeople, tools and technology and
process and method.
Obviously, in a technologysolution like the Rook platform,
it may be, it sounds like itfit under the technology area.
However, it's really alsoinclude the processes.
(03:23):
It's why these two circles here, or two pillars, are green,
because the platform is not atool, it's basically a built-in
process with numerous method and, of course, we also touch on
the orange area of how can wehelp people become more
competent.
Because obviously, with theprocess and technology, that one
(03:44):
factor, the other factor is theknowledge portal and other guy
that we are including inside ourplatform.
Second item here we want tohighlight is obviously, why, why
this approach?
What is the value of thisapproach?
Because it's a unique valueproposition of Rook project
management and Rook platform andhere what we are saying is that
(04:06):
a collaborative, highlyadaptive digital value delivery
maybe few words here to describewhat we are trying to do so
value delivery solution empowersorganization to lead their
projects from vision to success.
Now, obviously this is soundlike maybe a just general
(04:28):
statement, but it's the benefitof such a value delivery
methodological approach.
If we look at and we relatethat to basically the concept of
a project lifecycle stage gatemodel, there are research that
shows that a effective projectlifecycle stage gate model can
(04:49):
help increase the speed tomarket of your product
development work.
It's also give you more thantwice more likely to help you
achieve budget on time.
That is come from stagegatecom.
You can visit the site andcheck for yourself On.
On capital project, there may besome good reference there Come
(05:11):
from the independent projectanalysis company, but this
information here comes from aspecific book called capital
project and basically what it'ssaying is if you follow a proper
stage gate lifecycle model, youshould achieve better results
than you anticipate.
So let's say you haveanticipation when you launch a
project you're going to achieveX value.
(05:33):
If you properly and you have aneffective system in place, you
will achieve X plus.
And in that book the result was5 percent increase on the net
present value.
And if you don't follow or semifollow, but in general if you
don't follow a well-definedprocess, you could actually,
(05:56):
even though your project mightstill be kind of completed and
the product of the project isput in use, you're likely to
suffer about 45 percent decreasein your anticipated net present
value.
This is what reference.
Other references could showsimilar results.
So we're done with the generalconcept.
(06:21):
Let's zoom in on the idea of theplatform itself.
How do we manage product insidethe platform?
Now I have to state right nowthis is not a demo.
We will be publishing numerousdemos on various functionalities
and modules of the platform.
This is more to understand theprinciples and the philosophy of
how the platform works.
So to manage a project sorry.
(06:45):
One more clarification this islimited to project management in
general.
Of course, we have othermodules and sections of the
platform, such as community ofpractice, such as administrative
portfolio management, programmanagement.
The focus here is on the projectmanagement element, or how do
we manage a project inside theplatform.
(07:05):
So we look at that as theproject management section
inside the platform and we breakthem down into two parts.
First, obviously, we have toget the project inside the
platform.
So that is usually very easyprocess and they can be
accomplished very quickly.
So set up a new project in theplatform and then, once we have
(07:25):
the project set up, then we needto go and, of course, set up
and ready.
That means we can start tomanage an existing project,
because that project will bealready existing inside the
platform.
There are two areas.
Each one of them have steps.
I will cover them next.
If we look at the setup of thenew project.
What are the steps required?
Within that section?
(07:46):
There are five steps and therecould be more in the future, but
for the time being there arefive steps.
Step number one when you clickon set up a new project on the
platform and when you see a demo, you will be able to see
visualize these steps as firstyou.
They will come up form.
They will be a form that youhave to complete.
That's what we call the projectprofile.
Obviously it's a project title,project numbers and any other
(08:10):
relevant information in thatform.
So that's step number one.
The output of that step is nowwe have a project added to the
future database in the system,which means, let's say, sometime
organization might want toupload into the platform 50
projects from their strategicplan.
That's fine.
You can do it all as part, stepone, step one, step one on all
(08:31):
these projects and again, whatthat does is that project will
be included into the futureproject list, which we used to
call the parking lot, but Rightnow we are using we call it the
future, which means the projectis not active yet.
I so it's only future forconsideration and will stay
there until step two.
(08:52):
Step two is when a projectsponsor or senior manager Would
go into the system and activatethe new project and when that
happened they assigned PM.
Now notice the footnotes here.
In some organization, weunderstand they may not be a
project sponsor role.
That is specified and defined.
However, someone a manager, asenior manager will still need
(09:14):
to go activate the project.
Otherwise, every team membercan go and start initiating
project and managing project onthe platform.
Who's no god governance orcontrol.
There have to be a step ofgovernance.
So at least to activate aproject, which mean, in a way,
activating the project, isauthorizing a PM to work on the
project.
That would require a step wherethe sponsor Need to do, or a
(09:38):
senior manager.
Once that's done, the projectis handed over to the assigned
PM.
Notice we need to assign theproject manager and the project
manager in this case will needto go and select a tailored
method.
Now there are many ways toselect a tailored method.
We have what we call a TMStailored method selection
questionnaire in the platform,where you go, where you go and
(10:00):
start answering question andObviously those questions are
related to the method that wehave already built into the
system, if there are some methodout there that we have not
built into the system.
You'll probably not find thecriteria for them there.
In that case you will findsomething called the general
project.
Or we could have in here aproject that had or tailored
(10:22):
method that we have built foryou as a client.
You know, when you we onboard aclient, we could build a few
tailored method for you and theywill be in the system.
So in this case your projectmanager will go and will only
see your tailor method, thetailor method that we built for
you, or they can see only ourmethod, or they can see both.
That flexibility is there.
So there will be aquestionnaire where you know,
(10:45):
question by question, and thatwill open at the end of this
questionnaire, that the TMS thatwill be the system would
recommend One, should be onesometime.
It might recommend more thanone, but it should narrow down
the choices to one method thatis the best fit for the purpose
you just specified.
(11:05):
And that is a an easy process.
You can go and you can see therecommended method, you can read
about it, you can see theproject lifecycle and if you
don't like it, you can go back.
Now, of course, if what youneed is very unique.
Maybe in that case that wouldrequire us to work with you to
develop a specific tailoredmethod for you and then add it
(11:26):
to the system, so that stepnumber three is selecting a
tailor method from what itreally exists.
Once that's done, then we go toanother step and step four and
five could be interchangeable.
It's basically the four definedthe reporting frequency how
often do you want to producereport?
Now, that's I mean you know,obviously, to actually generate
(11:49):
a reporting system.
You can do it any date, anytime.
You don't need any specifictime set.
However, sometimes you know,when you produce performance
short executive dashboard, youmight want to agree on a
frequency within theorganization.
The organization could have apolicy set for all project or
maybe leave it up to everyproject based on the condition
of the project.
It's a site, so you could beweekly, to be bi-weekly, monthly
(12:11):
or even quarterly, depend onhow long is the project.
So here you will define thatand that's very.
This is part of thecommunication module, but we
created a shortcut for it herebecause that become important.
That set basically the criteriafor all the performance charts
and the executive dashboard forthe system.
(12:32):
So if you agree on weekly, forexample, every Friday.
You can.
Actually the system should beable to automatically generate
many of the report.
Some of it might require youractual input.
And then, step number five, youlink to a schedule.
What we are trying to do and weneed to do better job in this
area Is that for every tailoredmethod we built, we can agree on
(12:57):
, develop a template schedule inthis case, ms project and
basically the reason for thosetemplates is to help you, to
help the project manager,minimize the work.
So if there are a lot ofcommencing for example, the life
cycle of a project, the stages,right, if all of these are
already defined, why do you needto recreate them?
We are giving you a scheduleand then you can go and modify
(13:18):
it.
The intent of the schedule isnot this is a complete schedule.
This is only a template whereyou can go and modify it, and
usually we will have a demo onthis specific one.
We follow the principle ofrolling wave planning, which
means you plan every stage asyou move forward.
Was that done then?
Basically, you have thisproject set up in the system.
(13:44):
So next, what happened?
Well, you need to manage anexisting project and for that,
really, there are two majorparts, however.
We are showing them here asfour different sections of the
platform that would help in thisarea, and these are PLC
management, stage management,supporting action and
(14:04):
performance management.
Let's explore each one, for PLCmanagement is basically
covering the entire lifecyclethe project lifecycle, the
product lifecycle, the valuedelivery lifecycle, whatever you
like to call it.
For us, it's important to befrom vision to operation and
even beyond, and in that case,what you see here in the green
we have other videos on thistopic, so I'm not going to go
(14:25):
into detail the green istypically what very common type
of lifecycle that we see in theindustry.
What Rook have done is modifyand add energy discover phase
and in order to emphasize thatas part of the project lifecycle
, and then we added theoperation readiness and
operation, energy operationstages, which you can see in the
blue in the bottom part.
(14:46):
So this is how we use, with theidea of integrating project
management with the business andoperation.
The intent here, what you seehere.
This is a standard model.
However, the intent is thatthis screen in the platform,
this lifecycle, would depend onthe data method selected.
(15:07):
On some project, you could havefour stages only.
In some project you could havemaybe 12 stages.
In this specific model thereare none stages of the stage
game.
So part of managing project ismanaging the project lifecycle,
which means managing across thestages.
That's one part of how wemanage project inside the
platform, which means we have togo from zero all the way to the
(15:29):
end, stage by stage.
Which brings us to stagemanagement, stage management in
general.
Any typical stage again,regardless how many stages you
have in the lifecycle, whetheryou have four or ten, they're a
difficult stage there to producean output which we call stage
deliverable.
(15:49):
And that's the stagedeliverable must go through a
stage gate, a decision point.
I know some people hate thatterm and they said, ah, we don't
want to use stage gatemanagement.
You do, whether you realize itor not.
If you have, if you need tomake decision on a project along
the lifecycle typically that isanother way is a decision point
(16:12):
at the gate.
Again, you can call it whateveryou want.
However, that's in principle.
Now, what's the purpose of thegate?
Obviously to verify the stagedeliverable has been completed,
bear the company standardguideline and expectation.
That's part one, and the secondpart of the question,
especially in the early stagesis that are the condition of the
(16:33):
project still valid?
Is the feasibility of theproject still valid?
Is it still the decision ofmanagement to proceed In that
case, go or no go?
So the stage gate will servethat purpose.
So in the early stages, thestage gate have two purpose
verifying the work of theprevious stage and authorizing
(16:54):
the team, the PM, to go on tothe next stage, not all the way
to the end, only to the nextstage.
That's the idea of the stagegate.
Some people call these killpoints In case you want to kill
the project.
It's here when you want to killthe project.
So that's the idea of whathappened in every stage.
Now, how do we manage everystage?
And that is, we have built intoa system two different modules.
(17:18):
The first one we call itsimplified stage management,
which is obviously it's relatedto the process group concept is
that you plan the stage.
Authorization happened at theprevious gate.
So you plan the stage, youimplement the stage work, you
control and manage throughoutand then, when you're done, you
close.
And the advanced stagemanagement this is resemble more
(17:41):
like the ISO and PMI processgroup.
However, notice we have sixprocesses here, so which we have
to authorize Again.
Authorize could disappear ifbecause that automatically
linked to the previous stage.
However they are.
You know we always believe thatthe stage has to be authorized,
(18:01):
even when you know when youhave a gate approved, you might
have some have some specialcondition or instruction that
the sponsor want to pass on tothe PM.
That is where what you can dowith the authorize, then we plan
the management of the stage, weplan the detail of the stage,
we go implement, we monitoringcontrol throughout and where we
done we close.
So these are two modules in thesystem.
(18:24):
Most method will have alreadythese predefined.
So if you're working on mostlymicro to small project or the
early stages of the project,most likely going to see the
simplified already built in.
If you work on large, complexcapital project, you know and
you are the engineering stage orthe construction stage, most
(18:44):
likely going to find theadvanced already set for you.
However, in some cases we giveyou a choice when you go on to
stage management.
You can choose whether you wantto use the simplified or
advanced.
So obviously, simplified isvery simple, quite extremely
simple, which means you can planthe stage in five minutes,
depending, off course, on thestage, or it can be longer,
(19:06):
whereas the advanced actuallyhave.
Under these six set of processes, there are about 60 steps that
need to be completed for these.
Now, obviously, not everythingneed to be completed every in
every stage.
However, there are many stepsto come.
So we manage across the stages.
We manage every stage.
But also, in order to do this,we need to manage what we call
(19:28):
the supporting action, pmfunction.
Some of these what PMI callknowledge areas, iso columns.
Basically they call themsubject area.
I think French too, called themscene.
There are different things thatneed to be managed.
We need to manage scope, costschedule.
As you can see here, there aremany modules that we are either
(19:50):
we have built or building insidethe platform.
Of course, depending on youroption, you have the choice of
using them all or maybe skippingsome of them.
That's a decision fororganization.
Obviously, if a company come tous and said we want to use the
RU platform and they're new toproject management, they haven't
(20:11):
used a lot of projectmanagement.
One great advantage of theplatform is we can gradually
build in their maturity, whichmean we can start with only
managing the lifecycle and then,as they are ready to take on
more areas, we can start to helpand work with them to get them
on board on all these differenttopics.
Now, the difference in the colorshading here of this topic is
(20:33):
that the light I don't know isnot green.
I'm not sure what greenish kindof.
These are built already in theplatform but in very, very basic
functionalities and the intentis we're going to replace them
all.
And the dark green are thesethat we are built before as
(20:54):
simplified basic module and wehave already upgraded them and
make them quite a bit robustmodule which maybe eventually
down the road each one of thesecould become an independent tool
that we could even sell it as aseparate product.
So right now what we have issustainability management has
(21:16):
been built, task management,document management, capture,
lesson learned.
The other areas are still inthe simplified module and
gradually, almost every week ortwo, we will be converting one
of these into a to become adarker green.
So, for example, this team willbe working next on issues
(21:41):
management, project success,communication management, team
management.
These are some of the modulesthat are already in the queue.
So in a month or two, thosetopics that I just mentioned
will be darker green as well.
The radish one are things thatwe want to build, but we don't
have anything in the system onthem yet, but they will be added
(22:03):
down the road.
The intention is by the end ofthe year, most of this will be
already fully operational.
Now, of course, as we said someof this already, even the light
, the greenish one they arethere.
You can actually use them, butthey are very basic
functionalities.
Now the last topic remember inmanaging, we are using project.
(22:23):
We manage across the stages.
We manage every stage.
We manage supporting action.
We also need to monitor incontrol and verify and check
performance.
This is an area where probablymost executives would like to
come into the platform for whereit provides a transparent and
real-time single source of truth.
Maybe that term that might needsome explanation, maybe later
(22:47):
today, but in general, when wetalk about performance
management in the platform,usually there are three modules
reporting module, where wegenerate report, in case you
want to send somebody a PDFreport.
Performance chart, where you cango and see the chart.
And then an executive dashboard.
Now, of course, this will befor project and program.
They will be quite similar.
(23:07):
What I didn't say.
These will also apply.
They will be portfolio chartand performance management.
But right now in thispresentation, I'm focusing on
managing a project, so we willnot go into the other areas.
This is an example of some ofthe design that will go into the
platform.
There are different charts.
There will be pie chart, therewill be donut chart, there will
(23:29):
be radials, there will be, ofcourse, column chart, bar chart
you name it Depending on thesituation and what is the best
way of presenting the data.
We will show that.
I cannot show you the executivedashboard yet.
That is the work that actuallythe team is starting to work on
(23:50):
right now.
So hopefully by the end ofJanuary or February, we will
have those updated performancechart and executive dashboard
and with this we say thank you.
You can always, of course,follow us and register on our
(24:15):
website.
You can go and explore theplatform and if you'd like to
have a tailored demo or aone-on-one discussion that is
open, honest and non-obligatorydiscussion, then you can always
follow my currently links andschedule a meeting with me Now
to explore the platform.
(24:36):
You can explore it today as anindividual.
There are trial plans 30 daystrial plan.
You can explore as anindividual, so which means you
go in as a single user or youcan explore as an organization.
If you'd like two, three peopleto go explore together, you can
create an organizational trialplan and explore.
(24:58):
Also, there is the option wehave a 60-day money bag
guarantee.
We can discuss even where wecan onboard you on the regular
account and there is no risk foryou up to 60 days, and so
please feel free to reach out.
(25:18):
With this, I will end thediscussion and wish you success
today, tomorrow and always.
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