Recently, I just started my position as a Strategic Analyst with a focus on process improvement at a major pharmaceutical company.  Prior to the new role, I had worked as a Consultant for various clients across all industries.   Project acceptance is much more difficult in the consulting world since the client is unfamiliar with your experiences and expertise.  Once accepted, I believe the consulting project is much easier to manage since you have a key client sponsor at the executive level that aligns all the parties.  Working in industry now, I have noticed that it is much more difficult to align key decision makers at my current company.  A multitude of projects is conceived throughout the group and cutting through the political tape to get individuals to participate can be difficult.  Currently, I am working on a project that will create more accurate and reliable inventory reporting across all 200+ affiliates and plants.  My current project team is composed of IT, supply chain individuals, plant and affiliate personnel, and myself.  It is over 20+ people that are involved in the project.  One of the major roadblocks right now is the functional silos that have been created throughout the organization.  For example, each plant does not want to share too much information because they feel it will put them at risk with another plant and/or questions will surface.   They do not think in terms of “one company for all”.  Each has their own respective KPI’s that must be met in order to drive business performance.  This makes them very protective of their domain and reluctant to new process developments.  My first encounter with this silo mentality was when I had visited a plant and was immediately asked the purpose of my visit.  It became very apparent to me that affecting their silo mentality would be the biggest obstacle to my project success.   Immediately, I brought the concerns to my manager to get more senior level support in driving this project forward.  As a consultant, I only faced some resistance to change from client staff but we always had the right client sponsor support to break down some organizational barriers.  Within a week I had the necessary director level sponsorship that allowed me access to more information from the plants.  However, I did not want to be known as the “corporate guy” to these plants and affiliates so I took the initiative to build relations with them by providing them with information on project intentions and new developments to put them at ease.  By letting them know that I was trying to improve processes to drive the business forward in the right direction I was able to gain some allegiance.  Working closely with them and having the necessary sponsorship has sped up the progress of my project.  Project improvements involve organizational change and the proper steps must be taken to complete deliverables on time especially when silos exist.

Recently, I just started my position as a Strategic Analyst with a focus on process improvement at a major pharmaceutical company.  Prior to the new role, I had worked as a Consultant for various clients across all industries.   Project acceptance is much more difficult in the consulting world since the client is unfamiliar with your experiences and expertise.  Once accepted, I believe the consulting project is much easier to manage since you have a key client sponsor at the executive level that aligns all the parties.  Working in industry now, I have noticed that it is much more difficult to align key decision makers at my current company.  A multitude of projects is conceived throughout the group and cutting through the political tape to get individuals to participate can be difficult.  Currently, I am working on a project that will create more accurate and reliable inventory reporting across all 200+ affiliates and plants.  My current project team is composed of IT, supply chain individuals, plant and affiliate personnel, and myself.  It is over 20+ people that are involved in the project.  One of the major roadblocks right now is the functional silos that have been created throughout the organization.  For example, each plant does not want to share too much information because they feel it will put them at risk with another plant and/or questions will surface.   They do not think in terms of “one company for all”.  Each has their own respective KPI’s that must be met in order to drive business performance.  This makes them very protective of their domain and reluctant to new process developments.  My first encounter with this silo mentality was when I had visited a plant and was immediately asked the purpose of my visit.  It became very apparent to me that affecting their silo mentality would be the biggest obstacle to my project success.   Immediately, I brought the concerns to my manager to get more senior level support in driving this project forward.  As a consultant, I only faced some resistance to change from client staff but we always had the right client sponsor support to break down some organizational barriers.  Within a week I had the necessary director level sponsorship that allowed me access to more information from the plants.  However, I did not want to be known as the “corporate guy” to these plants and affiliates so I took the initiative to build relations with them by providing them with information on project intentions and new developments to put them at ease.  By letting them know that I was trying to improve processes to drive the business forward in the right direction I was able to gain some allegiance.  Working closely with them and having the necessary sponsorship has sped up the progress of my project.  Project improvements involve organizational change and the proper steps must be taken to complete deliverables on time especially when silos exist.

Consulting and a Project Management Driven Culture

                            For the past few years I worked as a Supply Chain Consultant within various industries.  My work was primarily focused on supply chain projects such as inventory optimization, source to pay, procurement, network optimization, and distribution.  Each project involved travel on a weekly basis and very long work hours.  Prior to consulting I worked for a few years at Kellogg Co as a Supply Chain Analyst.  Consulting differs a lot from industry jobs since the work revolves around 8-12 week engagements focused on meeting the client’s business needs.  Because of its time sensitive nature, project management becomes an important element in completing the engagements.  Projects require the right project manager to create the proper vision for the scope within the SOW.  I was privy to some very strong project managers and some very weak ones.  The stronger ones were able to effectively lead our teams to deliver the proper business results within the project timeline.  Weaker managers had poor organizational skills and the projects would always be more stressful.  I had the chance to work with strong ones as well as a few weaker managers.  Each was an experience that opened up my eyes to project management ins and outs.

The project would begin with an initial kick off meeting to go over the timeline, scope, team structure, budget, and any unique client requirements.  From there the larger team would be divided into smaller units based on work stream needs.  Each work stream unit would establish its own timeline that was based on meeting the project scope deliverables.  Daily meetings were scheduled to ensure the work stream was effectively managing their time and to address any scope concerns.  Weekly team meetings were established with the project manager to ensure all the work streams combined were running smoothly and to go over any changes.  The project manager played a crucial role in coordinating the team and overseeing the overall project.  They were responsible for managing the client relationship as well as executing the project.  Typically, they were senior managers within our organization and the projects typically involved around 10-15 consultants and senior consultants.  As time progressed, special focus teams were established within our larger organization.  For example, we had a dedicated team for any projects involved within procurement and sourcing.  The team was comprised of subject matter experts and individuals with many years of relevant work and/or consulting experience.  Favoritism and cultural politics were very apparent within some of the dedicated teams as well.  Team fits were important as well since you were essentially living with these co-workers for 8-12 weeks on projects.  It was essential to do extensive networking as a new hire in order to get noticed by the senior managers who ran the client projects especially since not being utilized on a project throughout the year would eventually lead to a job layoff.

Overall, the consulting lifestyle enhanced my project management skills and allowed me to learn more about flexibility and meeting sensitive timelines.