Project Management - Case Example
Client
The client is a worldwide service organisation, mostly to the corporate world, with strong presence in the US and in Europe. Historically, their services were sold by individual service providers through local offices supporting requests from individual users working within their clients. Over time this service, that was provided over the phone, was channeled through computer systems that provide each user the possibility to make requests from his laptop or handheld device.
These systems recognise the individual through their log-in and know what level of service they can provide to that specific person, which is different depending on the grade and weight of that person in their organisation. Users can access of the service 24/7 without interruption and from wherever they are in the world.
Situation
Providing a personal service by a service officer from a shop nearby or sometimes housed within the client’s facilities is a well-known process that does not require a great amount of planning. Once the service was made available online, a project was initiated to define who could make use of it,
how to determine user profiles for lots of people with clear consequences that could not be put right by the serving officer, how to ensure all had the appropriate log-in details, and to help those not able to use the service.
As our client worked with other service providers with which the final client might have contracts, these would need to be integrated, as well as discount schemes that should be allocated appropriately to specific divisions, or cost centres on the client’s request. As the services could be canceled or changed, appropriate procedures would have to be put in place that would make the consequences transparent to all and keep it easy to manage.
ATC’s value
At first, those that managed service officers in shops would manage such projects for clients in their back yard. Quickly the client discovered that running an office with 10 to 40 service officers is rather different from running a project.
Before, the client asked us to run a training for their staff, we highlighted the need to design a project management system tuned to their needs. Subsequently, we set up a training programme in which the project management approach and the organisational consequences for the project leader were developed in the context of their business. During the sessions we dealt frequently with practical issues and questions of those involved in these projects. The client reported back to us that the number of critical issues reported by their clients during the rollout of the projects and the startup of the service had diminished significantly subsequent to our programmes.