Taking Project Management from Problem to Profit Center
If it’s broke, fix it. That seems like an obvious approach, but too many integration firms lack the nimbleness to change deeply embedded processes.
One reason we chose to cover Atlanta-based Unified AV Systems is its demonstrated ability to evolve.
In August 2014, Unified AV was at a point where company executives Bruce Banbury, Jim Pressley and Barry Goldin knew they had to make some major changes or run the risk of some serious consequences.
Project management had become a big problem, with project managers overwhelmed by demands and unable to fulfill them, leading to internal and external issues.
“It’s become a bit of an industry epidemic that technical people are promoted to project managers because it seems like a logical next step,” says Goldin. “We decided to look at the lifecycle from cradle to grave and realized we had to do things a little differently. It became clear our project managers had a lot of things they needed to do, but they weren’t able to do all those things because they were out in the field on jobsites.”
Senior VP Tom Taylor agrees with the assessment. “We knew we had problems going from having no project managers to moving technical people into those roles,” he says.
“But having the project manager involved in every step from the first sales call to the closeout of the punch list wasn’t sustainable for us. We realized project management doesn’t start until there’s actually a project to manage, so we started to change our habits. We had project managers tell us they belonged in the field.”
That led Unified AV to open a search for non-AV people to fill its project management roles, enhancing them with the company’s technical support team.
Today, about half of Unified AV’s project managers are from outside AV, including construction and other low-voltage trades. Goldin calls the new approach “a dramatic new way for us to manage the process and provide information to our customers.”
Goldin is pleased with how things are working out in the new structure. “We knew we’d be challenging some people but you can’t assure that, just because someone’s a good technical person, they can manage people and projects,” he says.
Lesson: Customers are evolving. The industry is evolving. Your processes should evolve, too.
Read Unified AV System’s entire CI Profile here.
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