Reference no: EM132236173

Case Study: A Focus on Competency Development and Training Doubles the Success Rate of New Initiatives A project management training program improved milestone achievement ten times in just a short period of 25 months. It was observed that raising the competency level of a project manager made it twice as likely that an initiative would be successfully completed. Company Kheri Electronics, Inc., (KEI), an Ontario, California, USA-based consumer electronics manufacturing company, has its operations in more than 18 countries worldwide, and its customer base includes billions of consumers around the globe. Challenge Project managers at KEI exist in various functions of the company such as R&D, manufacturing, business process reengineering, and marketing. A vast majority of them do possess strong technical skills but not business skills. Due to increased focus on nontraditional business practices (for example, knowledge management and sustainability) in the modern era, there is an additional need for stronger leadership and communication skills. Also, the standardization of the business and technology processes has become absolutely necessary now to be more successful in launching initiatives and improving the percentage of projects and programs meeting milestone targets. Solution KEI leadership realized the new training initiative can be brought up to speed faster by bringing in an outside project management partner. PM Doot Consulting (PMDC) was called upon to take on this training initiative quickly and to incorporate KEI’s internal materials, creating a training program tailored to the KEI environment. The training program consisted of two main courses: • Initiative Focused Leadership Training (IFLT) was targeted toward newly promoted or potential project managers. This program was intended to increase the knowledge and skills of the target audience in the innovation techniques that would enable them to be more productive and effective in leading initiatives pertaining to innovation. • Project Management Fundamentals Training (PMFT) builds on and complements the leadership skills of IFLT by providing project managers access to the tools and techniques to plan, perform, manage, and control initiatives. In addition, PMDC offered few more courses including but not limited to Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training, project risk management, technical leadership, and C-Level communications. Note Lean Six Sigma Green Belt refers to an industry standard level of expertise in the area of process improvement via Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques. Lean refers to no waste, and Six Sigma refers to 99.9 percent accuracy. Results Over the 18 months, more than 1,200 KEI project managers, functional managers, and other employees across all its sites around the globe have taken various courses offered by PMDC. Approximately 300 of them have obtained their Project Management Professional (PMP) credentials and approximately 150 of them have earned their Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certifications. KEI leadership has observed that since that time, the percentage of milestones achieved on schedule has increased by ten times, which is a significant improvement. These results provide a solid proof of concept and a powerful argument for continuing to raise the competency level of project managers who lead the high-visibility and high-dollar initiatives for KEI. Case Study Questions 1. Was KEI’s decision to acquire the services of PMDC a wise move? 2. What are the key challenges discussed in this case? Explain. 3. What are the lessons learned from this case?