How we started our project management department from scratch

The most successful companies have effective project management in their DNA. Even high-growth start-ups are recognising this. Here, Marie Hall explains how to build a project management department from the ground up.

To begin with, we did not have a project management department. We were one office with a CEO and a handful of staff. At that time, we didn’t see it as a requirement.

As we grew, one building became five, and a handful of staff became hundreds. Projects became frequent. Suddenly we needed a project management department.

Pure Business Group is a complementary group of businesses working in the legal sector. One of our most important objectives is to eliminate greed and selfishness in the legal sector. In doing this, we will change the legal landscape for the better.

Such bold objectives require bold moves, an effective team and a massive amount of hard work. All of this has led to huge growth in just under four years. That growth has led to many projects in all of our 15 businesses.

Our projects are incredibly varied and exciting, ranging from building our website to creating our own workflows for Pure Legal Limited, and finding and transforming further office space to house our rapidly expanding technology services business, project management department, training and development department and call centre. Our biggest project has been bringing together all 15 businesses under one IT infrastructure. This was a huge migration project.

It is hard to imagine that, at the very beginning, we did not have a project management department. Phil Hodgkinson, our CEO, decided in May 2017 that we needed one. From that point, things moved quickly.

My first step as group head was to decide on a project management methodology that would work for the business. I assumed this decision would be simple. I planned to consider the detail of each available methodology and choose the one that fit best with the needs of the business.

However, with so many different, complex and, in some cases, overlapping projects within the business, the approach to managing them needed to work successfully for all. As the project manager, I needed to make sure that projects were implemented in the most effective and efficient way while reducing risk.

As any project manager knows, this requires much more than just recognising organisational priorities. I needed a deeper understanding of how each project management methodology could create the greatest positive impact, but also to identify the factors of each that might potentially derail our likelihood of project success. I knew for sure that we did not want to be changing our methodology every time a new project came up. We needed one methodology to fit all.

Waterfall dries up

I initially enrolled on a five-day PRINCE2® course. It didn’t take me long to realise that this methodology would not work for us. The main reason was that, when considering project budgets and costs management, PRINCE2® does not dedicate nearly as much time to developing effective project budgets and applying cost and financial management as it does to areas such as risk. As far as I’m concerned, this is a major omission from PRINCE2®, and it was a deal-breaker when deciding on which method we’d use.

During the PRINCE2® course, I got talking to other project managers about waterfall and agile, and decided to investigate further. These software development methodologies and principles incorporate elements of project management.

Waterfall has been a core project management methodology for years. It is chronological in nature and is used across many industries. Waterfall comprises static phases – requirements analysis, design, testing, implementation and maintenance – that are executed in a specific order. It allows for increased control throughout each phase. However, waterfall can be inflexible if a project’s scope changes once it is already under way.

This was an issue. In our business, projects can go in one direction for months and then, overnight, the direction will completely change. Although we have many software development projects, software is not the only project type within our business. I decided that we would not be using waterfall in our fledgling project management department.

Then we considered agile. But I felt that to incorporate agile into our business at such a busy period would have been counterproductive. Expecting senior management to buy in and commit to agile would have involved a significant amount of their time. They were already at capacity. Agile would have required a completely different approach to the one we were using. And it didn’t seem that agile would provide enough significant benefits to the business to justify the time it would have taken to adopt. With this in mind, we chose not to adopt the agile approach.

I next considered a hybrid of agile and waterfall, taking the best and most workable parts for our project management methodology. At this point, I realised I was trying to make us fit into an existing project management methodology because the perfect methodology for Pure did not exist (yet). I continued with my research, looking at critical chain project management, Six Sigma and Scrum. None of them fitted.

It was becoming frustrating. I started to feel a little deflated. Perhaps we could do without a project management department. I pondered this, but I knew deep down that a business that was growing and moving forward as quickly as ours, with so many projects going on, could not possibly go without.

Make-your-own methodology

I had to find the perfect methodology for us. It was then that Rob Mares and I started to toy with the idea of creating our own methodology. I looked at the project management process in general. In simple terms, the project methodology life cycle consists of phases: define, plan, launch, manage and close. Each phase addresses a specific aspect of managing a project, from define through to close. I knew that these would be the five phases that our project management methodology would need.

We needed to make it work in a structure that would be effective and efficient for our business. And that is exactly what we did.

The methodology we’ve adopted looks at the end result from the start. What is the proposed project set to achieve? After identifying this, we are easily able to establish the objective of the project and, more importantly, the business objective(s).

Next, we look at who will be required to establish the project team. At all times, we seek approval and buy-in from the board. They are kept apprised throughout the life of the project, right up to the point of completion, when they approve closure.

We decided to introduce project kick-off meetings where we identify the issue or gap we are trying to resolve with a project. We decide on the plan and put in place a timeline and proposed budget. The timeline is split into phases or milestones and tasks. This is also the point where accountability is decided and defined. At this meeting, we confirm the costs involved in each phase or milestone. We look at the total cost in any phase and break it down into payments, including to whom and on which date. We are then able to confirm costs to the board and request approval in advance of those costs coming up. We also decide on the strategy and identify potential risks, and our proposed contingencies should any of the risks become an actual issue during the lifespan of the project.

Throughout, we constantly update our project catalogue with strategy, costs, what we did well and any issues – and how these were addressed. This is for future reference. It’s how we’ve been able to develop and improve our project management department methodology.

From our past projects, we learn how to manage our future projects. We’ve found this to be fundamental to the development of our own methodology.

Since getting started back in July 2017, in true Pure style, we have seen the project management department grow quite rapidly.

Learning curve

At the end of 2017, Pure’s head office opened up on the Liverpool seafront at Prince’s Parade – another project – increasing our location count beyond our two offices in Prescot and two offices in York. We continue to look for further suitable office space to house our ongoing expansion. The project management department began with me, at a single desk in Prescot, trying to figure out the best direction to take this department.

Over the past 20 months, our project management methodology has continued to develop and evolve in line with the businesses. It made sense to create our own trainee project management programme, so that we could bring a trainee on board to learn the Pure culture and be trained and developed over a 12-month period in our project management methodology.

In September 2018, Rebecca Small joined as our first trainee project manager. She is halfway through the programme and doing really well. She should become a project manager fully trained in the Pure Business Group project management methodology.

Developing a project management department has been an excellent learning curve. It has made much more sense than attempting to move forward without a project management department. My own view is that project management is an essential ingredient in any business. No business could survive without some sort of project management department.

If what is available doesn’t work, think about the needs of the business and create something that does – rather than running the huge risk of doing nothing and facing consequences further down the line.