Creating consistent best practice across a global company
Here’s a brief summary of an engagement we undertook to support best practice for Opus International, as described by one of our consultants.
Opus had identified that a disparate range of tools and operational processes were being used to perform the same or similar project management activities in different parts of the company. This resulted in duplication, inefficiency and varying degrees of effectiveness and uptake of the existing tools.
Hunter Group was commissioned to work with Opus to recommend a set of globally appropriate project management tools to support best practice across the company.
The Hunter Group team prepared and facilitated a series of intensive
workshops, largely over two days, with representation drawn from Opus’ worldwide branch network.
Participants developed a list of key project management functions, focusing on areas of high priority (value to the project manager) and high relative effort.Using this list as a basis, the workshop participants then determined the features they required, the gap between the ideal and the current state, and potential initiatives to address these gaps.
To provide confidence that the workshop outcomes were reasonable and complete, a review team further examined the findings of the workshop.
The final report provided Opus with recommendations on the potential activities and work
streams required to build best practice. The report identified a mix of existing tools that should be consistently supported, as well as areas for further investigation of options.
Although the Hunter Group team already had extensive knowledge of project management support tools and processes, the inclusive approach used ensured that Opus staff had full ownership of the recommendations, and the capability to implement and build on them. This also built confidence that the final suite of tools would be understood and accepted once introduced.