Project Management at Baird’s CMC
Baird’s CMC maintains a team of project managers reporting to a global project director. The project management discipline used is called “PMI” from the Project Management Institute, and it is appropriate for both small projects and large programmes.
When project managers join Baird’s CMC, they bring the experience of one or two major project management methodologies; either PRINCE2 or PMI. Baird’s CMC has adapted PMI to its own requirements to work across time zones, languages and cultural sensitivities and more specifically for service type organisations. An extensive training programme has been undertaken by both project management staff, their assistants and senior staff throughout the Baird’s CMC global network. We see this is an ongoing learning process and a continual training process is in place to keep our systems fresh and valid in today’s changing environment.
The Baird’s CMC project management team have many years dedicated project management experience, and most have recognised project management qualifications. The team have been successfully deployed on multi-language, multi-country projects, the largest being a 47-country market research study in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Baird’s CMC team has also been involved in setting-up Project Management Systems (PMS) for clients who do not have the skills to manage their own. A key component of introducing a project management system to a client is knowledge transfer. Because we have designed our own methods to train the relevant staff with sufficient documentation, the client can apply their newly learned techniques to all their projects. This has been extremely successful for recipients of funding from organisations including major foundations and not-for-profit organisations.
Systems Used
At Baird’s CMC, the project management team ensure that a project is managed according to time, cost and quality standards defined at the beginning of a project, using tools and techniques such as a project plan, a project charter (signed by the client and sponsors) to define a project and Gantt charts to track the project. The project management team is supported by a group of professional writers, administrators, finance managers and subject matter experts.
The Baird’s CMC project management team has access to some of the most innovative and user-friendly collaborative secure cloud-based information technology systems such as Smartsheet, Podio, Google for Business, Acano, HD videoconferencing and our own in-house conference call system to keep costs to a minimum.