Momentum Metropolitan Africa has successfully implemented its Project Portfolio Office project and portfolio management solution using an agile approach in five African countries, including Namibia, Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho and Mozambique, and its head office South Africa.
Momentum Metropolitan Africa is a subsidiary of Momentum Metropolitan Holdings Limited. Its footprint on the African continent spans five countries, with a strong legacy, operating for over 51 years. Momentum Metropolitan Africa’s core businesses are located in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Ghana and Mozambique, with the core team operating in South Africa. In addition, Momentum Metropolitan employs 2,445 people across the African market.
The purpose is to enable businesses and individuals of all professions to achieve their financial goals and life aspirations. Momentum Metropolitan Africa’s business activities are diverse and include various segments in the financial services industry such as life insurance, health insurance and health insurance management, pension planning, short-term insurance, asset management, wealth and collective investment.
In all countries, Momentum Metropolitan Africa focuses on providing innovative and customer-centric financial solutions, leveraging its expertise in risk management, asset allocation and wealth preservation. As a business, we emphasize a strong commitment to commitment to ethical business practices, regulatory compliance and responsible corporate citizenship in all of our operations in all of our markets.
Momentum Metropolitan Africa uses a local approach in each country to tailor its offerings and operations to each market’s unique cultural, economic and regulatory landscapes. This includes adapting product offerings, distribution channels and marketing strategies to meet the specific needs and preferences of customers in each country, while maintaining the group’s core identity and brand standards.
Momentum Metropolitan Africa recently successfully implemented its Project Portfolio Office project and portfolio management, PPM solution, in five African countries, including Namibia, Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho and Mozambique, and its head office South Africa.
Importantly, the rollout was completed using the flexible approach of the Project Portfolio Office. This approach was critical to its smooth completion. A Big Bang approach tends to see people get lost in the details, without seeing the bigger picture they are working towards.
Momentum Metropolitan Africa’s Portfolio Management Office, PMO, wanted to be able to properly define each phase of the journey before proceeding, ensuring that team members were happy and comfortable after each iteration, realizing that they were building the foundations of what was to come. it’s a castle at the end.
Legacy pain points
When Victor Chidongo, joined Momentum Metropolitan Africa in late 2022, as Head of the PMO’s Portfolio Management Office, it was evident that the organization did not have sufficient visibility around the project management environment in the various countries.
In terms of tradition and methodology, there were too many different approaches and standards. The ripple effect was that the organization was making project decisions based on outdated information.
These included:
- Lack of real-time visibility into project status and resource usage causes delays
- Poor communication and cooperation between teams leads to misunderstandings and duplicated efforts
- Resource management issues resulted in over-allocation, under-utilisation and conflicts
- Lack of structured prioritization, leading to conflicting priorities and inefficient allocation of resources.
- Manual project planning processes that cause errors and delays
- Inadequate risk management processes led to disruptions and cost overruns
- Limited scalability of existing tools and processes hindered the ability to manage a growing number of projects and diverse portfolios
- Challenges with customer satisfaction, stakeholder management, compliance and data silos further impact reputation
Choose the solution
Chidongo had previously assisted in a survey of various PPM tools available in the market, which concluded that Project Portfolio Office was a superior choice. In addition, the experience of the Project Portfolio Office in developing applications in many countries added to the decision.
However, instead of a face-to-face implementation where discussions can take place, Momentum Metropolitan Africa chose to complete the development remotely. And he opted for agile rollout to ensure each cycle was properly tailored and adopted appropriately. This was necessary due to the different levels of maturity in each of the countries involved.
Project Portfolio Office also emerged as the preferred choice as it met the requirements with its built-in APIs that facilitate seamless integration with current systems.
![Guy Jelley, Co-Founder and CEO, Project Portfolio Office](https://www.intelligentcio.com/africa/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/03/Guy-Jelley-Co-Founder-and-CEO-Project-Portfolio-Office_1000x450-1.jpg)
![Guy Jelley, Co-Founder and CEO, Project Portfolio Office](https://www.intelligentcio.com/africa/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/03/Guy-Jelley-Co-Founder-and-CEO-Project-Portfolio-Office_1000x450-1.jpg)
Solution snapshot
Project Portfolio Office, PPO exists to enable organizations to achieve greater project success by implementing and adopting a simple-to-use, cost-effective, configurable yet scalable project portfolio management application to plan, manage, collaborate, execute and report their projects, programs and portfolios.
With numerous offices in London and South Africa and a global partner network, users range from consultants to global Fortune 500 organizations managing everything from consulting, IT, strategy, marketing, new product launches and innovation, NPD, manufacturing, large mining and engineering projects and programs.
Our PPO project and portfolio management tool has been designed from the ground up to be a highly scalable, web-based, Software-as-a-Service, SaaS application. With extensive policies, procedures and automated systems in place, the app remains available to users. The underlying architecture ensures that the system scales extremely well, whether you have five or 1,000 users.
Our preconfigured solutions for traditional project management office, Agile Software Development or somewhere in between, get you working outside the box and are easily customizable to align with the way your organization works and offer functionality for every aspect of portfolio management projects.
Whether you’re a large enterprise or a dynamic new start-up, our scalable pricing options are designed to help your business succeed. Terms for using PPO include monthly subscription model, no long-term contracts, no complicated role-based pricing, free support, free product upgrades, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited document storage, unlimited projects.
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Implementation process
Project Portfolio Office offers a tried and tested agile implementation approach that starts with identifying the project portfolio management capabilities the client wants to implement. These capabilities are then broken down into sprints or cycles usually lasting two weeks.
Each cycle has a defined set of activities that include Requirements Definition and Design, Configuration and Admin Training, Demonstration, Testing and Awareness, User Training, User Q&A, and Adoption Metrics Review.
The Project Portfolio Office’s approach is to become a long-term partner to clients to ensure they continuously derive incremental value from the tool which, by its very nature, will transform as the client’s organizational maturity develops.
Benefits after implementation
Following the implementation of the Project Portfolio Office, Momentum Metropolitan Africa has experienced numerous business and operational benefits.
These included:
- Overcoming data silos
- Improved visibility into project status
- Improved collaboration between teams leading to efficiency
- Efficient resource management that reduces conflicts
- Strategic prioritization aligned with business goals
- Improved project planning and execution
- Improved risk management to mitigate disruptions
- Better compliance with internal policies
- Increased customer satisfaction through effective project delivery
- Enhanced relationships with stakeholders
- Better data management and reporting
- Provide accurate project information for informed decision making
The Project Portfolio Office’s ability to provide reporting across multiple currencies at any one time has been a major success story for the PMO. This contributes to the positive turnaround in its perception within the organization, from being a cost center to now being seen as a partner who is there to help the business succeed.
Confidence through documentation is another benefit. The documentation that is created has instilled real confidence in the PMO team members and is no longer seen as an exercise. This clearer understanding leads to smoother signing, especially on matters related to governance.
And instead of long, potentially chaotic email chains, team members can now have more organized, efficient, collaborative conversations within the Project Portfolio Office itself.
Momentum Metropolitan Africa’s PMO does not operate in a vacuum, it operates with people sitting across various lines of business seconded to the PMO for specific tasks. This means it’s important for them to understand how much of their time is spent on projects and to explain it easily.
Moving forward, Chidongo adds that he intends to put a monetary value on every effort put into the PMO in order to quantify what is being created, not just in monetary terms, but also the value that is being created.
“Our entire experience with the Project Portfolio Office has been excellent. The Project Portfolio Office team has forged a strong partnership with Momentum Metropolitan Africa, treating us as much more than a client,” reflects Chidongo.
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