Implementation project advice

Hi Abdullah,

The same advice for this applies for all projects! Fundamentall, no 2 projects are the same, and you're really going to have to learn on yourself and others in order to succeed. There's not much we can do here!

This is really going to come down to your grit, determination, ability to ask questions / ask for help from your peers on the role, take guidance, etc.

That being said, here's some general advice.

First: Read the 25 tips in my consulting handbook here: https://www.spencertom.com/2018/01/14/consulting-survival-guide/

1) Understand the context/prompt (what role are you in, what company, who's watching, etc.)

2) Understand the objective (what, specifically, is expected from you...both day to day, and in your overall career progression)

3) Quickly process information, and focus on what's important - Take a lot of information and the unknown, find the most logical path, and focus on that.

4) Be comfortable with the unknown, and learn to brainstorm - think/speak like an expert without being one

In summary, there will always be a flood of information, expectations, competition etc. and not enough time. Find out which ones matter when. (i.e. be visibile and focus efforts on the things that people care about)

Some Excellent Q&As

What to expect in the first 90 days (and how to thrive) - https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/first-90-days-as-associate-business-analyst-consultant-7185

What to prepare/learn beforehand - https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-to-best-preppare-for-a-consulting-position-if-you-have-a-couple-of-months-of-free-time-7164

How to improve your ability to remember details - https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-to-improve-ability-to-remember-details-is-it-important-in-consulting-6998

How to be confident - https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-to-build-up-confidence-and-look-smart-and-sharp-in-a-consultant-role-6955

Notetaking effectively - https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/note-taking-7215

Hi Abdullah,

My experience has primarily been in business transformation/ performance improvement implementation programs. My best experience has so far been with British Petroleum where-in Accenture Strategy was implementing a major performance improvement multi year program across all upstream businesses globally. I was deployed in Azerbaijan, Egypt and UK. So can share my experiences. 

Implementation projects are fun because you get to see the real impact on the ground. Given that these programs are long term in nature, you get to make good relationships/friendship at the client place. Moreover it gives lot of legroom for a consulant to get used to the new environment, project challenges etc compared to a strategy study which lasts for 8-12 weeks. 

If you are being staffed in PMO, then you would have to do a lot of checking with n number of stakeholders, chasing people to get their work done on time and as per quality, preparing a lot of PMO templates, updating a lot of PMO templates w.r.t timelines, benefits tracking, risk register, Issue log, managing inter dependencies. 

So in order to do a good job please do the following

1. Go through the scope document to understand in detail about the project. 

2. Discuss with your PL/PM what is expected of you, imperative that you get a complete clarity

3. Identify the stakeholders from client side your paths will cross. Get yoru introduced to these guys. It will help you a lot later when you see friendly faces around. 

4. Avoid making too many templates for PMO. In quest to do better what happens is there are lot of PMO templates flowing around that needs to be updated on a regular basis. Becomes a nightmare. I always tried to keep it simple by having one master file and capturing and updating the document. 

The last part often determines how good and efficiently you manage a PMO role. I find it very interesting and challenging personally as my path cuts across businesses,functions, hierarchies within the client boundaries. 

Thanks