Short CV
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benoit-lorant-8546413
I have worked about 20 years as a consultant for the European Commission. I started my career as a professor (philologist) teaching linguistics and grammar at the HENALUX (Namur area), then I have graduated as an analyst programmer (ESA, Namur Area). I have developed web applications at the European Commission. I have interest for translation Tools.
Relation with PM2
In 2015, I discovered the PM² methodology and decided to pass the 2 exams to be PM² certified: theory and practitioner.
Today I work as a project Manager on a project that is called Coldfusion Transformation Program. I use the PM² methodology: Project Dashboard, Project Handbook, Minutes of meeting template: all the templates I used come from PM².
As I have also a technical background, I am able also to create reports to show the progression of the transformation: European Commission want to get rid of the Coldfusion applications and wants to replace that technology by a more « modern » one. Our goal is to monitor the transformation. We have set ourselves quantified objectives: like we see in the Business case (benefits section), it’s important to quantify our objectives; we have decided that 100% of applications must have a transformation status.
This status is based on the different PM² phases: starting, planning, executing, closing and we added 2 additional one: not started and complete. We are able to monitor the transformation. I also regularly call the European Commission DGs to talk with IRMs about where they are in the process of transformation. The next challenge is to check the speed of the transformation: we keep the information on every report that is produced and we want to show in a chart how fast the dgs are moving from one phase to another.
Positive Points
What I like in the methodology is the mindsets: the methodology is not just a cold methodology but it insists on the way you should behave: “share your knowledge”, “bring maximum value” to the project, invest in the team to become a better project leaders, etc. That is unique from my point of view.
Improvement Points
From my point of view, what could be improved is to link the project methodology with the artefacts required for the IT project in the execution phase. I work in the enterprise architecture team of the European Commission and we try to draw the attention of the DGs on the IT artefacts that they should produce: Activity diagram, sequence diagram, Entity-Relation diagram; These artefacts are also important in the process of developing applications.