About
After more than 30 years of successfully managing IT projects, I now collaborate with nonprofits to implement strategic projects that increase organizational capacity.
Services
To achieve successful outcomes, I will manage your projects, coach and train staff, deploy best practice methodologies and governance, and facilitate the change process.
Approach
I continuously engage stakeholders so they know “What’s In It for Them.” I leverage best practices to develop and execute workable plans to deliver valuable results.
Are Your Projects Delivering the Goods?
Nonprofit leaders have a near-impossible task. Stakeholders, especially your funders, demand you do more with less, while increasing your service delivery. That’s a tall order.
According to The Standish Group*, about 82 percent of all projects struggle to deliver on time, on budget or with the planned features and functionality. When projects fail to result in the business outcomes necessary to increase organizational capacity, it is a frustrating experience.
A Project Management Culture Leads to Successful Outcomes
Creating a project management culture in your organization means adopting best practices to ensure that you’re working on the right projects, and significantly increases the likelihood that they are delivered on time, budget, and scope.
Your team will be more productive and less stressed, and your organizational capacity will increase. And most importantly, you’ll get the business value needed to deliver critical program services to your constituents and make your nonprofit more successful.
Why Projects Are So Challenging
Your team works hard, but struggle to manage projects where the scope often changes. Despite concerted efforts, they’re doing a lot of work on projects that don’t provide the necessary outcomes. When they are trained to use project management best practices, they will have the skills that enable them to acknowledge, communicate and control these changes. That will lead to better results.
THE KEYS
The key elements of creating a project management culture in your organization are:
Effective communications between stakeholders
Building trust-based work relationships among stakeholders
Doing just enough planning before executing
Acknowledging and analyzing the impact of scope changes
Visible senior leadership support and advocacy
These elements work together to dramatically increase the delivery of successful projects.
About Maria Latimore
I’m Maria Latimore, a PMP-certified consultant with more than 30 years of project management experience in various sectors. I collaborate with nonprofits to implement strategic projects that drive their program services, increase fundraising and expand organizational capacity.
AboutAre you having problems getting your programs up and running?
LET MARIA LATIMORE GROUP HANDLE IT.
We bring the right mix of planning and action to implement your mission-critical projects on time.
THE LATIMORE BLOG
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Maria’s insight and experience with strategic planning made the whole experience enjoyable and manageable. Her ability to include everyone’s ideas and opinions while shepherding us through the process made me confident that the final product we created was of high quality and reflected our community needs. Her collaborative approach when designing the project scope as well as individual meeting agendas and activities was key to the overall success of this project. First-rate/high quality work and professionalism!
Jim Hermelbracht – Director of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UMass Boston
Maria is an incredibly skilled and highly proficient project manager and teacher/mentor. She quickly grasped our unique and complex health organization and engendered tremendous confidence from team members. I wish I had her back right now!
Laura Wagner, SVP Geriatric Services, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center
Maria displayed a can-do attitude and out-of-the-box thinking to help move forward our initiatives. Her leadership and organizational skills are second to none. She ranks among the top program managers I have worked with.
Bennie Jones – Young People’s Success Series
Maria has this remarkable way of bringing everything and everyone together. Her friendly but assertive style and constant enthusiasm has earned the collective trust and respect of everyone.
Lendale Beverly – Young People’s Success Series
Maria is a whole-brain thinker who is equally gifted at analyzing initiatives from the concept level and taking them down to a very granular action-plan level with a focus on accountability.
Michele Simos – The Dignity Institute
Maria is a strong, ethical leader with a blend of technical skills combined with sharp business acumen. She is dedicated in her quest to deliver streamlined solutions and implement changes to address the most complex problems.