Holistic Problem
Solving
We appreciate it when clients come to us with a general outcome they want to see realized and allow us to be their partner in actualizing that vision. One of the keys to our success is our knowledge of and strong belief in the power and discipline of Project Management. We are able to lead clients through the whole project management cycle, adapting our expertise to client needs every step of the way. These partnerships often result in the development of a number of projects and deliverables from needs assessment and analysis, to program design, management and training.
Our Approach
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First we begin at the end - Working together we clearly define the problem the organization wants to solve.
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Then, we determine best strategies, identify deliverables, and develop measures of success.
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To keep everyone on track we use project management tools - such as Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, or a simple Excel spreadsheet - and methodologies that fit the needs of the organization and teams using them.
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As we move along, we keep re-visiting our goals as resources and environments change and new information is available.
In Action
The Challenge: Increase Resiliency
A large supportive housing provider came to Grunewald Consulting with the broad goal of improving emergency planning and Increasing organization resiliency. As we worked with an interdisciplinary team to explore ways to increase resilience at all organizational and department levels, a top priority emerged: Ensure the staff at its thirteen residences (with 100-600 tenants each) was empowered to respond to large and small disasters and that there was consistency in their approach.
We started by creating a plan template that provided a basic construct for responding to and managing emergencies, considered critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and provided clear guidance and checklists to address various types of emergencies. Next, we created buy-in at the building level by convening leadership teams. We customized the plans to reflect each building's unique vulnerabilities, programmatic focus, organizational partners and building code regulations.
To empower program leadership to train their staff on emergency concepts, policies and procedures, we created training tools and piloted staff training sessions.
Throughout the multi-year partnership, we worked with the project team to build a detailed project plan identifying short term and long term emergency management goals. As the budget permitted, we were able to address a number of issues on the list, including creating emergency related human resources policies and a detailed planning framework for hurricane preparedness. But, more importantly, we ended the partnership knowing that staff had the knowledge, skills, tools and motivation to sustain a stronger emergency management program at the organization.