3 Keys to Success:
Do you remember the saying “Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?”
Well it’s true in life, and even more so in Project Management.
For a Project Manager, to be at the end of a project and see that a plan has been fully completed, within an acceptable timeframe and budget is a significant achievement. So the question is, what are the keys to success?
1. Clearly identify your deliverables.
Having agreed to and documented deliverables will give everyone a clear target, and something to gauge progress against. Otherwise it’s like playing pin the tail on a donkey blindfolded.
2. Come up with a workable plan & manage it with a keen eye to the details.
Planning is everything, and not just at the beginning of a project. It’s an ongoing process. Project Managers need to get the best people they can, and do whatever it takes to make them successful. Successfully managing and completing a project requires clear approval and sign-off by its sponsors or customers every single step of the way ― not just when you get close to the finish line.
3. Know your success criteria.
In addition to knowing what will make a project successful, you must continually view and evaluate things from a number of different perspectives ― Time, Budget, ROI/Metrics & Quality.
Case Study:
As a marketing professional that exercises his project management skills almost every day, I thought it might be interesting to highlight a client project we successfully executed in order to demonstrate these three keys to success.
Client:
Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc.
Project:
5-City Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Road Show
1. Project deliverables.
Demand Creation Services was asked by Sun Microsystems to project manage a number of key elements associated with an executive breakfast road show. Our target audience was senior C/Director-level IT and line-management executives. The key message vehicle was an event invitation that would have a high open rate, defined as 90% or higher. The project included five major deliverables, each designed to support and integrate with each other:
- Executive invitation
- Telemarketing
- Database management
- Event signage
- Follow-on touch program
2. Project Plan.
Key aspects to the overall plan included the following activities:
- Overall plan development, supplier negotiations, and Client quote sign-off.
- Validation of customer provided mail list – mailing addresses validated through the mail system.
- Invitation creative strategy, design & layout – including prototype for customer approval, and bilingual version for province of Quebec (French market).
- Customized invitation printing & mailing.
- Telemarketing event recruitment and reminder calls, including data mining to expand the original mail list.
- Database management – updating of contact information associated with returns from the mailing and telemarketing, including email addresses where possible.
- Event signage creative, design, layout & printing – including bilingual version for Quebec market (French market).
- Event follow-up for all registrations – thank you emails, sorry we missed you emails, presentation slides, hand-outs etc.
- Ongoing email follow-on program to all registrations – monthly email program over a 6-month period of time.
- Project tracking/monitoring and Client billing.
3. Success Criteria.
Our client judged the success of the executive invitation and the follow-up telemarketing event recruitment, based on the number of registrations generated and the subsequent number of event attendees. The secondary goal was to increase the number of contacts contained in the original mail list by a minimum of 10%.
To reinforce these goals internally within Demand Creation Services, project compensation for telemarketing agents was tied directly to:
- The number of registrations driven by each agent;
- The subsequent number of executives that attended one of the live events; and
- The number of new qualified contacts that were identified through the telemarketing efforts.
Given the general difficulty of attracting C/Director-level executives to live events, each of the road show events was scheduled to conclude by 9:00 am, and include a full breakfast. The goal was to attract a minimum of 15 companies to each of the events, with overall attendance targeted at 20 prospective contacts. Typically only 25-50% of registrations for an executive event end up attending. In this case, the average attendance across all cities was 52%. In addition, the goal for identifying new qualified contacts was achieved, with an increase of 12%.
Project Management – the glue that holds marketing together
May 2, 2012 by Mike Rusheleau • Database Management, Digital Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Consulting, Outbound Marketing, Telemarketing Tags: Database Management, Executive Invitation, Marketing Plan, Metrics, Project Management, Return On Investment, ROI, Telemarketing •
3 Keys to Success:
Do you remember the saying “Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?”
Well it’s true in life, and even more so in Project Management.
For a Project Manager, to be at the end of a project and see that a plan has been fully completed, within an acceptable timeframe and budget is a significant achievement. So the question is, what are the keys to success?
1. Clearly identify your deliverables.
Having agreed to and documented deliverables will give everyone a clear target, and something to gauge progress against. Otherwise it’s like playing pin the tail on a donkey blindfolded.
2. Come up with a workable plan & manage it with a keen eye to the details.
Planning is everything, and not just at the beginning of a project. It’s an ongoing process. Project Managers need to get the best people they can, and do whatever it takes to make them successful. Successfully managing and completing a project requires clear approval and sign-off by its sponsors or customers every single step of the way ― not just when you get close to the finish line.
3. Know your success criteria.
In addition to knowing what will make a project successful, you must continually view and evaluate things from a number of different perspectives ― Time, Budget, ROI/Metrics & Quality.
Case Study:
As a marketing professional that exercises his project management skills almost every day, I thought it might be interesting to highlight a client project we successfully executed in order to demonstrate these three keys to success.
Client:
Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc.
Project:
5-City Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Road Show
1. Project deliverables.
Demand Creation Services was asked by Sun Microsystems to project manage a number of key elements associated with an executive breakfast road show. Our target audience was senior C/Director-level IT and line-management executives. The key message vehicle was an event invitation that would have a high open rate, defined as 90% or higher. The project included five major deliverables, each designed to support and integrate with each other:
2. Project Plan.
Key aspects to the overall plan included the following activities:
3. Success Criteria.
Our client judged the success of the executive invitation and the follow-up telemarketing event recruitment, based on the number of registrations generated and the subsequent number of event attendees. The secondary goal was to increase the number of contacts contained in the original mail list by a minimum of 10%.
To reinforce these goals internally within Demand Creation Services, project compensation for telemarketing agents was tied directly to:
Given the general difficulty of attracting C/Director-level executives to live events, each of the road show events was scheduled to conclude by 9:00 am, and include a full breakfast. The goal was to attract a minimum of 15 companies to each of the events, with overall attendance targeted at 20 prospective contacts. Typically only 25-50% of registrations for an executive event end up attending. In this case, the average attendance across all cities was 52%. In addition, the goal for identifying new qualified contacts was achieved, with an increase of 12%.