At DPCI, Process is King - The Importance of DPCI's Project Engagement Manual

Article by Lauren Fischetti, staff writer, DPCI

When company president Joseph Bachana founded Database Publishing Consultants, Inc. (DPCI) in 1999, he immediately began documenting company processes. “I had the feeling from the start,” he said, “that if the company was to be successful, it wasn’t enough to retain the best people and implement the best tools and technology. Fundamentally, we need a standardized, repeatable, measurable process that all employees could use to work together for best results.”

During this early building phase, it was difficult for Bachana to find time to distill the abundant pages of documentation for the Project Engagement Methodology and Process Manual into the most pertinent concepts. Paraphrasing mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, Bachana explained, “The present manual is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”

In the case of process documentation, bigger is definitely not better. Bachana intuited that the manual had to be condensed if it was to be a useful reference. “You can have 5,000 pages of information, but for it to be helpful to our staff, the manual needed to be no more than 50 pages, well indexed, and easily updated over time to meet the changing needs of our customers,” he said.

Over the past five years, various employees at DPCI have contributed to the engagement process manual. Starting in 2005, Vice President Tracy Gardner coordinated these efforts and worked with current staff members to shape the manual into its current form, which is 40 pages of process documentation followed by standard project templates and checklist documents.

Thousands of hours of work have been put into the document, but employees at DPCI say the finished product is an invaluable resource well worth the time and effort. Gardner feels the manual is absolutely essential to success. “The way the company runs makes all the difference,” she said. “We need great processes and rules to help us ensure great outcomes for our customers.”

According to Gardner, these processes and rules are useful because they were written by people who understand DPCI. “A generic project process manual wouldn’t reflect our company,” she said. “We know what processes work well and should be incorporated into the manual and which ones do not apply to us or our customers’ needs.”

   

        

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