Managing consultant
UKIHIKO TAKAGI

"The project doesn't go well and the problem isn't solved is the result of PMO."

I currently provide project management (PMO) support associated mainly with system development, leveraging my service as a system engineer and programmer, my ERP package development experience, and more. Since I am often placed in charge of large scale projects at Toshiba, I make arrangements with numerous stakeholders, starting with the collaborating vendors. Specifically, I conduct assessments as needed and engage in the overall planning, progress management, and development management. Then from there, I also engage in areas such as testing and migration management.

The title "The project doesn't go well and the problem isn't solved is the result of PMO" is one of the keywords that the customer has said in the past. At the moment I was told, I thought, “It may be a part beyond my business area,” but that doesn't work. Therefore, we expanded the scope of work to the point where we asked the user department together with the person in charge, and solved the problem from the ground up.

This does not mean that it always necessary to take such an approach as a PMO; however, it was an extremely important experience for me and was the spark that strengthened my drive as a professional PMO to dig deeper to do what I could in order to accomplish the goal of the project.

It is just a matter of course that a PMO handles project management and change control. Any PMO can do that. I expect EBSS to be even more in the trenches.

This is also a keyword that has been remembered by our customers and is a particularly memorable keyword. When I thought about what this “muddy place” would be, I was asked not to go to the front, but to go to the field and work on a specific solution approach together. I understood that.

It is common to have to make arrangements between the development and business sides on a project, but my role is to zero in on the demands of the business side while gauging the circumstances of the development side. When it comes right down to it, my job is to provide the necessary information from time to time to the final decision maker ? the project manager ? and provide material that can be easily judged, but I also take going a bit deeper and getting in the trenches seriously, too.

I want to go on valuing communication that makes clients feel they can level with me.

As a result, I always receive words of gratitude from clients when a project is finished. As an accomplishment, my time on assignments tends to be long. I think it was precisely because I engage in communication that makes clients feel like they can level with me that my clients were able to tell me those two key phrases that have stuck with me. Communicating until both sides are satisfied and gaining mutual trust is extremely important.

I digress, but I refuse to attend drinking events. I only participate in company drinking parties about once every three years.

There isn’t anyone else in EBSS who goes this far, but I want to be judged on my work alone. I am truly grateful that I have numerous clients that have had relationships with me for a long time even with this personality of mine.