The information technology group supporting R&D within a large pharmaceutical company was failing to meet its clients' needs. Schedule and cost overruns plagued the group’s projects. As part of an overall renovation effort, the group determined that it needed to build project management competency and that a project office should be established to coordinate activities and bring world-class project management practices into the organization.

Praxis established a project office to coordinate dozens of projects and build project management as a core skill. The project office began with a series of workshops to clarify deliverables, roles and team relationships. Praxis developed extensive training materials and delivered introductory and advanced courses in project management to hundreds of employees. Our team then introduced a set of integrated project management technologies to support team collaboration as well as traditional project management tasks such as status reporting, issue management, change management, work plan management and risk management.

Project performance improved dramatically - going from always late and over budget to finishing early with quality targets exceeded. The project office was also credited with significant financial savings through better project coordination and control. Project teams now think in terms of project management processes to deal with risks, issues, problems and changes that occur throughout a project. The bottom line result was better performance to schedule, improved budget management and enhanced client satisfaction.