True mastering of IT project management is, amongst others, one of the most important success factors for the overall project. In this, as well as in the project manager himself, you find a variety of different methodical disciplines combined as soft skills – regardless of whether in the classical or agile sense. The key to success is the assurance or fulfillments of the pre-agreed prerequisites and requirements of quality, time and costs, the magic triangle.

Starkkraft is recognised as a a modern and dynamic company with highly experienced project managers whit broad experiences across business domains and sectors. We fully understand the difference between operational and coordinative project manager activities and are well aware of the extremely responsibility and cruciality that comes with the role. Our Starkkraft consultants are familiar with the current and professional project management methods such as PRINCE2, PMBoK or CPPM and also have understanding of several sector specific PM methods. The creation of GANTT diagrams, strategies and control of sub-projects are also part of our repertoire. Also they’ll set up and operate all relevant administration and reporting structures, so that the measurement and precise statement on the project’s situation can be generated at any time with the help of tools. Our customers are offered a combination of state of the art, current methodology and profound experience to implement a fast, solid and above all sustainable solution, even or especially for dynamic projects.

Here are some examples of project manager activities:

• Create a project-planning to meet critical milestones and deadlines;
• Monitoring the development and implementation process;
• Coordination of product development and rollout;
• Measurement and control of subcontractors in compliance with previously defined SLAs;
• Ensuring project acceptance and development of the maintenance concept;
• monitor and guide your projects in the standard phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring, Closing;
• Identification, mitigation and reduction of project and systematic risks.

Starkkraft is aware of the constant digital transformation and of the resulting global competition for successful IT services. At Starkkraft, you will have consultants with successful experience in managing teams in on-, near- and offshore as well as external developer and tester teams.

We want to ensure that your project is successfully set up, executed and completed with the specific project objectives in mind and at least in line with your company’s time, cost and quality objectives. Needles to say that be we always aim to exceed expectations.

Very often the role of „project manager“ (PM) will actually involve solemnly the tasks of a well-seasoned „project coordinator“. In these cases Project Management might not be the right service an organisation is really looking for. Here project coordination services might tackle the needs better.

Nowadays many names for important roles in projects are being used often out of context, or misplaced due to a difference in scale of a project. This is also the approach we are willing to undertake with our service portfolio – not to put everything in one drawer, but to empower the experts by letting them work exactly in the positions they can spread the wings.

What is the main difference between Project Coordination and Project Management you might ask? The biggest difference will be visible in a large scale projects, where a large project portfolio will be run either by a PM or directly by Executives. The business-as-usual tasks will be assigned to a different PM’s specific project or domain, where as those tasks should be put in the project coordinator’s agenda. PM is always supposed to bear the development’s responsibility for success and consider the project from a high-level point of view, focussing on strategic decisions. One can say project coordination is a role similar to a traffic control, where they will ensure the perfect throughput and operational quality in each of the work-streams.

What can you expect from our Project Coordinators? One can expect excellent project communication skills implying on being involved with interaction with external and internal customers, as well as team members and the upper management, stakeholders or other type of executives in your organisation. Leadership skills and an analytical, and problem-solving approach are self-evident.

Starkkraft can fulfill your need for a project coordination role ensuring the daily project management duties including resources alignment or keeping internal and external customers always in the loop. All other administrative tasks relatable to project planning, scheduling or support with planning and keeping the budget in frames are granted. Our experts will fuel your steering meetings with adequate reports, metrics and current valuable data. If this does not assure you of the value, our outstanding work performance will.

Running a successful project means taking care about a number of different matters, very often in parallel. This depends on the project structure and the followed methodology, but in some cases even a half of the activities assigned are administration tasks. Especially in large scale projects – operations with a number of project and product managers will need support in integration of results and secure transparency and control over activities across the enterprise.

Starkkraft is able to assist and execute the setup of an external PMO solution as well as building dedicated one from scratch. Following functions across your organisation:

• Developing and maintaining project management methodologies, standards and templates
• Selecting and maintaining tools
• Supporting enterprise reporting, metrics and analysis
• Supplying project management expertise and support to project teams
• Providing project management education and training to the organisation
• Developing career paths and certifications
• Developing leaders and managers who can step into larger roles in the future

Nowadays, since the companies are facing various challenges of disruption, digital transformation and just technologic advance, the role of a product manager evolves rapidly. A product manager specifically in manufacturing was more or less similar to a role of a high-level Project Manager in a complex and / or large scale environment. Together with the increase of agile development projects this changes severely. There is a gear shift whilst dealing with different types of stakeholders, teams and roles in a product development, as well as with a completely different approach to conceptional tasks.

Product Management is about building the right product to suit the need in the current or future market setup. It’s so much more than just building a working software (be according to a popular MVP approach). It’s about understanding the product environment and listening to the people, taking a decisions very rapidly based on the current data. The times where companies took months to gather requirements and review them in many iterations before the whole concept is ready for development are now over – even in the most conservative industries. Product development is evolving together with other parameters – like time to market, technology or simple methodology used to develop it. The companies understand now that in the long run it is often more valuable and clever to give the task of running a product development effort to a trusted party, rather than trying to solve their challenge alone.

Starkkraft’s experts on Product Management and Product Development understand the current trends and market needs. They are all true digital literates understanding the most current technological developments and how it is impacting and changing our lives in the future, as some of them are already changing it now. In the recent years there has been a huge change in a development paradigm, which shifted the focus of the product on the very needs of the end-customer putting in the center of conception and product vision. We are customer obsessed.

Our Product Managers are fit to take-over your product development effort, both with external vendors as with internal vendors, and carry out the whole product development life cycle: starting even from a mere idea on the solution. We are able to take you through building-up an E2E customer journey from scratch, setup a clear roadmap for you product and deliver. In case there’s no clear vision on the product – our expert will execute the Product Vision Workshop, where not only the product idea will become more clear an feasible, but also a first draft on product roadmap will be set.

Keywords: Agile, Scrum, Design Thinking, Customer Journey, Lean, Business Modell Canvas