Message Technologies views project management as a mixture of art, science, processes, and a lot of common sense. Our goal is to maintain a sound, reasonable, and consistent philosophy based on real-world experience and best practices.
Generally speaking, MTI's projects involve the following steps:
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Creating a project overview
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Specifying project activities and work breakdown structures
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Sequencing project activities
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Writing a project proposal
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Organizing a project team
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Assigning work
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Managing people and relationships
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Managing the project schedule (positive and negative variances, Gantt charts, etc.)
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Closing the project
In addition to the "normal" process, speech applications require a process of refinement in order to optimize containment and customer satisfaction. This includes an analysis of call flow, scripts, grammars, the interaction of these elements and customer satisfaction. When MTI engages in the design and development of a speech application, this refinement process is anticipated and budgeted. This effort is conducted in the first year of operation.
Elements of DeMarco, Yourdon, and Ward are incorporated into MTI's project managment approach. But perhaps most central to the process is the notion that the solution is all important; managers and employees often engage in segmentalism (a term used by Rosabeth Moss Kanter) wherein they take ownership of their discipline rather than looking holistically at the solution. MTI stresses that project management crosses all corporate disciplines and the solution is the focus of our attention.
Our approach is to take risks and manage them, provide clear leadership and direction, and to involve the client in all steps from planning and organizing to controlling the project and anticipating change.
