Clients choose AMS Professionals because of our unique ability to provide project management consulting solutions they need to match the task at hand. That flexibility means we are a “one-stop shop”, with a complete range of customized services delivered by project management experts.
Our services include project management consulting, project office development, and custom project management solutions. As part of our strategy, we offer a complete suite or services to make client's projects a success by employing project consultants who hold credentials from PMI®
Industries We Service:
Strategic projects by nature are not the typical run-of-the-mill endeavors that you have undertaken numerous times in the past. They are larger in scale, have more strategic importance, maintain a higher degree of visibility, and are more difficult to execute. These projects are so unique and important that your organization simply cannot afford for them to fail. Additionally, it is quite likely that a company’s internal project management resources will be ill-equipped to address the unique challenges of strategic projects. Because of this, executives often look outside the organization for the project management support and technologies required to successfully plan, monitor, and control their strategic projects.
You may need project management consulting help if one or more of the following are true:
AMS Professionals are recognized for our support of strategic projects. We maintain a staff of highly trained, PMI®-certified consultants who utilize PMI® methodologies to tackle the most complex and important projects. Our comprehensive process puts rigorous controls in place for each project that we plan and allows us to establish an early warning system that constantly gauges the health of each project. Finally, we implement robust reporting and communication systems to ensure that all parties are aware of pertinent project changes and any resulting impact on the schedule.
Next time you are feeling the pressure to successfully deliver your most important projects, remember you have a partner in AMS Professionals. Contact us today to learn how AMS Professionals can help you succeed.
An internal Project Management Office (Project Team) gives organizations the ability to achieve consistently successful results across their entire portfolio of projects-creating a foundation that can turn project management into a competitive advantage. Whether your organization is just beginning to explore the benefits of a formal Project Team, or your existing Project Team is not achieving the results management has intended, AMS Professionals can help take your Project Team to the next level.
A Project Office fulfills two essential roles
Implementing a formalized project management process in an organization that has not used a structured approach to project planning and control can present significant challenges. Our phased approach to implementation helps companies overcome resistance to change, allows lessons learned in early phases to be incorporated in the systems installed in later phases, and ensures that a solid foundation of project-level data is available prior to rolling-up enterprise-level information.
Successful portfolio management calls for exceptional data management skills and diligent oversight across multiple efforts. Project portfolios bring with them an array of variables, along with the risk of surprises and expensive mistakes. Inconsistencies and other problems at the project level are amplified as they ripple across the rest of the company’s initiatives. Devastating schedule delays, resource conflicts, and unexpected expenditures could result. Without sufficient insight into the health of each project, senior-level stakeholders may discover too late that their portfolio isn’t performing well, or that an initiative won’t deliver the expected ROI.
Data management is a critical function, but busy project teams don’t have the time or skills to stay on top of it. Though information is harvested and reviewed at the project level, rarely is data rolled up in a way that makes it possible to identify opportunities and inefficiencies on a broader basis. This leads to resource conflicts, waste, and last-minute surprises and emergencies that could have been avoided.
Executives often don’t have good visibility into where projects are having problems, even when the difficulties are serious enough to impact other efforts within the portfolio. Communication strategies aren’t always robust enough to ensure the leadership team is aware of emerging challenges, and status reports may not highlight those problems that require executives’ attention. Unless senior management makes a concerted effort to stay on top of issues, they likely don’t have enough knowledge about the health of their portfolio to make the best strategic, operational, and financial decisions.
Few companies have a process for reviewing their entire project portfolio. This leaves the executives in the dark when it comes to evaluating how well the team is delivering its projects. Businesses don’t always have the project management proficiency and related tools to create and maintain accurate project plans. As inconsistent planning and control methodologies are used across the portfolio, any deficiencies in skills or expertise are magnified. The result? Big gaps in the organization’s approach to risk management, missed opportunities to allocate resources effectively, poor communication between project teams, and higher expenses to maintain standalone project silos in different functional areas within the company.
SOLUTION
With deep experience applying its time-tested methodology across diverse portfolio structures, AMS Professionals are a project management consulting firm that partners with organizations to help them successfully evaluate, oversee, and improve their project portfolios. With our unique combination of proven methodology, certified facilitators, and special portfolio tools, we provide our clients with quick visibility into the status of each project in their portfolio.
Our background in portfolio management enables us to work alongside senior leadership teams to ensure decision makers understand where risks, benefits, and opportunities exist throughout the array of projects that are underway or on deck. Together, we can make your project management efforts as efficient as possible, with an emphasis on maximizing your ROI and achieving repeatable project success.
Using our portfolio management methodology, your team will have the foundation necessary to leverage a common approach to project management. This drives accountability, provides for tightly disciplined progress and timeline monitoring, and cements healthy communication flows between project teams, portfolio managers, and the executive staff.
Organizations are under tremendous pressure to bring new and innovative products to market quickly. This leads to compressed time schedules for nearly every project activity, from finalizing the product’s specifications to establishing production requirements and developing marketing campaigns. Coordinating the efforts of so many disciplines—and in a very short amount of time—is a huge challenge for organizations.
The sheer gravity of each new product development project must also be considered. Depending on the size, maturity, and wealth of the organization, heavy resource allocations could strain budgets, leading to staffing or funding shortages in other internal groups as people and money are funneled into the project. This creates an environment of intense pressure where project teams may be saddled with make-or-break directives. It’s difficult to make sound strategic decisions and successfully execute complex projects under these conditions.
Every new product development effort is inherently risky. Significant investments of time, money, labor hours, and other valuable resources are usually dedicated to product development projects. With activities in full swing—even if things appear to be on track—the organization could still find itself vulnerable, with few reserves available as huge chunks of resources are dedicated to the project.
Given the volatile swings and constantly-changing needs and expectations of customers, the product’s success within the market can never be guaranteed. If early planning and research activities aren’t well executed, the project’s outcome could generate less enthusiasm in the market than expected and result in lower revenue returns. The risks of failure of any new product development project could potentially bring with it steep financial losses or a devastating decline in market position.
SOLUTION
AMS Professionals have an extensive background in helping organizations navigate the tricky waters of the new product development arena. Our project control methodology has been proven effective in addressing and mitigating many of the risks that arise when teams pursue new product opportunities. Keeping activities on track is key to taking full advantage of favorable market conditions and ensuring your project reaches its goals.
Headlinen addition, the facilitation skills our PMP®-certified experts employ are closely tailored to assist in identifying critical market pressures and potential problem areas early in the new product planning process. This allows the team sufficient time to create a workable strategy to reach success. Problem-solving skills are also an important asset during any new product development project, something our consultants can bring to bear when design, testing, production, marketing, or other issues crop up mid-project.
Project teams are grappling with a changing technology landscape. Alongside more conventional activities, a growing need for execution and implementation projects is straining the resources and expertise of many organizations. These comprehensive system deployments require in-depth knowledge and the ability to plan and monitor a complex series of interdependent tasks. Defining the scope of a large-scale system implementation can be an early challenge for many organizations, who often don’t have a centralized base of knowledge ready to identify the scattered infrastructure components and data sources that will be integrated under the larger platform umbrella.
Maintaining a low total cost of implementation can be a struggle when executing a technology project. Every connected workflow must be evaluated against the post-project environment to identify where updates are necessary. Unless the organization is able to fully account for these potential modifications during the planning phase, the implementation cost is likely to increase over time. Couple these cost challenges with the internal political pressures that often appear when individual groups are asked to cede control to a centralized system, and it’s no wonder organizations have difficulty executing their technology projects.
SOLUTION
Our team of consultants has extensive expertise in IT projects large and small. We have the skills necessary to develop workable timeframes for different types of projects, from new system deployments to software development. By applying our project control methodology, AMS Professionals are able to ensure that every kind of complex IT project remains on track and that new issues are quickly identified and addressed.
Through a multitude of implementations, we’ve also gained the experience necessary to bring all of a project’s stakeholders together and get everyone working toward a common goal. Communication strategies are key in these large system deployments and our team has the advanced facilitation skills to succeed in these challenging projects.
AMS Professionals know from experience that implementing structured project planning and control techniques can be difficult. They’re a departure from the norm for many organizations, and resistance to change should be expected—and even planned on. Shifting the practices within your project team or project office will take a measured approach and the support of experienced project management consultants. The need for advanced project management expertise becomes even more critical when managing strategic projects, which are complex, high visibility, and often carry significant financial impact for your organization.
Companies have varying levels of project management knowledge, which is why a “one-size-fits-all” approach won’t work. It doesn’t recognize differences in project types, management and staff capabilities, and organizational culture.
SOLUTION
Our project management consultants not only are excellent facilitators; they’re also well trained and experienced in recognizing these differences and providing customized project management solutions to overcome them.
Copyright © 2018 AMS Professional Services, INC - All Rights Reserved.