Case study: Better project planning and control through professional use of Project 365

1. Description of the initial situation

The company is a highly specialized and leading supplier in the semiconductor industry. The products cover a wide range of customer needs, which have to be constantly adapted. While customer demands are increasing and the availability of raw materials is becoming more and more difficult, there is a simultaneous desire for always predictable on-time delivery of products, goods as well as services. Project management and the necessary software tools are essential. Microsoft Project is used as a tool here. At the core of the problem was the need for standardized use of Microsoft Project.

2. Objective

The customer explicitly wanted training for the Microsoft Project software. However, a simple software training often does not bring people with advanced IT skills any futher. There is often a large gap between the use of the software according to the manual and the real project cases in practice. It was important to the customer that the training not only shows pure features of the software, but also gives advantages, benefits and insights based on practical experience, which cannot be experienced in a self-learning process. The Kitzmann Institute was used here as a provider with its internationally experienced project trainers.

3. Format for the participants (online and in-person)

For the participants abroad, the training took place online. This was requested by the participants themselves as well as by the managers, as those persons were located far away all over Europe. The online training was held in English.

For headquarters employees, the training was held on site and in German. The content was coordinated so that all participants had the same level of knowledge at the end. In terms of methodology, the professional implementation was adapted to the respective requirements of both on-site and online training.

4. Results and future plans

The entire course was fully evaluated internally by the company as well as the Kitzmann Institute. Based on the participants' feedback the result was consistently very positive. The entire course was deemed to be a complete success. Further training courses on project management and the associated tools are planned for the future.