planning for success.
We help your organization pinpoint where it needs and wants to go and the best way to get there. We start with a rigorous planning process - the most important aspect of the project life cycle.
Commonvision's broad international experience has driven our clarity and insight in redefining the planning approach. It's led us to simplify the planning process, increasing understanding and expectation awareness to create a plan that is truly tested and failure-proofed prior to launch.
In many cases, our clients come to us after the failed delivery of a change project. They're frustrated, confused, angered at the delays, the failures, the growing costs. They look to Commonvision to regain their footing and get an objective view of what needs to be done next to ensure success. Based on our thorough analysis, we help project teams create mini-projects within the program, driving rapid results that build support and momentum and focus on clear end goals.
We have used prospective hindsight thinking to devise a method called a Reconnoissance Planning, which helps project teams identify risks at the outset, devise success strategies, and drive forward. Once the plan is articulated and strengthened, we reevaluate it and any high-risk work-packages to run project simulations that give us insights into the mitigation plan, its effectiveness, and any needed refinements.
Most of our client's call us will come after a failed project looking for insights on what to do next. We are least worried about the methodology, but more concerned about the blueprint to achieving the ultimate goal and what is in place to manage this blueprint for an extended period of time.
understand the end goal:
Unless the end product is well understood all the right activities (tasks) that are knitted together will not create the desired product. A project manager's prime focus is always managing plans, timelines, and budgets. But what they really need to learn and understand is how to manage integration risk. We help project managers create mini-projects within the program and deliver rapid results with a clear end goal.
An example of this would be a two year implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) system we undertook. A traditional approach, would have one team research and install software packages, another analyze the different ways that the company interacts with customers (e-mail, telephone, and in person, for example), another develop training programs, and so forth. Many months later, however, when you start to roll out the program, you might discover that the salespeople aren't sold on the benefits. So even though they may know how to enter the requisite data into the system, they refuse. This very problem has, in fact, derailed many CRM programs at major organizations.
Rapid result projects have smaller goals to realize benefits early with the total project life-cycle iteration. Process and buy-in challenges can be addressed and the project approach can be changed for future parts of the plan to be more effective.
reconnoissance planning:
Prospective hindsight - imagining that an event has already occurred - increases an organization's ability to correctly identify the basis for future outcomes by 30%. Commonvision uses prospective hindsight to in its reconnaissance planning, a method that helps project teams identify risks at the outset and take steps to mitigate them.
Though reconnaissance planning, participants review the current project plan and then simulate its failure. We then ask them to write down the reasons for the failure. The team then reviews the list and looks for opportunities to strengthen the plan. This is not a pre plan risk analysis session it goes beyond that scope. In addition, once the plan is strengthened we reevaluate the plan an its high risk work-packages and run project team simulations to understand if the mitigation plan is effective or needs to be fine tuned.
