APMA  recognizes that your best project leaders may already be on your staff. While these potential leaders may be technically superior, however, they may need that “extra” help to become superior project managers, and deliver the project results that your business needs.
By working closely with your technical staff, APMA ’s  mentoring service offers your in-house staff  access to our experienced project management professionals, allowing faster and more effective development of your staff in project management techniques and skills.
APMA consultants coach your project managers and teams throughout the project lifecycle, from inception to delivery, offering helpful advice and structure from their years of experience. By following Project Management Institute procedures, these Project Management Professionals raise the probability of project success, while leaving you with more experienced and efficient project managers.

APMA offers project performance audit services to ensure your project teams are making satisfactory progress toward the project goals. By reviewing all major project metrics – cost, time, scope, and quality of deliverables – APMA puts its experience and expertise in project and program management to work for you, freeing your top managers to return to their primary roles. APMA project reviews concentrate on:

• Actual project accomplishments and results versus project plans.
• Revisions to the project plan to reflect accomplishments and to plan for remaining work.
• Providing early warning on variance in project progress from the project plan, allowing timely and effective corrective actions.

APMA's deliverables from these reviews include:

• Review reports of the activities and work products under development;
• Updated action items, risks, problems, and issues;
• Updated plans and schedules;
• Comparisons of actual to budgeted costs, and continuous comparison to the cost/benefit analysis from project initiation.

APMA understands that the larger the organization, the more difficult it becomes to realize the full potential of implementing a common project management methodology. Based on your organization's size, culture, project portfolio, and the maturity of your current project methodology and processes, establishing a common Project Management Office (PMO) may provide the best opportunity to maximize the potential benefit.
Again, based on the specific needs of your organization, the PMO can have a wide range of responsibilities and authority, ranging from defining the processes and methodology to controlling the organization's project portfolio as follows:

• Establish and implement a common set of PM processes and methodologies.
• Provide training, coaching and mentoring.
• Ensure processes and methodologies are properly implemented.
• Track and report project status and performance.
• Provide Project Management staff to other functional areas.
• Manage projects and programs.

APMA will assess your current methodology, formulate a desired methodology, analyze the difference, and develop a strategy to transition your organization. We will work closely with your organization's stakeholders and key personnel to determine the maturity of your current methodology, including the review of specific projects within your portfolio. The developed strategy will address processes and deliverables, organizational and cultural impacts and also personnel skill requirements while obtaining the necessary stakeholder buy-in. Finally, APMA will develop a comprehensive set of project plans for the implementation of the PMO. We will work closely with your staff, drawing on our years of experience and knowledge of the Project Management Institute’s ”best practices”, to guarantee successful implementation of the strategy and the adoption by the organization of the necessary changes.

Monitor and control the organization's project portfolio.

APMA will assess your current methodology, formulate a desired methodology, analyze the difference, and develop a strategy to transition your organization. We will work closely with your organization's stakeholders and key personnel to determine the maturity of your current methodology, including the review of specific projects within your portfolio. The developed strategy will address processes and deliverables, organizational and cultural impacts and also personnel skill requirements while obtaining the necessary stakeholder buy-in. Finally, APMA will develop a comprehensive set of project plans for the implementation of the PMO. We will work closely with your staff, drawing on our years of experience and knowledge of the Project Management Institute’s ”best practices”, to guarantee successful implementation of the strategy and the adoption by the organization of the necessary changes.

Implementing standard project management practices and improving project success rates are two of the main reasons why organizations establish project management offices (PMOs). Yet there are many complex factors that impact the ability of a PMO to operate effectively. Often overlooked is the crucial role a PMO can play in organizational governance, supporting centralized project prioritization and resource allocation decisions.

Recognizing the PMO’s strategic value, APMA has pioneered a process for designing, implementing, and refining the practices and structure of a project management office.

Working in partnership with you, APMA can help your organization:

• Determine the appropriate sponsorship for the PMO
• Develop the PMO Charter, including its mission, vision, and critical success factors
• Identify the supporting functions and staffing required to achieve that mission
• Establish a program to address organizational change activities
• Implement the initial functions of the PMO (training, resource management, methodology, career paths, etc.)
• Officially roll out PMO operations
• Refine and mature PMO governance practices
• Outsource critical PMO functions with experienced project and program resources

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to provide the best opportunity for success. The Project Management Institute (PMI) divides these into five Project Management Process Groups, which are universally applicable to any project:

• Initiating Process Group
• Planning Process Group
• Executing Process Group
• Monitoring and Controlling Process Group
• Closing Process Group

These processes are globally recognized as ”best practices” and are independent of any specific application area or industry focus. Good project management, however, must account for the environmental factors specific to your organization. Developing processes and procedures specific to your needs and organization which are based on these universal processes, assures consistency of approach, alignment with strategic goals, and better success rates. Using these process groups, along with their various sub- processes as a guide, your specifically tailored procedures will allow the appropriate knowledge and skills to be applied to your projects during execution.

APMA brings the expertise and depth of experience to your organization necessary to develop the organization-specific processes. APMA recognizes that integration of good project management practices into your operations requires the appropriate alignment, coordination and application of these processes to the unique goals of your organization. Application of the practices that are “best” for you requires a thorough analysis of all your projects. Through analysis of project size, timing, complexity, and risk, along with organizational and team experience levels, the appropriate application of the various project management processes can be determined. 

Project Peer Review services from APMA offer your project managers the chance to identify problems with the development or management of a project which may affect achieving the project objectives.

APMA’s peer review is an intensive desktop study examining relevant documents, plans, and analyses produced as part of the project planning, execution, and control processes. Our peer review examines project organization structures, business and project plans, and project protocols to identify potential deficiencies that may impact the ability of the completed project to meet your goals and objectives.  Peer review can be used, for instance, to confirm that risk management, value engineering and life cycle costing techniques have been effectively applied, thereby reducing risks and allowing an accurate assessment of project costs and benefits. By conducting a thorough analysis of these plans in relation with the project objectives, peer review provides an assessment on the ability of the project plans to meet the quality, functional and performance requirements of the project and its approved purposes.

Where deficiencies are noted, APMA’s peer review process makes recommendations on corrective actions to improve  completion of the work, operational readiness, and the long term sustainability of your project. The process can also be used to identify measures that may be taken to improve project value and the cost certainty of the project.

Because a peer review focuses on the key objectives of the project and anticipated risks, we recommend that it be conducted early enough in the project lifecycle to allow implementation of corrective actions early without delaying the project, but late enough to allow the review of developed project documents.  

The most critical element of the project management process is project planning. Failure to adequately plan the project can cause significant problems later in the project lifecycle, potentially resulting in a failed or cancelled project. Equally important during the planning process is the definition of the scope of the project and a thorough understanding of the objectives and goals the project is intended to satisfy. Effort spent to define and plan the project and adequately identify the scope is significantly less costly than the time and effort wasted in solving problems created by the failure to do so.

Inadequate planning can ultimately cause a failed or cancelled project, dissatisfied customers and loss of repeat business.

APMA understands that adequate project planning is more than just the development of project network diagrams using project management software. Our consultants have experience in addressing and implementing all areas of project planning, such as:

• Management Plan Development.
• Scope Planning and Definition.
• WBS Creation.
• Activity Definition, Sequencing and Estimating.
• Cost Estimating and Budgeting.
• Schedule Development.
• Quality Planning.
• Planning Purchases and Acquisitions.
• Resource Planning.
• Risk Planning, Identification and Analysis.

The extent to which these items are addressed, and the sophistication and formality of the process, is a function of the characteristics of the organization and of the specific project. With extensive experience in project management, APMA will carefully balance the methodologies, processes and procedures necessary for the success of your specific projects. 

For many organizations, projects are temporary activities designed to deliver unique results, with project teams released to their operational roles at project completion. Because projects are not permanent activities in these organizations, project management skill development is not a high priority, and projects may suffer.

APMA offers contract project management services to assist such organizations. By offering experienced project managers following procedures developed by the Project Management Institute, APMA supplements your project team with the leadership and planning necessary for successful project completion. With a varied background in project implementations, from engineering to IT, from regulatory to financial, APMA can provide temporary project management resources to meet your needs for any contract length.

Organizations that have adopted a standard project management methodology have realized a 63% improvement in delivering projects successfully. APMA has contributed to project management methodology improvements for many organization in Armenia.

When implementing a project management methodology for your organization, APMA factors in your existing management best practices. Implementation is a collaborative process, with final methodology ownership in your hands. Our methodology implementation approaches are designed to foster acceptance and make the adoption of a standard methodology welcomed within your project culture.

Methodology Development Services

APMA begins by reviewing the project management and related methodologies you already have in place. We then identify areas where your project management methodology would benefit from enhancement and tighter integration with your other management processes. Leveraging the content of APMA offered methodology, APMA selects and tailors the appropriate content to fit your desired project objectives and cultural threshold. Working with your team, we make sure the resulting methodology has a look and feel that fits with your organizational brand.

Methodology Deployment and Ongoing Support

To successfully launch the methodology to your organization, we work in collaboration with you to develop the appropriate deployment plan that ranges from conducting pilots to full deployment, depending on the size and complexity. The deployment plan includes the delivery of methodology workshops led by our methodology consulting team. Methodology coaches are also available to work one-on-one with your staff on specific projects to ensure that the methodology is properly put into practice.

Contact us to schedule a customized demonstration of the different standards methodologies, or discuss how we can help you enhance your existing methodologies.

The consequences of failed projects can be grim. According to findings from the Center for Business Practices (CBP) nearly half of an organization's projects are at risk at any given time, no matter the size of the organization. With so much at stake, early detection and action is key to avoiding the substantial losses associated with troubled projects and project failures.

PM Solutions' addresses project recovery at both the organizational and individual project levels, depending on your specific needs. We provide three distinct service offerings to help your organization turn troubled projects around quickly.

Troubled Project Identification

For the organization, we help you and your PMO implement a standard Project Review & Recovery Process to monitor your portfolio of programs and projects and identify candidates for review and possible intervention.

Project Recovery & Turnaround

At the project level, our project turnaround experts work with you to develop and implement a Project Recovery Plan, to quickly determine how to best proceed with the project. We can then lead and/or coach your project team throughout the entire recovery process.

Performance Improvement: Institutionalizing Lessons Learned

As a project concludes, valuable lessons learned are only sometimes captured and rarely acted upon. Longer term, these lessons learned could have significant impact on the outcomes of future projects if they are filtered back into the organization's standard processes. PM Solutions helps you establish and maintain the processes for capturing, evaluating, and institutionalizing lessons learned that will improve performance across all projects.

Common Symptoms of Troubled Projects

• Critical issues in meeting milestones or completing deliverables
• High risk of non-delivering anticipated benefits
• Resources are not fully allocated to the project
• The project is consistently behind its planned schedule
• They are critical and/or significantly growing technical issues with the project

APMA provides full-service training operations management to help our clients ease the administrative burden of course scheduling, registration, and tracking. We offer planning, delivery, controlling, reporting and other administrative services needed to effectively meet the requirements of your project management training initiatives. In particular, APMA can help you with the following functions:

• Coordinate a kick-off meeting at program initiation to identify dates and locations for initial courses
• Develop and maintain an overall training calendar, establishing training dates/locations/instructors for all courses on an ongoing basis
• Produce and ship course materials directly to training locations
• Manage the course registration process
• Administer standard student evaluations after every course and share course evaluation results with your organization’s designated point-of-contact
• Share insights on common themes, trends, and concerns that arise during session deliveries
• Prepare and send course completion certificates to your organization’s designated point- of-contact for internal distribution to the participants
• Participate in annual planning sessions to review identified requirements for current courses
• Ensure quality of delivery and effective training sessions

We are going to cooperate with AUA as training logistics provider.

In tandem with training programs, APMA also offers experienced Project Management Tutors to work one-on-one with course participants to reinforce sound project management concepts and skills obtained from the project management training courses, and help them apply these concepts within their work practices. The goals behind our tutoring and coaching services are to:

• Encourage the development of competencies more easily gained through example, guided practice, or experience (leadership and management development)
• Bridge the gap between theory and practice. Formal education and training is complemented by the knowledge and the hands-on experience of a competent practitioner (education support)
• Enable skills to be passed on in the workplace by experienced, highly competent professionals to others who need to acquire specified skills (skills enhancement)
• Support staff in the planning, development and management of their careers by assisting them in tackling the challenges of change while also becoming more self-reliant in their careers and self-directed learners (career development)
• Model desired behaviours, encourage the development of competencies, motivate for service quality and cultivate the right attitudes (customer service)

This type of tutoring reinforces the knowledge and tools acquired during training programs and provides consultative advice on business interactions. At all times, our tutoring services are provided in a manner consistent with accepted project management principles, practices and standards as defined in PMI’s PMBOK® Guide. In addition, APMA’s mentoring services are aligned with our clients’ methodologies, processes, and techniques currently in use.

APMA understands that with limited resources, proper management of an organization’s project portfolio can be critical to the success of the organization. An effective project selection methodology to manage your project portfolio allows your organization to:

• Maximize the return on the application of limited resources.
• Tightly link your project portfolio to your business strategy.
• Achieve focus within your organization.
• Balance the types of projects within the organization.
• Improve coordination between project teams, functional managers, and upper management.
• Enhance the communication of priorities.

To accomplish this, successful portfolio management involves more than just the initial selection of projects. It provides a dynamic decision process where the organization’s project portfolio continues to be revaluated and revised as required. Most review processes are designed to verify that projects that are currently being executed are being done correctly. Effective portfolio management expands this to include criteria which will determine if the correct projects are actually being performed. By applying these criteria to reviews/gates that are performed after specific stages in the project lifecycle, each project can be compared and prioritized against all other existing and potential projects. By consistently applying these criteria across all projects, the process provides a level playing field on which all projects can be objectively assessed and compared. This will then allow your organization to determine the best utilization of your resources going forward, and based on the comparison, projects may be accepted or declined, accelerated, delayed, put on hold, or even cancelled.

APMA can help establish a gate process within your organization, including the definition of relevant deliverables and assessment criteria, that emphasizes early identification of data that is operational, reliable, and discriminating to provide for consistent evaluation and selection of projects. APMA can also perform a review of your already established gate process as well as act as independent gate reviewers as part of that process.

Working on the right projects at the right time is critical to sustain a competitive advantage, yet many organizations struggle with allocating limited resources and assets wisely. APMAs' project portfolio management (PPM) approach helps you select and manage an optimal portfolio of projects - one that maximizes your organization's responsiveness, revenues, and adaptability while keeping the projects aligned with your strategic business goals and objectives.

APMA provides you with guidance and implementation support to quickly deploy the PPM improvement recommendations. Activities typically include:

• Establishment or refinement of portfolio governance policies
• Portfolio and program prioritization and selection facilitation
• Portfolio and project communication management
• Portfolio performance management
• Project Portfolio Management software tool selection and implementation
• Facilitation of ongoing workshops and training on portfolio governance and management
• PPM culture change and adoption
• Baselining and ongoing review of your project portfolio

 

The information age presents your enterprise with a new set of challenges. Micromanagement, monitoring and electronic "policing" of employees are proving to be inefficient and ineffective policies in the management of human resources. These reactive measures can at best hope to contain or clean up problems within the operation of your organization and your projects.

APMA provides solutions that focus on positive, proactive initiatives to help your enterprise develop an environment of healthy self-regulation and accountability.
Incubating a productive ethical environment doesn't mean mundane, boring, repetitive training on a list of tired topics. We work with you and your employees to frame the ethical paradigm that you want for your enterprise.

Some APMA members has extensive experience in unravelling extremely complex construction issues and presenting them in simple and concise concepts. APMA uses a consistent and proven approach for defining and developing the issues in both defense and preparation of a dispute. This approach, implemented by experienced APMA members, provides with the knowledge and confidence that the issues have been researched objectively and that negotiations or proceedings can begin.

APMA's expertise includes impact of issues on intermediate and contract completion dates, assessment and support or rebuttal of damages including loss of efficiencies, extended general conditions, and overheads. APMA's participation in resolving disputes begins early when the dispute is recognized. This participation provides you with an assessment of the extent of project documentation and documents related to issues, a preliminary analysis to determine the strengths and weaknesses of positions, and a presentation of objective findings and recommendations for consideration whether and how to proceed. This includes cost/benefit analysis and discussions with client counsel.

If you are faced with resolving a complex construction dispute and need an independent expert's assessment, consider the professional services of APMA. Our record stands on the savings experienced by our clients.