Moving forward with customized process

A customised management process is a project management process adapted from standard frameworks (PMBOK, PRINCE2, agile) to fit an organisation's or project's specific needs. To move forward with it successfully, the organisation takes a planned approach.

Steps

1. Assess the current situation: review existing practices, maturity level, project types, strengths and weaknesses, lessons learned and customer expectations.
2. Get management support and a sponsor: authority, funding and visible commitment are essential.
3. Define objectives of the customised process: for example, reduce delays, standardise reporting, improve quality.
4. Select the base framework and decide what to keep, drop or add.
5. Design the process: phases, gates, roles, deliverables, templates and tools, and scale to project size (light for small, full for large).
6. Involve stakeholders: project managers, team and customers, to build ownership.
7. Develop supporting material: guidelines, checklists, forms, training.
8. Pilot the process on one or two selected projects.
9. Review the results with feedback and metrics (schedule, cost, quality, satisfaction); adjust.
10. Train and communicate to all staff.
11. Implement across the organisation in phases.
12. Monitor and improve continuously using audits, lessons learned and maturity assessment.

Assess -> Plan -> Design -> Pilot -> Review
   -> Train -> Roll out -> Improve (repeat)

Cautions

• Avoid too heavy bureaucracy; keep it practical.
• Manage resistance to change with communication and incentives.
• Keep documentation up to date.
• Align with company strategy and customer needs.

Example: A small IT outsourcing company customises PMBOK into a lightweight process: a one-page charter, weekly status email, and a change log, then pilots it on two projects before using it everywhere.