Client requirements:

Goal: Improve efficiency in project management, establish quality communication within and between teams, establish better monitoring of project status and reporting to the CEO

Ned:

Let’s present them with the most expensive software on the market. We’ll impress them with an initial presentation. Their BigAndFancy company is a spaceship, and they need a starship of an application that will be worthy of them. Anything less than that is an understatement of their importance. We’ll record a tutorial video and sell them an ongoing consulting service. The program will probably never be functional for them, but no one from their core team will object after they’ve spent a bunch of money and time. At best, they’ll use fancy reporting options that look nice when they send the report to managers. They’ll explain to management that such a complex solution will take years to fully implement, but the return on investment is guaranteed after that.
Of course, they need at least 20 licenses and 400 hours of consultant work because it’s not worth working below that

Oscar:

The science of applying digital tools to project management has grown in recent years. Many research papers highlight the significant advantages that various digital tools bring to project management. For example, Whyte points out: “As the computational devices used in all aspects of project delivery are becoming progressively smaller and cheaper, digital information is changing what projects deliver, with information becoming itself a deliverable. Digital information is also changing how projects are delivered: enabling greater sharing, remote access, searching, and updating of information with visibility across supply chains and with owners, operators, and end users”. (Whyte, J. 2019).

The combination of different software used for predictive (waterfall, traditional) planning and software used for agile projects can be helpful even for construction projects that the client has. In this way, a hybrid approach is realized that “not only optimizes the execution of projects but also develops better collaboration and efficiency with increasingly complex construction environments” (Gajera, 2023).
Also, “Analyzing the hybrid of methodologies combining the traditional elements with agile and lean management makes an ideal foundation for successful construction projects, allowing flexibility and eliminating waste. The use of techniques such as sprint planning in agile helps companies combat delays and cost overruns due to constant communication and flexibility. Traditional approaches are suitable for the planning stages, while agile methods improve adaptability during execution.
The importance of the hybrid approach is highlighted by Gemino et al.: “Hybrid approaches are not a stage that organizations go through as they move from one project management approach to another. In bringing elements from different approaches together to create more successful outcomes, a hybrid approach represents a maturing of the project management discipline” (Gemino et al., 2020).

To make these tools practical and useful, Kane et al. also point out some assumptions: “The implications for project management practice are that, to achieve digital maturity, project managers need to address the different clock speeds of developments in IT and infrastructure to “systematically prepare to adapt consistently to ongoing digital change” (Kane et al., 2017, p. 5).
What poses a risk in the implementation of our service, but also in its later operationalization and implementation, is the inability to reduce different projects to the same name. As Marnewick and Marnewick state: ”Projects and project organizations are temporary in nature. This makes it difficult to facilitate the impact of digitalization. The only permanent entity is the project management office (PMO). However, the role of the PMO in adopting and increasing digitalization should have been mentioned by any of the articles that formed part of the bibliometric analysis. A potential research focus area should be on the role of the PMO towards project management digitalization as well as the digitalization of the PMO itself” (Marnewick, C. Marnewick, A. 2022).

Also, Marion and Fixson, studying the introduction of new digital tools in project teams, concluded that: “Frustration with switch-ing between these project management tools was seen, with teams moving from one platform to another. (…). This can cause churn, loss of data, and general frustration with the team. In the case studies, it was noticed that each time a new tool was chosen, the team’s enthusiasm to move to and learn the new features and use the tool declined.”