PMD Pro: an on-time solution
“We have engaged with PMD Pro in East Africa for three years now, training over 200 staff in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, South Sudan and Sudan,” says Jennifer Overton, Deputy Regional Director for Catholic Relief Service (CRS).
“Our staff have attained PMD Pro 1 and PMD Pro 2,” continues Jennifer. “We have had very good feedback, and they have enjoyed the training and feel that it provides the tools and a good overall framework for project management. Many have reported that standards set by PMD Pro enable them to keep their projects on track, enabling them to achieve the results that they had planned and promised.”
CRS’s East Africa Region based their new Project Management Manual on PMD Pro’s tools and standards. A new Project Management Toolkit was created as a result that is now being used across the Region, by project managers who cite the most commonly used tools as ‘issue logs’, ‘risk registers’ and the ‘work breakdown structure (WBS)’. Staff teams have also found that the Guide is a useful resource for prioritizing time.
“The issues that we used to face at CRS in my Region were mostly to do with late project start-ups, underspending, and the inability to identify cost extensions,” says Jennifer. “While we don’t have hard data as yet, I am now seeing improved ‘on time’ reporting and a greater sense of urgency from staff for hitting targets and planned timeframes. This is evident across our country programs and region.”
In addition, Jennifer has also seen earlier detection of problems, and better and faster resolutions from her teams. “More people are talking about the importance of timely start-up. One of our projects in Ethiopia managed to ensure that all start-up activities – recruitment, procurement, DIP and project launch – were achieved in the first three months as planned, which is rare.”
“I would recommend PMD pro because it really helps staff to understand where they need to focus their efforts for good project management. It helps project managers to understand their main objectives – and this also benefits their team, who can sometimes feel overwhelmed at the beginning of a project.”
— Jennifer Overton
Deputy RD, CRS East Africa