BT Exact - guiding light for project managers

 

BT Exact, BT’s research, technology and IT operations business, was the first part of BT to take advantage of CITI’s e:PMguide.

 

Opportunity

BT Exact (now BT Design) helps businesses and organisations gain maximum advantage from communications technology. Because much of its business involves complex projects that span across many organisations, BT Exact uses the best practice approach that is encapsulated in CITI’s project management development programmes and our e:PMguide.

Approach

An important consideration in the purchase of the guide was the ability to seamlessly integrate it into the management system that provides a process view of how BT Exact does business. Neil Goodger, project management transformation manager at BT Exact, recognised the need for consistency of approach and terminology, given the many commercial relationships that BT Exact manages with other organisations.  The e:PMguide has been structured for everyday use, with the emphasis on what must be done to achieve the project’s objective, as opposed to all the things that could be done.

To save reinventing the wheel, the guide provides an essential set of templates and examples of their proper use. Again, the focus is on success, with the minimum amount of management effort expended.

As well as best practice guidance, the e:PMguide comes with a method ‘handbook’, which is based on ten project disciplines and six project roles. This allows other members of the project community, such as the sponsor, to understand their responsibilities within projects, as well as the project manager.

BT recognises the differences between project and programme management. Consequently, it is currently evaluating CITI’s electronic programme management guide (e:PGMguide). The e:PGMguide encapsulates CITI’s leading approach to programme management. Like the e:PMguide, its focus is on supporting the programme manager to do the right thing at the right time, given that programmes have significant degrees of uncertainty that need to be managed.

Outcome

Other parts of BT are now making use of the e:PMguide, generally as a follow on to CITI development programmes, where the guide ensures persistent application of best practice.

(BT exact became BT Design in 2007)