Project Management Training for an Automotive Services Provider

Project snapshot

Focused on bringing process alignment and unification to project management, our client launched an educational initiative for project managers. We prepared a comprehensive training program that helps the company unify and improve project management processes and boost efficiency. Leveraging our extensive PMO knowledge and filled with useful practical exercises, this program has seen multiple re-runs and remains in demand as our client’s business grows and develops.

We created the program specifically for our long-term client and large-scale partner — a leading European automotive service provider. Over the years, our partnership has resulted in multiple successful projects in many areas (including software development, consulting, and education), and it now features a custom PMO training program.

Business challenge

Our client’s business history spans almost a century, and recently the company has been rapidly expanding with mergers and acquisitions. With each new merger, the automotive business acquires a new project with its own culture, workflows, and practices. Dozens of separate projects, each with its own approach to scope management, resource allocation, documentation, and monitoring, created a poorly balanced system with sub-standard visibility of operating processes. The lack of unified project management procedures started to affect communication and workflow efficiency.

Our client began the process of aligning project management approaches by launching an internal companywide training program for managers, which covered various soft and hard skills. To provide project managers with a deeper understanding of project management concepts and practical recommendations, the company reached out to Intellias to tap into the vast experience of our PMO experts.

Trusting our practical expertise proven through multiple completed IT projects, our client requested professional project management training to help them unify PM processes and improve their efficiency across the company.

Solution

After evaluating the level of adoption of project management principles in the client’s enterprise, we developed two custom training programs:

• PM Basics, covering fundamentals of project management such as tasks and processes involved in project initiation, planning, execution, and closure. The PM Basics training program gave practical recommendations on evaluating the scope, defining requirements, planning resources, managing communications, and tracking progress.
• PM Advanced, explaining the principles of stakeholder engagement and change management, issue handling, and risk management and mitigation, as well as an introduction to the agile methodology.

Upon the client’s request, our program was delivered as onsite training sessions by our PM experts. Considering the specifics of the company’s business, we prepared the program focusing on matters that are the most relevant to the automotive industry and adjusted the scope based on feedback we received after the first course held on the client’s premises.

The scope of the training program includes preparing and providing all necessary materials, including printed media and tools used in project management. Practical exercises take up about 60% of the training time, giving participants a chance to get hands-on experience resolving problems and issues that may arise in their work. Practical tasks are adapted to the client’s industry specifics.

Following the completion of each training session, we collect member feedback and use it to improve and adjust subsequent training programs.

Business outcome

Focused on helping our client streamline project management across the organization, we managed to create a complete educational ecosystem including training materials based on the company’s needs, a format and group size optimized for the company’s requirements, and content aimed at improving PM skills in the client’s industry.

In two years since the start of our PM training program, we have delivered it to six groups of project managers from our client’s company, with more training sessions planned. Seeing the practical benefits of such training, the client continues requesting additional sessions for project managers of different experience levels.

According to surveys, participants found PM training sessions held by Intellias to be useful and valuable for their performance as project managers. Overall, our client notes an improvement in coordination and communication between teams and an increase in teams’ productivity.

The PM training programs created by our experts can be adapted to the requirements of businesses in any industry through customized content and interactive processes focused on industry specifics. Our PMO team is happy to share their domain expertise with companies of any size to help them kickstart their project management workflows.