Proactive Communication

Challenge

The Project Management Office of this organization is responsible for providing support services to all of the project managers and staff in the organization. Often these support people were required to directly address the behavior of the project managers and request changes – to take greater care with reporting financials or be more diligent with managing inventory, for example. The relative level in the hierarchy made this especially difficult – they were officially at the same level, but the support staff often struggled to get the attention of the over-worked PMs. As a result, most issues were escalated to management, rather than dealt with directly, consuming many hours of management time/month.

Solution

The solution delivery team met with the client management team to set KPIs to track. A 6 month training, coaching, and manager feedback solution was designed.

Training Modules

• Proactive Consultation
• Presenting Persuasively
• Consultative Meetings

1. Relating
2. Discovering
3. Advocating
4. Supporting

Coaching for Managers

• Performance Management
• Giving Feedback
  • Corrective
  • Supportive

Performance Support

Performance support tools were designed for both managers and PMO staff.

Results

1. Escalations decreased.
2. Project managers’ performance improved.
3. Financial tracking and reporting improved.
4. Project margins increased.
5. Job satisfaction improved.

Conclusion (and Lessons Learned)

When behavior needs to change, single point training events do not work – an integrated talent development program is necessary. This means getting managers involved, determining appropriate KPIs to track and providing ongoing performance support and feedback.

Talent development happens on the job, when facing real challenges.