Has your company established Best Practice?
Here are the major stages of determining Best Practice and Implementation:
Determine and share a Corporate Mission Statement
Every employee should know what the mission statement means and how their position helps to accomplish the mission.
Establish and Communicate Corporate Level Goals
High level “SMART” goals, are aims that are Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic and Time bound. These can include goals such as increase in revenue, improvement in employee retention, reduction of outstanding receivables, improvement of business processes and the addition of new products or services.
Aim to achieve a ‘balanced scorecard’. This approach ‘balances’ the financial measures with three other areas: employee learning and growth, business process improvement and customer focus. These three areas will ensure that the future of the company is sound, rather than concentrating on financial-related information based on the past, it ensures that the improved efficiency and satisfaction of your employees, combined with customer satisfaction, will contribute to a prosperous financial outcome for the company.
Corporate goals should be shared and exchanged between departments so that conflicts and cross-functional efforts are identified.
Prioritize
These corporate goals should then be prioritized by senior management based on Return on Investment, Payback Period, Net Present Value, Internal Rate of eturn, and Economic Value Added. In addition to senior management, Senior IT department members houls be included in setting the priorities for projects and identifying possible technical synergies.
After these projects have been prioritized by cost estimates and return expected, a project management office is ideal to help you manage and achieve these goals.
Use a Project Management Office
The Project Management Office (PMO) will be responsible for starting, planning, controlling and completing all projects across the company. In addition to necessary procedures and software relevant to manage these tasks, the PMO should list project estimates, man-hours, skill sets and departments that need to be involved with each project. A dedicated project manager is an excellent resource to manage the larger, long-term strategic projects.
Review Lessons Learned
After projects are closed, either successfully or not, a talk-back session must be scheduled within the company to allow all employees involved to share their experience and to discuss the pro’s and con’s of the process. These meetings are very valuable in establishing best practices.
Establish Best Practice
Once data is collected regarding the management and production process within the company, the PMO or the in-house project manager, will analyze and summarize these findings, creating a methodology by which to perform tasks in the future. By establishing a management methodology, past successes can be repeated and the pitfalls of efficiencies may be avoided for upcoming projects.
Can you deliver what you promise? On time and with consistent quality?
A solid corporate mission, SMART goals with a balanced scorecard approach, and establishment of management best practices and processes will ensure that you can.
