A trained and effective Project Manager will make/save you $$$$$$

Obviously we are passionate about the field and career of Project Management but did you know why?

We have personally seen and felt the impact of project management skills for active duty military leaders across all MOS/AFSC, we have seen the impact the application of project management has had in industry, and we have personally experienced the pain of bad project management in practice.

So back to the title: Having trained and effective project managers on your team will make or save you Money.

When you break down business it can be rather simple. Satisfy customer requirements and deliver high quality products (Voice of the customer and Cost of quality). If you are in the services business, then knowing how to engage with and satisfy customer and stakeholder requirements is also critical and it isn't just the sales team. Your Project Managers or leads need to know how to manage and engage with stakeholders.

Additionally, your PM's need to know how to manage the schedule and resources so they can maximize the delivery of products, but also optimize costs and profitability. The experience that your customers have with a quality project manager who fully understands the scope of work, understands exactly what the customer wants, and can effectively deliver high quality on time under budget will result in brand recognition, individuals bragging and sharing about your organization, and also higher profit.

The integration of Lean Six Sigma and quality design from the beginning, while employing an Agile empowered culture, and delivering high quality products tailored to our customers needs has greatly contributed to PM-ProLearn's success.

But lets take another bad PM experience story.

One of our team members, hired a company to do a kitchen remodel that had a custom coffee bar sold in the design. He was told that the PM would check in every two weeks with schedule updates and status of the project overall. The Foreman would lead the work and ensure that the design was being followed. The rest of the crew were there to do the work as laid out by the Foreman. Made sense and was a good plan sold by the salesman.

Initial meeting with the PM, he was clueless as to what was sold and didn't understand the schedule and had no work break down structure. When asked about the custom coffee bar section the PM informed the customer that what he was sold couldn't be achieved and it wasn't going to look the way it was designed. (cabinets had already been ordered). This resulted in a change and complete redesign which now cost the company $$ by reorder and labor hours.

In execution the Forman didn't fully understand the design and the PM never showed up. This resulted in lighting and cabinet locations being incorrect and led to rework and damaged cabinets that had to be re-ordered again ($$$$). Many days the Foreman didn't show either so the crew was doing what they thought was correct which had to be redone too ($$$).

Initial measurements led to wrong cabinet purchases and reorder due to covid was a 3-4 week delay. More lost ($$$$)

In the end our Team member stepped in and oversaw most of the work, saved unnecessary rework by catching installation errors but unfortunately had to critically manage a project that he hired a company to do. The project took 1 year to complete instead of 3 months.

This company lost a customer, hurt their brand, and lost thousands in unnecessary rework not to mention no future sales or recommendations from a satisfied customer.

Had the Sales to PM hand off been better, and the PM been proactive with planning and executing the work, the job would have been much higher quality, done faster and with less re-work which would have saved thousands in material and labor costs, and left a happy customer in a neighborhood where he could have shared about their business with everyone who came by the house. Opportunity costs killed.

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Quality starts with training and culture and we are here to help establish both.

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