Developing a Project Management Culture
Moving the organisation to embrace a "project management culture" takes time and patience. The initial step an organisation can take is to make certain that their project leaders are trained and comfortable in the discipline of Project Management. Also, and most importantly, top management must understand and embrace the value of project management, and commit to support the process of implementing project management throughout all levels of the organisation.
To assist in modifying the organisational culture to accept project management, it should fund and bear the development of a project office, which can nurture "project management culture". Few initial steps that should be taken are listed below:
- Clearly describe the roles and responsibilities of active project managers and project support personnel
- Build up a fundamental project management training plan for the complete organisation to familiarise all with the project management principles and practices
- Specialised training for all project leaders and functional managers Build up a project management office (PMO) to provide enterprise coaching, and to develop and manage your organisation's project management methodology
- Adding to the methodology, the PMO should develop and sustain standard project management templates for the organisation to use.
- Make sure that existing projects are audited and meet the organisation's least project management standards.
- Setup a program where the PMO provides training to less experienced project managers and oversight of all enterprise projects
- Document the lessons learnt from previous projects.