Iuliia Kylymenchuk is the Development Director at CHESM (Chornomorenergospetsmontazh), responsible for implementing new ideas and business processes, and partially managing operations. She has been with the company for over ten years.
In 2020, she graduated from the Construction Project Manager (CPM6) program at the PRO PM Construction school.
Iuliia shared the story of IT implementations at CHESM. In 2020, LEO Consulting cooperated with CHESM to implement MS Project and other Microsoft 365 programs. Oleksiy Prosnytskyy became the project manager.
About the company
Industry: construction, energy
Number of employees – 250+ people
Geography – Ukraine, Moldova, Czech Republic
Cash turnover for the year – UAH 500,000,000
CHESM (Chernomorenergospetsmontazh) is a Ukrainian company specializing in the construction of energy facilities. The company carries out construction and installation of substations, thermal, gas turbine, wind and solar power plants, and power lines of all voltage levels. Before the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the company was engaged in projects in the Czech Republic and Moldova.
Currently, almost 90% of the company’s revenue comes from projects to restore damaged energy facilities caused by missile attacks. Unfortunately, all new energy projects in Ukraine are currently frozen.
| 400+ successfully implemented projects | 250+ team members |
24 years on the Ukrainian market |
About cooperation with LEO Consulting
At the end of 2019, we noticed a young and ambitious company called EDS Engineering among the competitors participating in public tenders, they had a rather aggressive position and we started to follow and study them with interest. Then we found out about the PRO PM school, because many of the EDS team members had been studied there. We also found out that they were working with LEO Consulting on implementing IT tools for project management. Our company has long been making a decision to implement an IT solution for project management, and the research of EDS Engineering’s competitor pushed us to make these changes. So we contacted LEO Consulting with a request.
Managing a project in MS Project is a market requirement. Therefore, we did not ask ourselves the question “What IT tool should we use for project management?”. No, the question was “Who will teach us how to using MS Project?”.
We considered other companies that offer similar services, but it was very important for us that our future partner had experience in implementing in our field of activity. Energy construction has its own peculiarities and differs from the construction of cottages, industrial facilities, etc.
On January 23, 2020, we signed a contract for the implementation of MS Project with LEO Consulting and the following month we conducted training for the entire team on project management methodology, started the implementation project and created regulations.
I am convinced that for qualitative changes it is important to have agents of influence in the team, because it is much easier to “change the rules” with them. Our company was founded in 2000, and since then everyone has gotten used to working the way they do. So, to make changes, I needed support and like-minded people with whom we could speak the same language. In parallel with the implementation, which was carried out by LEO Consulting, a team of 4 people was trained in the Construction Project Manager program at the PRO PM Construction school (fig.1). Later, 3 site managers and 1 project administrator completed a specialized program.
fig.1. Photo by the CHESM team graduated from PRO PM school
The team from LEO Consulting taught us how to work with Microsoft Project, and Oleksii Prosnytskyi changed the philosophy of project management in our company.
Before and after the implementation of MS Project, Microsoft 365, and Power BI
We had a problem with information security and access to information. We had a single server and had to customize access to each folder. It was hard to control. Now we use Teams and it is very convenient in terms of speed and reliability.
As for project management, we have completely switched to MS Teams (fig. 2). There we have all communication, archiving, data transfer, document flow, task distribution and control.
fig. 2. Visualizing the structure of information management in MS Teams
We work with the public sector, which means a lot of paperwork. However, the successful operation of IT tools in our company has helped speed up even this process.
We have also integrated knowledge sharing – we record all the factoids that we have had on the project. This is already built into the process – once a month we hold a meeting dedicated to this. All project managers prepare and fill out the relevant documents. And at the meeting, we discuss it together.
The speed of work has increased. Communication has become better. The decision-making process has been simplified. Now the project manager has access to information on all procurements, payment statuses, and so on. And access to this is in 1 click.
Thanks to the use of Power BI, there is no longer any need to ask project managers to provide project reports – all information is now collected and updated daily.
On working with the team in times of change
We are a democratic company and every employee has a say. This is the value of our company. We warn people about all changes and prepare them mentally for them – we show them what opportunities the new tools will provide, how they work, and what benefits they will bring to employees. It is very important to explain why we are doing this. In fact, all tools improve work, they make it easier. That’s why this is the motivation – “let’s make our work easier”. I am in favor of employees finishing their working day on time and going home at 6 p.m., rather than staying up late working.
The biggest problem with implementation is people’s skepticism of something new.
Not everyone wants to change something. Therefore, you need to start with something small. And then show that it works and then scale it to the entire company. For example, we introduced project cards – it looked like additional accounting in a particular department. At the end of this pilot project, we presented to the team what reports appeared, what processes were simplified, where we saved resources, etc. People realized the value and opportunities that had emerged and quickly picked up on it.
Is the use of specialized IT tools an additional bonus in the eyes of our customers?
Unfortunately, the lowest price is the most competitive advantage for participating in a tender. And if the potential customer is a private company, then of course, this will be a big plus, because we can present how we control the project, what our team is like, what areas of responsibility, reports, etc.
4 Lesson Learned points if your company is on the verge of changes:
1) Enlist the support of change agents.
2) Record the lessons learned.
3) Don’t underestimate communication – spend time on it and talk to your team.
4) If you have questions, ask them right away, because they don’t go away on their own.
Future challenges
There is one must-have in public procurement – estimates. It is a tool that helps you close the contract with the customer. In this regard, budgeting is a difficult issue for us. After all, we still make budgets in Excel. We are hesitant to integrate estimates into the management system at all. We are afraid that we will be working for the system, not the system will be working for us. A lot of people need to be involved in this transition process. Moreover, our business model has now shifted from large, long projects to fast and short ones. That’s why estimates have a life of their own, and actual expenses have their own.
The most important thing now is to survive during this war. We plan to develop other areas that we see as perspective.
I am glad that we have LEO Consulting in Ukraine. It is fascinating that they are working to improve management systems, which in many Ukrainian companies, regardless of industry, leave much to be desired. Their accumulated experience and knowledge contribute to the development of many organizations.
Our company, CHESM, is currently negotiating with several construction companies from Poland. From this experience, I realized that Ukrainian companies really have effective project management tools. Although I had a feeling that we in Ukraine were far from being at the forefront in this regard. But after negotiations with foreign companies, I realized that we are superior to many European companies. And this realization is impressive.