ESI White Papers

Whether your meeting with an executive is planned, or impromptu make sure you know how to be heard and get your point across in a clear and professional way!

In today's environment, leaders of PMOs, CEOs and L&D professionals are all tasked with proving that the training provided to their project members are yielding a bottom-line benefit to the organization. Leaders must be able to demonstrate the business impact of their learning investment.

For the federal government to improve services to its citizens, increase operational efficiency and provide better access to services in a more secure environment, it must modernize the way it does business.

Planning, measurement and control have always been the basic tenets of successful project management. Unfortunately, for many organizations, these principles can be difficult to put into action – particularly in the form of Earned Value Management (EVM). While the concept itself is fairly straight forward and has been in use for some time now, successful EVM requires action and cooperation from virtually every person who touches the project.

Program management, which PMI® defines as "a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually," is key to executing major strategic initiatives. Unfortunately, many organizations are ill-equipped to manage larger-scale programs. This white paper on program management describes 10 vital steps of program management that must be done right in order for organizations to successfully deliver the benefits of change initiatives. The steps, which may be performed by a program manager or by others within the organization, together address the three overarching responsibilities of the program manager: effective governance, stakeholder management and benefits management.

Each year, organizations across the globe face astronomical project failure rates, often wasting millions of dollars per failed project. This paper examines the roots of project failure and centers in on the elusive, often undefined role of the business analyst.

Whether you are seeking a business solution or considering a new business opportunity, systematic planning and examination of alternative options is key to determining the best project investment path. This paper examines the step-by-step process – enterprise analysis – of identifying and analyzing potential solutions to a business need as identified by International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA™).

This white paper outlines the standard operating practices necessary for a business analysis center of excellence and provides maturity level descriptions to help your organization determine the stage at which its business analysis practice is currently operating. It also offers step-by-step guidance not only on the specific mini-projects that comprise a center of excellence, but also on the bigger picture of business analysis best practices – such as how to gain the support you need by showing every level of the organization how they’ll benefit, and tips for planning and breaking down your overall goals into smaller, more manageable pieces.

This paper examines the complexities of the sourcing environment and the five types of sourcing. It introduces the Sourcing Continuum, a model that illustrates, from both the buyer's and seller's perspective, the complexity and risk of sourcing initiatives. It also provides the Collaborative Sourcing Process, a repeatable life-cycle model that can be used to identify organizational activities for sourcing initiatives. This model serves as a guide to developing cross-functional competencies within your organization, ultimately allowing your sourcing professionals to form collaborative teams and employ the communication essential to successful sourcing.

Agile project managers (PMs) have a wide range of metrics from which to choose that show different types of progress at the iteration and release levels of agile projects. A deeper understanding of the variety of metrics for agile will enable PMs to determine how and when to use them most effectively to communicate progress to project stakeholders. This paper will begin by reviewing metrics PMs currently use to track progress and report progress to stakeholders in a project, an iteration and a release. Details for iteration planning and estimating will build the framework for selecting progress reporting metrics. Best practices for progress reporting will include a detailed examination of how and when to use the methods available, including daily meetings, iteration delta tables, release and iteration burn-down charts, progress reports, running tested features (RTFs) and earned value management.

Before the countless, money-wasting, reputation-busting projects of the world were failed projects, they were troubled projects. This paper examines the complex, high-stress period of assessment and recovery of such projects and offers five crucial steps for their successful recovery. The steps are presented from the perspective of the Recovery Project Manager (RPM), assigned from outside to rein in a project, but they are applicable to project managers practicing "self recovery" as well.

Today’s business climate is both dynamic and complex. Management faces changing requirements and increasing demands, as well as tight budgets and fast turnaround demands. Organizations are struggling to do more with less — fewer resources, including less money, and, in many cases a reduced workforce. Therefore, it’s essential to optimize every aspect of business, particularly project management. There’s no question that performance and outcome are on top of everyone’s mind — this is a reality for public and private sector entities, as well as for non-profits.

Your PMO has a direct link, and contribution, to your organization’s bottom line. This paper examines various aspects of the PMO, including key functions, characteristics and challenges, and showcases attributes of a successful PMO. A four-step plan is also provided to improve your PMO’s value to the organization at large.

This paper introduces a three-phase Organizational Change Management Life Cycle methodology (Identify, Engage, Implement) designed to help organizations successfully manage a change initiative. For each phase of the life cycle, the paper describes valuable techniques for involving the people within an organization. It also discusses the importance of developing a flexible, incremental implementation plan.

Specialized professionals like scientists, engineers and information technology (IT) workers are increasingly being asked to take on more business-oriented tasks such as communicating with executive stakeholders, managing business change, thinking more critically, leading large teams and making complex business decisions.