Project Management and Cybersecurity: Mantras of Growth

PART 1

About the Event

Project execution, customer satisfaction and cybersecurity are three components for achieving sustainable growth. Nevertheless, in the recent past, global organizations have been challenged. 

The recent pandemic and its implication along with a sudden shift in the work culture taught us many lessons. One of the most important lessons learnt is how individuals and organizations could improve their project management approach and IT security to ensure customer success. 

Therefore, ARCON, a global thought leader in the Information Security domain, recently organized a 2-day virtual summit by partnering with one of the top business schools from Mumbai, Chetana Institute of Management (CIM). 

The purpose of this 2-day virtual summit was to disseminate knowledge with everyone. 

The 2-day virtual summit: The New Trinity for Business Growth: Customers, Projects and Security included eminent speakers, revered thought leaders, academicians, industry professionals representing both ARCON and CIM. The experts shared their experiences and views  on the role of project Management and cybersecurity for business growth.

The virtual summit was divided into 2 days—25th June & 26th June 2021, from 4pm to 8pm daily. Here is a quick recap of day 1. 

DAY 1

The speakers of day 1 included:

• Mr. Lalit Popli, Chief Operating Officer, ARCON
• Dr. Madhumita Patil, Chief Executive Officer, Chetana Institute of Management
• Prof. Shilpa Kajbaje, Faculty, Chetana Institute of Management
• Mr. Prashant Neharkar, Enterprise Agile Coach, Majesco
• Dr. Mahesh Luthia, Associate Professor & Area Chair – HR, Chetana Institute of Management
• Mr. Sachin Jaiswal, PMO Lead at Accenture UK

The virtual summit was inaugurated with the graceful presence of Mr. Lalit Popli, Chief Operating Officer, ARCON and Dr. Madhumita Patil, Chief Executive Officer, Chetana Institute of Management. The overall objective of this summit was to highlight the W’s (What, Why, Where, Which) of Project Management globally and how digital security can play a crucial role in it. Above all, customer satisfaction.is the mother of all objectives desired by every organization behind any business decision. Prof. Shilpa Kajbaje was the first speaker of the day, who gave a lucid yet vivid presentation on Project management and its various components (an overview). The key takeaways from the session:

• A project is nothing but a sequence of tasks that are completed to attain a certain goal
• A project could be even a temporary endeavour with a definite beginning and ending
• Various industries like IT, healthcare, automobile, banking, retail, telecommunications, media, education, construction etc. follow project management guidelines
• Different Project Management standards/ models offer successful planning for projects
• ERP software could be the base of projects in any organizations, though many organizations fail to ensure secured and successful completion of business projects 
• The basic ingredient of any project is the need – if ‘need’ is not clear behind initiating any project, then chances of being unsuccessful is high
• Almost 67% of global projects fail due to tendency of undervaluing project management which pinpoints that equal concentration of time, cost and quality is hardly followed

Mr. Prashant Neharkar, as the next speaker, continued to discuss the scope of project management in any given industry and how it ensures to achieve business goals. Here is a summary of what he discussed:

• A successful project depends on the scope of work, manageable cost, adequate time and resources
• A quality project requires a quality resource to ensure a quality output
• Detailed blueprint of a project before initiation is mandatory, else it might crush
• Project management life cycle includes 5 components: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & controlling, and Closing
• In any organization, to handle projects, multiple teams take part in the assigned responsibilities and share the success/ failures. They are development team, execution team, procurement team and the approval team

Dr. Mahesh Luthia, Associate Professor & Area Chair – HR, Chetana Institute of Management has shared his 360 degree view on a project manager and the key roles and responsibilities.

• A highly skilled project manager ensures what to integrate, when to integrate and how to integrate planned/ desired projects
• The scope management, quality management, communication management and resource management are the three areas taken care by a project manager
• Owns an entire project delivery and thus focuses on strategic competence to ensure business success
• 360 degree view of a project manager involves a talent triangle namely technical project management, strategic & business project management and leadership
• The core competencies of a project manager revolves around project controls, leading project teams, commercial skills, communication skills and domain knowledge

Mr. Prashant Neharkar resumed his next session with his views on project to product mindset. To name a few brands like Ola, Swiggy, Oyo, Big Basket – all are an idea that got converted into a product. Now there are lots of projects around these products that opportunate these products with new business avenues. Here are key takeaways from the comparative analysis:

• A project mindset leads to less business involvement and more task involvement whereas a product mindset has more creativity and less waste
• A project is more client centric that has a start date and an end date; whereas a product is more market centric where there is no end of evolution
• A project manager deals with people to meet the deadlines but a product manager always concentrates on adding something new to the existing and thereby adding value
• Product management is indirectly value management where the customers experience ultimate satisfaction but for project management there might not be chances of value addition

Mr. Sachin Jaiswal, PMO Lead at Accenture UK was the last speaker of Day 1. He gave an in-depth presentation on the topic “Project Management Tools in the New Paradigm and with Globally Distributed Teams”. The key takeaways from the session were:

• Every now and then in the ever-changing world requires tools to embrace the changes happening in industry and business
• To explain the exact need for tools, we found that functional efficiency, stakeholder satisfaction, better decision making, improved communication, standardized approach etc. work as key reasons
• Numerous tool selection criteria works as an initiator or deciding factor to ensure business continuity and customer satisfaction from the products/ services
• As per different project management areas, there are different tools to ease the task such as workflow tool, repository tool, presentation tool, planning tool, time tracking tool, custom tool and also finance tool.
• Leadership in Project management is inculcated through three matrices – Delivery Matrix, Financial Matrix and Operational Matrix

The sessions of Day 2 will be discussed in our next blog. Stay Updated.