QA recommended
Unilever – project management
the adoption of a
three tier governance
structure similar to
that promoted by
Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods, with a wide portfolio of
PRINCE2™,
household name brands across the food, personal care and home care sectors. The company strongly
providing a simple
structure that can be
believes that success means acting with ‘the highest standards of corporate behaviour towards our
adapted and
adopted rapidly to
employees, consumers and the societies and world in which we live’, and since 2000 has been developing
suit varying project
its Path to Growth, a five-year strategic plan.
needs.
The challenge Project mentors and internal coaches were also used throughout
Unilever was looking to facilitate the development and adoption of the programme to help the transfer of knowledge into practice,
a consistent project management method to service the global IT and to facilitate the introduction of the new techniques within
community. Multiple techniques and fragments of methods were existing projects and programmes.
being used and pockets of project management excellence
Following the initial launch, the programme underwent final
existed. However, with an increasing number of larger projects
enhancements prior to a global roll-out across the 3,000 strong
that crossed country borders, the lack of a single approach and a
IT community.
clearly defined skill set for employees was seen as a limit to
success.
The programme has allowed Unilever to improve the consistency
of its project delivery so that repeatable results could be
They were experiencing inconsistency during project execution
guaranteed wherever the project was initiated and whoever was
Unilever
and there was a perception that project completion rates could be
appointed as the project manager. This has been achieved
www.unilever.co.uk improved. Unilever worked with QA to construct and deploy an
through the deployment and wide acceptance of a rigorous but
effective PM lifecycle that would sit alongside, and complement,
flexible project management methodology. The company has
the existing approach while delivering consistency of IT
agreed that the method is both practical and representative of
implementation across the business.
best practice, and it has improved the standard of execution of
20
The major objectives were to:
critical project management techniques.
Better align project objectives with broader business goals
Ensure that projects deliver the benefits and results promised, and that
the work is utilised across the business
Improve involvement in projects at all levels from users to sponsors
and pro-active steering
Prevent ‘scope creep’ whilst allowing devolvement of authority limits
and tolerances from the steering group to the project manager
The solution
QA recommended the adoption of a three-tier governance
structure similar to that promoted by PRINCE2™, providing a
simple structure that can be adapted and adopted rapidly to suit
varying project needs. The project management method and
recommended practices were developed through a series of
facilitated workshops involving a group of around 20 top
professionals drawn from all geographies across the company.
This meant that the programme gained widespread acceptance in
the time it took to develop and refine the method prior to its
introduction. The challenge was then to quickly roll-out and scale
the practices across the diverse and geographically spread
community.
Programme structure:
The development aimed to utilise existing best practice wherever
possible
eLearning materials were used to convey knowledge of the project
management techniques
Face-to-face sessions were included for the bespoke elements of the
method and the company-specific templates
A blended learning programme including classroom training,
eLearning, virtual classrooms, bespoke workbooks and coaching was
built to support the roll-out
A hosted eLearning solution and a Learning Management
System (LMS) was provided by SkillSoft to support the initiative.
Courses were provided to cover the PMI Third Edition, with each
of the body of knowledge areas covered by a separate course.
Students were provided with the curriculum in an individual
learning plan within the SkillPort platform. In addition, 24x7
mentoring was provided by subject matter experts, providing just-
in-time support for any queries. This allowed students to ask
questions of another person in real time via a web chat while
remaining within the eLearning module, ensuring that the learning
was enriched with real-life experience.
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