PMO – Squeezing your ROI or just getting things done
Through my training and mentoring work, I get a lot of feed back from the business community to the effect that there seems to be a certain amount of deference towards getting things done within a reasonable and expected timeframe. I find this hard to understand since in business time is money. Of course, we are all interested in working efficiently but if you want to squeeze your ROI there are some things which will need attention and if done right can lead to a long term and even positive culture change in your business. So how might you start on this path?
Here are three quick pointers to get you off the mark.
Overview it
Stand back and take a high-level view of your point of investment to your point of return. Now consider the trail or schedule which gets you from investment to return. You will probably notice there are certain bottlenecks along the trail and they have always been there. This is your starting point.
Question it
Now ask why it takes this long to get from start to finish. If you get kick backs in the form ‘well it’s always taken this long’, or ‘well that’s the way things work around here’. Then ask why again until you get a definitive answer. It could be supplier or procurement issues, legal and compliance or internal procedures but no matter where its coming from question these replies until you get to the root cause.
Quick Win it
Next, to get off the mark and garner some buy-in tackle the low hanging fruit. These may be upskilling key staff in the chain, reviewing meeting conduct, introducing basic support software, ditching spreadsheet reporting for visuals and considering rewards for meeting deadlines.
Introducing or increasing your level of project management capability in your business is central to all of this and has been proven to reduce the time taken to deliver on your projects, after all projects are your business and business is all about ROI.
Enquire within about setting up a project management office