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People.  Projects.  Process.

All three are vital to the success of your business.  Too much of one or not enough of another can spell disaster. There is no secret formula to guarantee the balance - you need to tailor the three to match your products and culture.  Set them up, give them room to grow and change and you'll find your magic.

We work with businesses to build and perfect all three elements.  Look to us for project management education, PMO set-up, project tool evaluation, risk assessment/management, and project management.  We help create practical, tailored processes that fit your business and have built in review and growth mechanisms.  And we educate and mentor new managers and project managers to keep the people side of the equation front and center.


Finding Your Magic*
*Why the whimsy?  One study found that the number of repetitions needed to create a new synapse - to learn something new - drops from 400 to 12 when play is involved.  A little whimsy, a little fun, goes a long way.

 News

New Class Through ThoughtLeaders, LLC: Risk Management One Day class!

New Blog Category: Risk Management (See Risky Business, our inaugural post)

New Manager Survival Training:  Here's our one page overview

thoughtLeaders, LLC: Kim is now expanding our reach working with thoughtLeaders, LLC to provide classes and consulting.  Check them out and be sure to mention us!

New eLearning module:  Out of Beta!  The first New Manager Survival Guide module: Communication  

New eLearning module:  Practical Time Management: How NOT to Work 60 Hour Weeks

                             

    

                            If you have days like these (click image for video), we can help!  You can learn more about the course here.

 

 

 

Podcasts and Articles

 

Wrike

               

  Panel Discussion: Enable your Teams to Work Their Own Way 

  The Digital Project Manager        The Digital Project Manager Podcast:  How to Make Your Project Management Socially Intelligent

 The Digital Project Manager      The Digital Project Manager Article:  How to Avoid & Survive Catastrophic Project Failure

         LinkedIn Article: Running into 'Zoom Fatigue?' Fight Back!

 

         LinkedIn Article: Managing Projects in a Pandemic: With EQ

  YouTube:  Stuff that Helps: Managing Projects in a Pandemic (The EQ of working from home) 

 

 

  A BOOK!  Kim's book, The Socially Intelligent Project Manager: The Soft Skills that Prevent Hard Days is available on Amazon!  

 


 Free Stuff!

What We Do

Almost 70% of technology projects fail.*

We help you beat those odds.

Using practical project management, sane project processes, optimal communication for the project and organization, coaching, and education IvyBay Consulting helps you deliver your projects successfully - on time, within budget, to spec and with the level of quality you need.

*4pm.com

 

 IvyBay.com Privacy Policy

 

Although we do individual coaching here at IvyBay Consulting, most of our time is spent working with various companies to help run or improve parts of their business.  What can we do for you?

Manage Projects and Programs:

We have deep experience creating and managing projects and programs.  Software development is a particular specialty, working in the major methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, Spiral, Kanban) or any corporate methodology required.  We can recommend a methodology based upon your project, company, and ongoing needs if you're looking for advice.  We also manage non-softare projects including volunteer efforts (we don't manage construction projects though).  We always provide proper documentation either in the company standard or our own design.  We have experience with all the major tracking applications (Jira, Project, Rally, Pivotal, etc.) and come up to speed quickly on new or homegrown applications.  Risk management and change management are part of any project we take on.

Right the Ship:

 Somethings things get messy.  Projects get out of control, processes stop working (or your company grows out of them), things are just generally tangled up.  We can come in, analyze the current situation, understand how you'd like things to look, and get the project or process back on track (even rebuilt).  We do this within your environment and constraints.  We'll propose a plan for recovery and, if desired, execute the plan.

Streamline (or create, or fix) Your Processes

Sometimes a process doesn't work, sometimes it doesn't work very well or you've grown out of it, and sometimes there just isn't a process.  We know that one key to designing an effective process that people use is to make it only as complex as necessary and to have a plan for review and change on a regular basis.  We understand (and document) the goals of your process and the necessary participants to get started.  Using that information and interviews with the users of the process, we'll design a process for review, outline a review/monitoring schedule  provide a rollout and monitoring plan, and (if desired) we'll roll out and monitor the process for a fixed period of time.

Educate / Coach:

 We offer a range of workshops that can be tailored to your needs.  These include various Project Management workshops (beginning project management, advanced topics, agile projects) as well as Time Management workshops.   We also coach both new and experienced employees in project/program management, business analysis, management and leadership, and time management.  We can also design an ongoing education/coaching program for you.

Articulate Your Business Requirements:

Need some business analysis help?  We have plenty to offer.  We can help with everything from business requirements and acceptance criteria to charters and functional specifications.  We do this work within company processes or can help institute business analysis processes and standards that work for your organization.  All documentation provided is to company standards (if none exist, we will create standards either formally or ad-hoc by providing documentation in a standard format).

Design Your PMO:

Do you have a PMO? Do you think you need a PMO?  We can help evaluate your need for a PMO and recommend a PMO style based on your requirements.  We can also help set up the PMO organization (either matrixed or stand-alone), help set standards and requirements, and educate the members as required.