Project Management

Executive summary

Project Management

Project management is a process focused on the creation and successful delivery of a unique product, service, or result. Portfolio, Program and Project management are aligned with the strategic objectives of an organization. Every professional discipline utilizes project management to some measurable degree to accomplish an end goal, objective or deliverable. The concept of Project management is not a new discipline to business; the ancient Egyptians implemented vast projects to build the great pyramids, the Chinese built the Great Wall of China, and the American industrial age was rooted in the successful completion of millions of magnificent projects that became known as the modern marvels of the world.

Organizations charter projects due to a market demand, business need/strategic opportunity, social need, customer request, environmental consideration, technology advancement or legal requirement. All types of organizations are involved in the business of project, program, and portfolio management to effectively utilize organizational resources to drive business results. In the non-profit world, many nongovernmental organizations will authorized projects to help to develop more sanitize conditions, water and power systems, healthcare systems, and agriculture production in developing countries. For example, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) the Red Cross, and Doctors without Borders uses project management for these types of purposes.

In the United States each year, business utilize project management to bring new products, and services to market that have been pre-planned as part of the organizations strategic objectives. Businesses follow a careful studied road-map, and introduces products and services, at the right time after considerable investigation and market research to ensure acceptance and to improve everyday life. Pharmaceutical and medical research companies and government agencies like the National Institute of Health are constantly developing new drugs for the prevention and cure of diseases like cancer, Ebola and HIV. Technology and manufacturing companies like Intel, Apple, Samsung, IBM, Dell, Cisco and their contemporaries are using project and product management to accelerate data processing and increase the delivery communication technology at nano second speeds. Automobile companies like Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, and General Motors utilizes product management to build safer, faster, reliable and more environmental efficient vehicles. Ship, submarine, aerospace, and construction companies use project management to expand industrial commerce and trade in the United States and world. Project Management is a science and an art, from the food that we eat, to the clothes that we wear, to all of the goods and services that we consume on a daily basis are all outputs of project management processes because someone had to devise a brilliant and unique idea and bring to fruition utilizing time proven tools and techniques that are in the state of continuous improvement.

In the 1940s, the United States Government through the Defense Department implemented one of its greatest projects in human existence to halt the World War II with Japan, known as the Manhattan project that created the nuclear bomb. In the 1960s, the United States Government implemented its second greatest project by chartering the Apollo space project that enable a man to land on the moon. In the early 1950s, IBM Corporation develop the mainframe computer as a project. In the mid-1970s, Apple computer developed the first personal computer that was expanded by IBM Corporation in the 1980s. Microsoft Corporation, Oracle, and WordPerfect use project management processes to develop software for the micro-computer. Whenever we think of our world and businesses, we must always be reminded and appreciative of the fact that projects and project management are the vehicles that drive business results in every discipline. Whether it is the accountant department devising a new payroll system, or the engineering department developing a new product or service, or marketing engagement of niche stakeholders, they all have to follow a process of doing some type of work or endeavor to create a unique product, service or business result. Most mature organizations have internal resources in-house known as the Project Management Office (PMO) to provide knowledge, guidance, skills, tools and techniques to different business division of how projects should be manage within that organization and to provide enterprise environmental and organizational process asset support to the people who will conduct the process of project management known as project managers, program managers, or portfolio managers in order to ensure the likelihood of successful outcomes. The PMO can also be a contracted entity whose primary goal is the management of an organization’s project management processes. A project should always have a sponsor that is an internal or external entity that funds a project and is a key stakeholder.

The process of project management is focused around five key concepts or process groups called initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing, and is an iterative process where each process groups interacts with each other during a phase of key milestone determination within a project life-cycle and where decisions are made in consideration of whether it makes business of technical sense to Go/No Go to a next phase of the project. With all of is attributes, projects are usually successfully completed about 30% of the time where it meets or exceeds customer satisfaction and value and is implemented within scope, budget, or schedule. The process of project management involves people who are complex beings. So, essentially human beings use project management as a tool to help to achieve business results with the highest probability or likelihood of success.

 

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Service Methodology

Utilizing proven Agile and Waterfall methodologies to meet business objectives and drive projects from initiation through completion, and the implementation of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model for decision-making, and the alignment of IT and business objectives through the implementation of service strategy, service design, service transition, service operations and continuous service improvements to drive business results. This is achieved by implementing a process, primarily through operations that enables people internally to become more proactive about the way in which they plan, develop, implement and manage strategy in relation to internal projects that they are implementing over a sustainable period of time.

 

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Service Options

Companies can elect whether they just require Appleton Greene for advice and support with the Bronze Client Service, for research and performance analysis with the Silver Client Service, for facilitating departmental workshops with the Gold Client Service, or for complete process planning, development, implementation, management and review, with the Platinum Client Service. Ultimately, there is a service to suit every situation and every budget and clients can elect to either upgrade or downgrade from one service to another as and when required, providing complete flexibility in order to ensure that the right level of support is available over a sustainable period of time, enabling the organization to compensate for any prescriptive or emergent changes relating to: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Information Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing; or Production.

 

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Service Mission

To meet or exceed customer, client, and stakeholder value by the delivery of quality services through the process of requirements gathering and stakeholder engagement. Project Management – Proficient in leading presentations and proposals for medium complex projects or elements of highly complex projects, and providing subject matter insight to bids/proposals. At Lenovo Corporation, following the need of Enterprise Business Group (EBG) to expand portfolio and market share within Brazil and the Latin American market, conducted visit to ITU, Brazil to administer network infrastructure and systems engineering aspect of the project which led to generation of millions of dollars in revenue for the company. Systems Engineering – Competent in defining priorities for feasibility studies, systems design, and implementation to develop new and/or modify existing organizational information processing systems. At Lenovo Corporation, played a focal role in developing an automated test application which minimized the duration of testing of hard disk drives – as part of a Customer Spare Parts (CSP) project – from four hours to 20 minutes, thus optimizing the process efficacy. Infrastructure Design and Development – Hands-on experience in leading a team involved in strategy and development, including systems and application development, vendor management, and legacy systems integration. At International Business Machines (IBM), created the IBM Business Partner Tool wherein designed and integrated a client-server network infrastructure to deploy an IBM software update tool to IBM business partners and suppliers; it met customers’ requirements, reduced man-hours from 4 to 5 hours to under 30 minutes, and enabled considerable cost savings.

 

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Service objectives

The following list represents the Key Service Objectives (KSO) for the Appleton Greene Project Management service.

1. Project training
   The purposes of this service objective is to provide project management training and to guide a client, customer, or sponsor’s project from beginning to end. The process of project management is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create/deliver a unique product, service, or result. There are five phases of the project management life-cycle -Project Initiation, Project Planning, Project Execution, Project Monitoring and Control, and Project Closing – that must be taken into consideration when implementing any project. During the implementation of project management, the customer or buyer is the key stakeholder, and the objective of this service is to meet or exceed customer value and stakeholder expectation by the effective delivery of a quality product, service or result within schedule, cost, scope, quality, risk, and customer satisfaction.
2. Project management
   The purpose of this service objective is to manage and deliver a set of related projects, and sub-programs in harmony and monitor performance in order to reduce cost, and realize benefits which are essential to achieving organizational objectives. A key benefit of program management is for the customer, client or sponsor to attain benefits and control from their projects not available by managing the projects individually. This service objective will provide guidance for the client’s project management office (PMO), and recommend the utilization of best practices and new project management estimation tools like Earn Duration Management (EDM) and the Unified Schedule Method (USM) to allow those responsible for project activities to determine the appropriate strategy for mitigation in respect to the projects duration, reliability, and costs that are obtained from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) during the development of the project’s Work breakdown Structure (WBS).
3. Portfolio management
   The purpose of this service objective is to manage the operations of project, program, sub-portfolio for a client organization and perform strategic planning. This service objective shall encourage the promotion and optimization of resources in support of key projects and programs, and utilize best practices and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method for collaborative decision-making, as well as Capital Budgeting & Forecasting in the selection of strategically critical and sacred cow projects. This service objective shall also seek to maximize the client organizations return on investment by aligning business objectives and project objectives to achieve the organizations strategic vision and meet or exceed key performance indicators set forth in the long-term goals of the organization.
4. ITIL
   The purpose of this service objective is to provide a strategic approach for a client, customer, sponsor, or organization strategic approach to IT Service Management framework. This service objective will work diligently with the client to understand the five life-cycle stages or core of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) that includes Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement and how to provide understanding, best practices, and best value creation through the delivery of services.
5. Process improvement
   The purpose of this service objective is to provide continuous process improvement of a client organizations vital business functions and service offerings. This service offering shall recommend ways that the client, customer, or organization can increase revenue, reduce waste, reduce cost, and increase operational efficiency. This service offering shall also help the client organization understand how to define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC) processes and systems through a systems development life cycle (SDLC), and find and resolve root causes of problems and measure performance.

 

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Achievements

Lenovo Corporation

Delivered IT strategy consulting and IT architect services in the enterprise-level area. Leading, directing, managing, and coordinating projects. Delivered IT project and program management consulting and IT architect services in the enterprise-level area. Oversaw deployment of Lenovo x86 server portfolio (high and medium) servers, test processes, and solutions at Lenovo manufacturing sites in Brazil, China, Mexico, Taiwan, and business partners in UK, India, and Singapore. Attained seamless migrations and integration which were transparent to clients and ensured zero downtime, which boosting productivity/revenues of millions of dollars. Prepared and executed integrated project plan; handled various functions such as monitoring project status and enabling meetings, scope changes, risk and issue tracking/mitigation, and coordination across project teams.

 

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IBM Corporation

Delivered IT project and program management consulting and IT architect services in the enterprise-level area. Provide project, and program management support. Reviewed and created user requirements, procedures, and solutions to automate processing and enhance existing test platform. Instrumental in enabling free industry-leading software which saved clients thousands of dollars and decreased duration of setup processes from hours to minutes utilizing Agile Project Management methodologies. Utilized problem management tools and techniques to minimize the adverse impact of incidents and problems on the business that are caused by underlying errors within the IT infrastructure, and to proactively prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. Directed technical team in Brisbane, Australia for deployment of software flash tool to IBM business partner.

 

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Experis Manpower Group

Delivered IT strategy consulting and IT architect services in the enterprise-level area. Prepared and executed integrated project plan; handled various functions such as monitoring project status and enabling meetings, scope changes, risk and issue tracking/mitigation, and coordination across project teams. Worked with IT Operations and change management teams to ensure Request for Change (RFC) was properly documented and reviewed by change advisory board (CAB). Controlled the lifecycle of all changes to the Linux Test Process LTP), by enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.

 

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Analyst International Corporation

Delivered IT architect services in the enterprise-level area. Provided technical support and application management in the enterprise. Utilized problem management to manage the infrastructure life cycle of all problems from first identification through further investigation, documentation, and eventual removal.

 

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Iqeszi Engineering Company

Delivered business development strategy to target federal, state, and local government marketplace. Generating new business leads and negotiated business bids through Request for Quotations (RFQ), and Request for Proposals (RFP). Established strategies for teaming relationship with prime and sub-contractors to compete on Federal, State, and Local government contracts.

 

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More detailed achievements, references and testimonials are confidentially available to clients upon request.

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Industries

This service is primarily available to the following industry sectors:

Technology

The technology industry involves the production of semi-conductors that is used in the functionality of all electrical devices and equipment. It is heavily concentrated on the innovation of existing systems and process or finding a more efficient way of doing something. Technology may involve creation of simple and complex systems that are used in information communications technology like more robust hardware and software tools that run computers, appliances, as well as automotive, aerial, and marine devices and equipment. Some of the leading companies in this industry are Apple Computers, IBM, Lenovo, Cisco, SAS, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell Computers, Hewlett-Packard, Juniper Networks, Amazon, Google, and Samsung who serve as the innovators, developers and manufacturers of the products and processes which drive data processing, networks like the Internet, telephony, solar and wind energy, hydro-electricity, and storage, The trend of the technology industry is the acquisition of resources (people, equip