Collaborative project management

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Collaborative project management is a method for planning, coordinating, managing and controlling distributed and complex projects. The method enables project teams to work together across departments, companies and countries and to cope with the growing complexity of projects.

Features of collaborative project management

  • Collaborative project management is based on the basic concept of actively integrating all project participants into the planning and control process and networking them with the help of information, communication or cooperation modules. Management is not seen as an isolated field of responsibility for managers, but as an integral part of the project work of all team members.
  • The basic thesis of collaborative project management is the principle of decentralized control loops. Complex projects are divided into smaller "tangible" subsystems and handed over to those responsible from the departments. In this way, the responsibility for planning and control is assumed by the position that is also responsible for the content of the project.
  • The networking and synchronization of the partial planning integrates all partners in the planning and control system and ensures a common understanding of planning. Any changes or delays that arise are communicated directly to the relevant project participants without actively intervening in external areas of responsibility.
  • The technical basis of collaborative project management is a central database that provides all project members - even those who are spatially distributed - with uniform and current planning data.
  • Communication and collaboration are the basis for the early detection of the effects of potential disruptions on the connected sub-projects. They create a high level of transparency and a common quality awareness among the team members.

Fields of application for collaborative project management

Projects

Ever shorter product life cycles and faster time-to-market with simultaneous individualization of products and services lead to value creation networks with suppliers, customers and partners. New technologies such as B. electromobility increasingly require cooperation in company-wide and cross-sector development networks, which are characterized in particular by the following features:

  • Projects with spatially distributed teams and worldwide locations
  • parallel, highly complex projects in the context of product development
  • dynamic, innovative and interdisciplinary projects
  • Projects that are characterized by a high planning and control effort and the large number of technical changes.

Branches and industries

Partners within various industries combine their competencies in researching and developing materials and manufacturing processes. The coordination of all activities and appointments becomes a decisive factor in the cooperation. This requires an efficient method for cross-company interaction along the product creation processes.

This mainly affects industries that are characterized by the following characteristics:

  • complex products
  • long-term development cycles
  • a lot of pressure to shorten development and project times significantly
  • Projects with a large number of participants such as suppliers and cooperation partners that are spread around the world
  • Projects with a large number of interdependent process steps
  • comprehensive and varied quality requirements for the project results.

These are e.g. B. automotive industry, aerospace, mechanical and plant engineering, IT, energy, etc.

history

Confronted with unsolved challenges in the control of complex product development projects in which classic techniques such as network plan technology or the methodology of the critical path are overwhelmed, Dr. Rupert Stuffer developed the method of cooperative project management in the 1990s (the term collaborative project management has been used since 2010 for reasons of congruence with the English translation of "Collaborative Project Management"). In first projects with industrial companies such as BMW and Bosch, the practical suitability was proven and the methodology was further refined.

Dr. Since then, Stuffer has given this approach to industrial companies (e.g. IBM, 2003; BMW, 2005) at a large number of events organized by specialist organizations (e.g. GPM, 1998), management congresses (e.g. Munich Management Colloquium, 2001) presented.

The further involvement of all those concerned in the planning tasks also found its way into other control methods, such as in software development. When using Scrum, the development team is responsible for the detailed planning, while the overall planning is carried out by a customer representative ( product owner ).

Methodical implementation with project management software using the example of the automotive industry

initial situation

Automobile manufacturers are facing increasing pressure from shortened development cycles and increasing productivity targets - often in a globalized development environment. One of the biggest challenges is cross-company collaboration along the value chain. These complex, cross-company processes are hardly manageable without continuous IT support.

This results in:

  • Mastering the complexity in product creation is becoming the decisive criterion for surviving the competition.
  • Project management as a management process has a crucial role as a parenthesis in distributed value creation networks

That is why most German OEMs have been using the method of collaborative project management, the de facto standard in the German automotive industry, for planning and handling development processes for years.

implementation

The work in independent development teams, which is widespread in practice, is adequately methodologically supported by collaborative project management:

  • Proactive, tool-supported communication and collaboration replace the rigid algorithms of conventional project management systems
  • The central database provides up-to-date and uniform planning statuses for everyone involved - including across locations and companies.
  • Clearly assigned responsibilities and interfaces promote transparency and topicality and thus ensure increased planning security and quality.
  • The framework is defined by the project management through top-down specification of important milestones and key data. The participants plan their scope independently, confirm the fulfillment of the given framework conditions and coordinate with other sub-projects independently.
  • Communication modules enable simple and intuitive networking of the sub-projects and thus support fast and comprehensible problem-solving processes. Changes are automatically communicated to those involved and resolved through joint coordination of suitable measures.

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