Project Thinking for Operations Managers

Project management is a living nightmare for many CEOs and operations managers! A bottomless hole for budgets to drain into, it means an endless chain of uncertain and missed deadlines, never-ending meetings, and constant refocusing between different activities.

We gladly present an amazing business case that brought together nations and transcended language barriers: the "Project Thinking for Operations Managers" online course.

Mission. Train non-project managers to perform project activities by giving them the necessary minimum of project management tools.

Solution. Run the "Project Thinking for Operations Managers" online marathon.

The marathon gathered HR-specialists from the Kimberly-Clark Moscow affiliate and the Czech production facilities. One can say that the course brought together Russian and Czech HR specialists of the company.

It was decided to hold the event in an online marathon format.

We also invited a project management expert with years of experience, Georgy Kovalev from our friendly PM Kitchen company, to be the project's business coach.

The intensive nature of the course, however, was not its only feature. The marathon attracted people from different countries: Moscow HR specialists and those from the Czech Republic who work directly at one of Kimberly-Clark's factories. The training sessions were delivered in English, meaning the participants also had to overcome the language barrier. This way, we provided both parties with a unified information field.

The delivery style was quite peculiar, yet with the topics and the content that mattered most. Each subject under discussion aroused genuine interest, as it was something relevant for all of us today.

Some of the topics covered by the marathon program are as follows:

• Business As Usual and Projects.
• Characteristic Features of a Project.
• Typical project lifecycle, project charter.
• Definition of project success.
• 4 project types depending on the level of uncertainty.
• Paint-by-Number projects - waterfall model, product planning.
• Wander-in-the-Fog projects - gate system, maintaining a lessons-learned database, knowledge management.
• Quest Projects - flexible project management methods, sprint planning, retrospective.
• Film-Film-Film projects - rapid prototyping, A/B testing, engagement monitoring.
• Project stakeholder management.
• Project risk management.
• Avoiding and overcoming resistance.
• How to launch a project.

All topics, even complex ones, can be effectively communicated in a non-standard format. Having risked a try, our customers saw their hypothesis confirmed.

Group dynamics and interpersonal communication play a vital role in a marathon. Seeing someone else's responses in the chat, not just those of a business coach or project administrator, gives participants a boost of energy and inspiration to get to the finish line.

Is the word "project" still something to be feared in your company? Leave the training to ManGO! Games and take your project management to the next level!