Siemens MSP Case Study 2
Siemens MSP Case Study 2
Siemens MSP Case Study 2
Siemens:
Making the Leap
from Project
Management
to Program
Management
How Siemens Improved
Project Performance by
Adopting MSP
After striving for seven years to improve
the effectiveness of project management,
Siemens in the US was concerned it
was resting on a plateau and needed a
breakthrough to achieve the next level
of performance. To help improve the
organizations project performance and
organizational project management maturity,
Siemens turned to Managing Successful
Programs (MSP).
The Problem
Siemens has used organizational process maturity
models to help improve performance for nearly two
decades. Frustrated by a lack of movement towards
the higher levels of organizational project management
maturity, Siemens Corporate Research wanted to rethink how it could accelerate improvements, manage
organizational change, and deliver business benefits.
Joe Sopko is an organizational project management
consultant for Siemens businesses in the Americas.
He is part of the Project and Risk Management group
of Siemens Corporate Research (US) and Siemens
Corporate Technology (globally), which works across
the organization to develop, measure and improve project
management maturity in all Siemens businesses.
He says: Project management is a core competency
of all Siemens companies. More than 50% of the overall
Siemens turnover is based on project business and covers
a wide spectrum of products, solutions, and service
deliveries. In 2000, we introduced a corporate initiative to
help improve project management maturity. This became
known as the PM@Siemens Initiative. Even after several
years of conducting hundreds of valuable assessments,
movement toward higher levels of organizational project
management maturity was not meeting corporate
expectations. We wanted to find out why we werent
improving as fast or as much as we could.
The Solution
Siemens Corporation in the United States and Siemens
Corporate Research (SCR), the project management
consulting organization within Siemens USA, joined forces to
develop a revitalized approach to accelerate Siemens USA to
the upper levels of maturity.
as programs
organizational change
Challenges
Of the challenges the organization faced in adopting MSP,
he says: Historically our culture was to focus on capability
delivery and to get straight to - what we perceived to be - the
final result. Improvement efforts were managed as projects.
The issue with that approach is that improvement projects
have only a cost side that is quantified, but lacked a quantified
benefit to balance the business case. It was also challenging
for some organizations not to have the exact final solution
MSP Benefits
Principally, the paradigm shift from capability delivery
to benefits delivery and the creation of the formal role
of program and business change managers have been
the key benefits of adopting MSP. The business change
manager role has proved exceptionally important for
internal programs and organizational project management
maturity improvement, Sopko says.
Often internal programs were managed with the
achievement of benefits implied, but not quantified or
formally managed. Focusing on benefits delivery (e.g.
business performance targets) was a significant factor in
achieving meaningful executive sponsorship, transforming
organizational culture, and accelerating organizational
improvements. Benefits delivery has been successful in
proving better profit margins, more reliable project delivery,
higher customer satisfaction, and continuous process
improvement. These proven benefits have enabled PMOs
to become centers of excellence which the organization
values, rather than being disbanded because no-one
understands their role beyond capability implementation.
Other benefits Sopko notes include increased customer
and employee satisfaction, managed profitable growth,
and improved standard process.
He says that in an early adopter case study such as
Siemens Industry, Industry Automation (I IA), improvements
in organizational project management (OPM) maturity
were measured by the benefits they delivered. Customer
satisfaction has improved by 5%; Project Margins
(delivered vs. booked) have improved by 6% of Sales;
Project delivery reliability has improved by 3%. These
results were much more effective in convincing senior
management of the need for improvement than the OPM
capability maturity level alone.
Although the figures may not look impressive at first
sight, they are significant because our level of successful
Conclusion
His advice for any organization which is undergoing
transformational change is to use MSP. Without
formal benefits management and the role of the
business change manager, any program will be a
difficult undertaking, he says.
use MSP
visit www.msp-officialsite.com
Joseph A. Sopko,
PMP, MSP is a Senior
Project Management Consultant
with Siemens Corporate
Research in Princeton, NJ and
holds a Master of Science in
Electrical Engineering from Penn
State University. Joe is a PMI
Certified OPM3 Professional, a UK OGC Managing
Successful Programmes Advanced Practitioner and
Approved Trainer, and a graduate of the Defense Systems
Management College, Program Manager Course.
With over 20 years of active project and program
leadership experience in large and small organizations,
About Siemens
Siemens was founded in 1847 in Germany and now has 405,000 employees working in 1,640 locations around the globe
operating in a range of sectors including industry, energy and healthcare.
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