Total Project Management Solutions for Project-Thinking Organizations

Total project management solutions (TPM solutions) will help a project-thinking organization to stabilize the business processes and begin leading employees towards achieving refined efficiency and accountability. Implementing TPM solutions requires a flexible infrastructure that lets respond to the dynamics of a project environment and rapid technological advances. In this article, I will briefly talk about what TPM concept means and will also outline a 5-step model for implementing total PM solutions. I guess my considerations will be helpful for management staff and executives in project-thinking organizations.

TPM Concept

The key idea behind total project management (TPM) consists in providing a project-thinking organization with an enterprise-wide approach to establishing an efficient project management system. Such a system paves the way for developing total project management solutions (TPM solutions) through creating a project-based culture in which every project is performed in line with the organization’s corporate strategy, and therefore every project participant and team member can get necessary support from managers at all levels. The system will be the foundation for implementing TPM effort and starting the project management process.

TPM solutions make it possible to build close collaboration and communication between project-thinking employees, technology and processes which are the key drivers in the total project integration environment. The implementation of total project management solutions depends on a selected management style that integrates accountability into the total project processes and serves as a convenient way for continuous improvement of both corporate and individual performance.

A 5-Step Model

A macro-level model of total project management includes 5 steps (see the picture below). Taking each of the steps builds an infrastructure for implementing TPM solutions. Here are these steps:

• Communication
• Assessment
• Recommendation
• Implementation
• Validation

Because a model of total project management encompasses all of the listed steps, a project-thinking organization needs to incorporate collaborative methods, tools, and appropriate technologies to create a synchronized and highly productive infrastructure that tends to be stable and flexible in a rapidly changing project environment.

Once the steps of TPM model are taken along with the standards of best practices (incl. communication protocols, employee competency assessments, project portfolio analysis, project methodology planning, process scheduling and mapping, application-based working environments, team training and development), the infrastructure for achieving efficient total project management solutions will be established.