Arnold Jones
Telecommunications

Arnold works as a project manager in the fast moving and complex telecommunications industry. In this sector Arnold undertakes many projects that involve multiple partners, clients and suppliers based in different locations and all these stakeholders need to be kept fully up to-date on the project progress, be able to communicate with the group and have the ability to contribute to project documentation and deliverables. Currently the only way Arnold could overcome this problem was through email. This resulted in many stakeholders ending up with the wrong version of documents and often feeling they were left out of emails and conversations.

As all of the parties involved compete for work in similar areas its not possible to allow them to access Arnold’s current tools for project management, since this would be granting them access inside his company’s firewalls. Furthermore, Arnold’s superiors were also very sceptical of how his projects could be successful when project stakeholders refused to share information or access rights and did not trust each other.

Arnold was troubled but he had heard of Protocol’s virtual project room, which he felt could ease the conflicts he was experiencing. Protocol sounded perfect, as it was a complete web-based project and knowledge management solution that allowed communication and collaboration outside of an organisation’s firewall with multiple users.

Protocol enabled Arnold to create a virtual project room, where all parties could

• view the project’s progress via a Gant chart,
• be assigned tasks and different access rights,
• take part in project chats,
• record project critical emails,
• view project documents in the library and
• contribute to project deliverables regardless of their IT platforms or locations.

The Protocol solution ensured that all parties knew exactly what was required at each stage of the project and how they were contributing to the projects success. Furthermore, everyone had access to all project critical information and this helped erode the feels of mistrust, encouraging a knowledge sharing culture within the project

Protocol allowed everyone on the project too not only share their knowledge but also to gain knowledge from each other resulting in closer relationships with all involved. The real benefit of these enhanced relationships has been that more projects of this type are now being undertaken and Arnold’s organisation is thriving.

Hear others experiences of Protocol

“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge”

Protocol, the virtual project room is a very powerful tool and benefits project managers in the following ways:

Standard Approach and Defined Project Management Methodology
Protocol enables an organisation to adopt and promote a defined project management methodology. This benefits project managers by providing them with structure and tools to successfully carry out their projects inline with organisational standards. A project manager then has a consistent format and approach to the whole project management process and can reuse this approach on all projects undertaken.

Reduced Administration
As the Protocol is developed with standard templates, an administrator is not needed to develop, control or manage the project website. Furthermore, undertaking team meetings, reviews and discussions are now effortlessly scheduled through the meeting mechanism. Protocol achieves reducing project administration costs and sets free resources for use on higher valued tasks.

Increased Control and Communication
Protocol allows project mangers increased control and communication with the whole project team since all are now accessible through the virtual project room regardless of their location. As progress is more visible and easier to monitor via the workflow feature, managers receive increased control on the progress of all project items. With Protocol managers are able to keep better control on project risks, using the risk mechanisms resulting in risk management activities being more focused and communicated to entire team. Project and cost overruns are much more apparent in Protocol enabling managers to take action immediately keeping projects on target.
By providing standard, reducing administration and increasing control and communication project managers can concentrate on higher value activities such as; planning, being proactive and thinking strategically regarding the project. This increases the likelihood of project success and ensures that real value is gained and utilised.