Project management

Volatility and ambidextry – two terms that are becoming increasingly prominent in the business world as a result of the acceleration of all economic activities. While triggered on the one hand by emergency situations from outside, as the aftermath of the pandemic shows us, initiatives to implement digitization measures on the other hand are visibly beginning to have a greater impact in all areas of industry. A large part of these activities are defined as projects in keeping with the times, but implementation in the face of resource shortages, insufficiently defined and applied processes, or a lack of experience often fail to produce the desired results.

Nothing is more constant than change – Professional change management as a critical success factor

The phenomena mentioned above, which describe the current state and challenges of the manufacturing industry, have one thing in common: they deal with change and the attempt to become ever more efficient and yet remain flexible at the same time. The resulting challenges often lead managers and their employees into the wrong direction – in terms of content, projects often focus on specialist areas such as production, logistics or purchasing. However, fundamental improvements are often only achieved when the organizational structure is also changed, processes are adapted, and rules of cooperation are redefined accordingly. These far-reaching changes require professional support to unfold their effects in the long term. We see change management as an active part of management consulting and give the topic sufficient time and space. As an external project partner, we see our task as walking the path of change together with our clients, from clarifying the assignment to providing follow-up support after the project has been completed, as a matter of course. As part of a consulting team, our experienced project managers serve as successful change facilitators, sparring partners for your executives or coaches for your top management.

Structures and transparency – The Project Management Office (PMO) as a central control unit

Large initiatives often start faster than the parent organization is able to make decisions across all areas and further beyond the limits of its own authority. From the very beginning, program and subproject managers are confronted with the struggle for selected resources and experts, and the client quickly loses track of where costs are being incurred. The role of a PMO becomes all the more important as the internationalization of project activities progresses. As the leading entity providing structure in the management of complex projects, the PMO is responsible for eliminating precisely these stumbling blocks in planning by applying efficient methods and tools. The steadily increasing degree of digitization – both in end products and business processes – requires the balanced use of so-called "classic" project management methods as well as the use of agile elements. It is essential for the PMO to support the various departments from production to IT in the selection process and to provide the necessary equipment for the respective scenario - according to the principle: the best of both worlds.

Why are so many projects "red"? – PM Know-How for Executives & Top Management in the context of the PM Quick Scan

Many companies have defined their project management processes, mostly following existing method sets like PMI's PMBOK, IPMA, Prince2, SAFe etc. In theory, the entire endeavor in project-oriented companies is to largely adhere to these specifications and processes. However, by removing the topic from the working level, it is not given the emphasis it deserves. The committed project manager then experiences his total defeat before a high-ranking decision-making body, caused by a lack of understanding on the part of the enquiring executives. If in doubt, a decision is made "against the defendant", the project is disrupted, and unplannable delays occur. In these cases, we offer to review your project management as part of a quick-check. Within a short time, you will receive a statement on how well your company is handling projects, taking into account all relevant stakeholders. We gladly support you conceptually and operationally and coach your managers in their behavior, tasks and competencies in their role as decision makers in review teams, steering committees or sounding boards. The common view on the tasks in the project team, their capacitive equipment and the changed understanding of your management team leads directly to an intensification of your internal cooperation and thus to a more efficient project execution.

The TMG team – High level of expertise, wide range of experience, broad range of applications

With more than 30 years of experience and more than 2,500 successfully completed customer projects, TMG is one of the most experienced medium-sized providers of consulting services to the manufacturing industry. A high repeat and re-commissioning rate among many of our customers is proof of the high level of trust and satisfaction with our services.

What you can expect from us – Project types and references

To us as implementation specialists, no situation is unfamiliar or too delicate – we often start where others have left off or given up. The "Taskforce Project Management" developed by us offers a set of methods and tools in combination with experienced project managers who know how to lead projects out of a crisis. Tried and tested and coupled with our experience in change management, our services provide short-term relief for your organization. This applies to issues that have become unbalanced in all branches of the manufacturing industry, where on-time completion and deliveries are essential, as well as to the support of development projects, ramp-ups or relocations. We help you move from the "fail fast, learn fast" approach to "fail fast, fail cheap" because you can access our wealth of experience and thus learn from mistakes that other organizations have already gone through. This means that we provide you with "recipes for failure" from a wide variety of industries where you might be short of your own lessons learned exercises. Consulting projects that will inspire you and from which you will emerge stronger.

The TMG-PM Tool. One man. One tool. High transparency and effectiveness of your project handling process

Implementation-oriented project management consulting focuses on a quick overview, planning reliability and control of the derived measures in the PDCA cycle. These basic requirements for the professional PM process are supported by our TMG project management tool, which ensures planning reliability even for complex undertakings and provides excellent support for tracking measures, especially for dislocated teams in large projects, programs and multi-project management. The progress data obtained from this provides a continuous status overview of open issues, including necessary recommendations for action in the event of discrepancies, trend analyses and resource planning. These form the framework for project control by the project manager and also the basis for an adequate PM dashboard as reporting for management.

This structured support of your project initiatives forms the basis of sustainable implementation measures and is also gladly used by customers after the completion of the consulting assignment. For us, this confirms again and again the confidence in our methodology and tools when it comes to reducing the complexity of challenging project environments.