Project Management
Whether the project is an offshore or on-shore deployment of a critical application, a project to secure your infrastructure, a regulatory initiative that will impact your business, or implementing an enterprise-wide application, whatever the initiative, project management is often times the most critical component to success. Crush Technology's project managers work with our clients in a collaborative fashion to ensure projects get completed on time and within budget. Our experienced consultants have a proven track record in successfully managing and executing projects. Our project managers:

• Determine project strategy, approach, vision, goals, objectives, scope and budget.
• Obtain consensus from various stakeholders and outline a detailed project plan.
• Identify and assign optimal resources to tasks outlined in the project plan.
• Manage the execution of the project.
• Track the project's progression and identify risks, scope changes and appropriate mitigation strategies in an ongoing manner.

Project Management Office (PMO)
Since organizations typically have multiple initiatives / projects that are ongoing at any given time, there is a need for organizations to be able to centrally track and monitor these projects. Further, there is a need for an organization's multiple initiatives / projects to be managed using standard methodologies, templates and procedures. A Project Management Office (PMO) is a function that enables organizations to centrally track and monitor the organization's multiple projects / initiatives while also ensuring that an organization's projects / initiatives are being managed using standardized processes, methodologies and deliverable templates.

However, the challenge that most organizations face is that they do not have a PMO function. Towards this end, Crush Technology Consultants can help organizations:

• Initiate and setup a Project Management Office (PMO).
• Outline PMO goals, objectives, vision, structure and resources.
• Outline processes, deliverable templates and methodologies for successful PMO execution.
• Provide training and mentoring to enable successful execution of the PMO.

Program Management
Often, organizations initiate initiatives that are comprised of multiple projects all working towards the same common goals and objectives. In other instances, a business area of an organization may have multiple projects that the area would like to link together under a common umbrella for streamlined and optimized tracking, management and resource leveling. Initiatives comprised of multiple projects are often termed as Programs. Examples of Programs that are comprised of projects working towards common goals and objectives include Programs such as a Disaster Recovery Program or a Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Program. Examples of Programs that are comprised of multiple projects for a business area or for ease of tracking, management or resource leveling can include a Program of projects for Procurement or say Human Resources etc.

Irrespective of the nature of a Program, Crush Technology's team has a proven track record and experience in successfully managing and executing Programs where the following tasks are performed:.

• Determine program strategy, approach, vision, goals, objectives, scopes and budgets.
• Obtain consensus from various stakeholders and outline detailed master plans and sub project plans.
• Identify and assign optimal resources across the projects comprised in the Program and perform resource leveling to ensure resources are optimally utilized.
• Manage the execution of the Program.
• Track the Program's progression and identify risks, scope changes and appropriate mitigation strategies in an ongoing manner.

Vendor Management
Organizations often outsource various initiatives and functions to external vendors in order to gain cost savings, benefit from vendors' experience and best practices and in order to enable the organization's staff to focus on the organization's core competencies. Crush Technology can help organizations decide if outsourcing an initiative or function is a good decision. Towards this end, Crush Technology can help organizations:

• Analyze various initiatives and functions and determine ideal candidates for outsourcing.
• Perform detailed analysis and business cases for justifying the outsourcing.
• Identify vendor candidates for outsourcing and perform detailed analysis to help identify the vendor to whom the organization's initiative or function should be outsourced.
• Determine outsourcing strategy, approach, vision, goals, objectives, scopes and budgets.
• Obtain consensus from various stakeholders and outline detailed transition plans.
• Participate in vendor negotiations and outline vendor service levels and evaluation criteria.

Once an organization decides to outsource initiatives or functions to external vendors that are located offshore, near shore or on shore, Crush Technology can help the organization:

• Successfully manage the external vendor and outsourced initiatives.
• Participate and perform ongoing vendor negotiations to enable the successful execution of the initiatives.
• Manage the vendor contracts, service levels and ensure that the initiatives are successfully tracking per schedule, budget, and performance / service levels set for the vendors.

Project Audit
In order to ensure that projects are being executed successfully, are using effective processes and methodologies, and that projects continue to align with the business strategy and are tracking to the goals, objectives, scope and budget set during project initiation, it is recommended that projects be audited in an ongoing basis during the project lifecycle. Crush Technology has the experience and a proven methodology for auditing projects in an objective manner. During a Project Audit, Crush Technology will do the following:

• Review the project business case, goals, objectives, scope and budget set during the project initiation in order to gain an understanding of the project and its alignment with the business strategy.
• Meet with the project manager and relevant team members in order to perform an objective assessment of the current status of the project.
• Review project documentation in order to evaluate the progress of the project.
• Identify project risks, issues, successes and failures.
• Determine if the project continues to align with the business strategy and is tracking to the goals, objectives, scope and budget set during project initiation.
• Determine if the project is being successfully managed and executed using effective processes and methodology.
• Provide a detailed audit report containing the results of the audit and recommendations.

Project Recovery
Ever so often, organizations have initiatives or projects that are over budget, not tracking to the timeline, not aligned to the goals, objectives and strategy - in orther words, these projects and initiatives are in trouble. In such instances, organizations may not want to cancel such projects since the projects may be addressing critical business problems that the organization is facing or because the projects have the potential to enhance the organization's strategy and bottom line. Crush Technology can help organizations recover such troubled projects and bring the projects back on track with regards to their budget, timeline, scope and alignment with goals, objectives and business strategy. During a Project Recovery effort, Crush Technology will:

• Review the project business case, goals, objectives, scope and budget set during the project initiation in order to gain an understanding of the project and its alignment with the business strategy.
• Meet with the project manager and relevant team members in order to perform an objective assessment of the current status of the project.
• Review project documentation in order to evaluate the progress of the project.
• Identify project risks, issues, successes and failures.
• Obtain consensus from various stakeholders and outline a detailed project recovery plan.
• Identify and assign optimal resources to tasks outlined in the project recovery plan.
• Manage the recovery of the project back on track with regards to project budget, timeline, scope and alignment with goals, objectives and business strategy.
• Track the project's recovery progression and identify risks, scope changes and appropriate mitigation strategies in an ongoing manner.