An enterprise-level project is defined as any large undertaking with strict deadlines and budget constraints that must meet leadership expectations based on company strategy and goals.
Focusing on outcomes rather than specific project artifacts like Gantt charts and kanban boards is key. Make sure projects are distinct, valuable and aligned with high-level goals.
Planning
Enterprise-level projects can be enormous in scope, necessitating an intricate management solution to ensure they’re completed on time and under budget. Furthermore, its outcome must align with top-level business goals and strategies; successful enterprise project management requires clear communication among departments and teams and regular monitoring of key performance indicators and progress toward objectives.
At the core of every enterprise-level project lies its planning. This involves setting its goal, identifying resources, creating a timeline and assigning roles and responsibilities. A solid project plan will help avoid pitfalls while increasing project success.
During the planning stage, you must also identify potential risks and devise a risk management plan to address them. Examples of risks to consider may include resource constraints, scheduling conflicts and budget issues; by recognizing them early enough you can develop contingencies or fallback plans should unforeseen difficulties arise that threaten to halt progress on a project.
Project planning also involves estimating how much work will be needed for each task and resource, an essential aspect of enterprise-level project management, as it allows your company to save money by providing an accurate estimation of what it will take to complete a given project. Although estimating can be tricky, using appropriate tools and methodologies makes the process simpler.
Finalize a stakeholder management plan to communicate and involve stakeholders throughout your project, ensuring their needs are met as well as reducing risks like misunderstandings or delays. Furthermore, establish a communication plan which outlines when team members will exchange messages between meetings.
Failure of collaboration is one of the main contributors to project failure, leading to miscommunication and breakdown in workflows. For an enterprise-level project to succeed, team members must work collaboratively on finding innovative solutions when roadblocks occur and communicating efficiently in order to meet deadlines and produce quality results.
Execution
Enterprise-level projects are complex in nature and must be executed simultaneously, requiring coordination of resources, timelines and budgets among multiple departments and project teams. The enterprise project management (EPM) process aims to deliver these projects within the framework of corporate mission, strategy and value; EPM differs from traditional project management as it takes more of a strategic approach while bearing higher risks.
Success of any project requires an in-depth knowledge of its objectives and scope. An effective enterprise project manager (EPM manager) must be familiar with each project’s goals as they relate to organizational mission; furthermore they should recognize when projects clash or overlap efforts while being quick at identifying any unfunded initiatives that arise.
As part of their role, enterprise project managers must also devise a common system for tracking tasks and resources to avoid duplication and waste. Furthermore, this EPM process should include key performance indicators (KPIs) across projects for providing an overview of progress based on both company-wide goals as well as specific project objectives.
Promoting team collaboration is another critical component of an effective enterprise project, whether through project collaboration software or simply making communication simpler for teams, essential to effective EPM processes. Teams that work well together are better able to meet deadlines and produce quality work; this increases internal productivity as well as employee morale.
An enterprise project must have proper oversight and governance. An enterprise project management office should be created to oversee the EPM process and ensure projects adhere to company mission, strategy and values. Furthermore, such an office may assist in the identification of objectives, data submission for project proposals as well as provide recommendations on how best to allocate project resources.
An enterprise project management strategy should ideally involve centralizing communications and shortening issue resolution time. C-suite and senior leadership participation is crucial in aligning projects with company vision and goals; additionally, an EPM office must offer governance services as well as project portfolio best practices, tools, mentoring support to project teams.
Monitoring
Monitoring is a continuous assessment process designed to evaluate the quality, results, and impacts of projects. It involves documenting processes, identifying lessons learned, and providing early detailed information to stakeholders. Monitoring also enhances accountability by making project implementation transparent while progress towards meeting goals and objectives is reported and reviewed regularly – monitoring is often carried out at multiple scales from local areas up through regions and countries.
Monitoring begins with tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure project timelines and costs remain on schedule. This requires identifying deadlines, tracking any missed or overdue milestones, and regularly meeting with team members in order to stay informed.
Critical Path Method monitoring provides another form of monitoring, which identifies the longest sequence of tasks required before a project can conclude. It’s an invaluable way of seeing where projects stand in terms of completion and how much time remains before their deadlines arrive.
Maintaining the optimal balance between detail and perspective can be tricky, but smart monitoring helps make project processes more manageable. To set expectations at kickoff stage and clarify which information is required at each step of a project, as well as establish a process for collecting and sharing project monitoring data is also key to creating more manageable project processes.
For maximum efficiency, the easiest and simplest method of management is to employ an electronic management tool which facilitates collaborative work and flexible reporting. Furthermore, creating a communication plan including all key stakeholders, team members and managers can prevent miscommunication that delays or derail projects.
M&E systems should take into account the needs of various primary intended users, which could include implementing organizations and government department staff, project participants, donors, community-based groups and communities. This is especially crucial when monitoring at country or regional levels where data synthesis may be necessary to capture a complete picture; see BetterEvaluation blog on showing outcomes and impacts at different scales for examples on how this can be accomplished.
Evaluation
Evaluation is the process of gathering information on how well a program is operating, beginning with answering its core question “Does It Work?,” then moving onto more detailed inquiries like: “For Whom and Under What Conditions Does it Function Best?” Evaluators provide essential data for decision-making as well as defensible answers for key stakeholder queries.
Evaluation is an integral component of effective and efficient governance. It helps create an evidence base to inform performance improvement efforts, and assist Commonwealth entities with fulfilling their obligations under the Public Governance, Performance, and Accountability Act 2013 as well as other legislation or whole-of-government policy frameworks.
At the core of an effective evaluation process lies ensuring its design from its inception, engaging intended users in defining its purpose and intended uses, then developing a plan around this focus. Based on those intended uses, questions, methodologies, and overall process will all be informed accordingly.
This approach ensures that evaluation will provide value, while avoiding time and resource waste. Furthermore, this prevents situations in which evaluation has taken place but failed to meet requirements.
Idealy, intended users should be involved in selecting the focus for evaluation so they can better comprehend and accept tradeoffs such as doing more modest assessment to fit their budget versus restricting scope of evaluation. Furthermore, it’s vitally important that they can clearly comprehend any limitations to the evaluation so if they are unhappy with its results they may lodge their objections immediately.
Evaluation requires being comprehensive and impartial, considering both strengths and problems of all sorts. Furthermore, qualitative information must be assessed thoroughly, with conclusions reached being appropriately justified. Finally, reporting procedures must protect against distortion caused by subjective opinions or biases of those participating in an evaluation process.