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supporting good work, done well.
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There is no “one size fits all” approach in the world of project management.
As the saying goes: a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Project managers, sponsors, and PMO staff who treat all projects the same way (often in the name of consistency, compliance, and "best practice"), are actually setting projects up to fail from the outset. A detailed, resourced schedule can be a powerful driver of efficiency; or it can limit adaptability to the point of being counter-productive.
This is because there is not just one type of project. There are four.
Earth Projects
Earth projects (or work packages) are typically found in the construction, engineering, defence, transport, and infrastructure sectors. The project goals, and methods for achieving them, are both clear and stable. Delivering these projects is about being highly structured with detailed plans and stable baselines, and leveraging a reductionist, predictive delivery approach.
Fire Projects
Fire projects (or work packages) involve creating a product where the requirements are unclear, emergent, or hard for stakeholders to articulate. This is where Agile lives. Typified by IT, software development, and creative projects, they require an incremental-adaptive delivery approach, such as Scrum.
Water Projects
Water projects (or work packages) require innovation. You may be developing a new product, solving a novel problem, or inventing a new process (emissions-free, for example). Here the goals are clear, but the methods are not. Delivering these projects requires an iterative-adaptive delivery approach.
Air Projects
Air projects are complex, adaptive, and people-focused. They have complex long-term outcomes such as climate change, health, justice, social outcomes, learning, culture change and organisational transformation. Delivering these initiatives involves a flexible, hybrid delivery approach with rolling-wave plans and lots (and lots) of stakeholder engagement.
These different types of projects are suited to different project delivery approaches, whether it be a traditional (predictive) approach, an Agile (adaptive) approach, or something in between (hybrid). Project management professionals need to understand what type of project they're on, what types of work packages it contains, and select the delivery approach accordingly.
This is why we train project personnel to be strategic, consultative, and methodology-agnostic.
Why choose Elemental Projects?
Clients choose us as their project management training partner because it elevates their team members to a new level of proficiency, enabling them to conduct projects successfully, efficiently, and with integrity.
100% of our Diploma graduates in 2023 said they would recommend this course to others.
They also rated us:
✔ 100% for overall satisfaction
✔ 100% for assessments that were a fair test of knowledge & skills
✔ 100% for facilitators' expertise.
Here are some ways we've helped clients to uplift their capability and maturity in project, program, and PMO management...
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The NSW Department of Planning and Environment's project managers operate in a highly complex environment with projects ranging from capital works, policy implementation, stakeholder engagement, science, and climate-change response. We designed a custom Capability Uplift Program (CUP) including 10 topics (9 for project managers, 1 for sponsors), then delivered the program for more than 750 project personnel.
6-months later, 93% of participants said their project management skills had "significantly improved" as a result of this training. 16% said there had been a "dramatic improvement in project performance", directly attributable to the training.
Don't outsource core capability. 77% of Australian business leaders say talent acquisition, retention and up-skilling is the no. 1 issue keeping them up at night.*
Build your internal capability by investing in your people. Support your project teams and leaders to develop the skills and culture needed to overcome challenges and deliver successful projects.