A day in the life of three Young Improven consultants

Matthijs Bennemeer, Nina Wieringa and Andjnie Patti work at consultancy firm Improven as Young Improven consultants. They look back on the past months and describe a day in their working life at various clients.

Matthijs Bennemeer has been working as junior project manager at Merem Medical Rehabilitation in Hilversum since September this year. Merem provides specialist medical (pulmonary) rehabilitation to children, adolescents and adults through the commitment of passionate healthcare professionals. Together with colleague Ivo Heijtel, consultant at Improven, Matthijs maps the ideal Customer Journey, the journey of employees and clients, so that Merem can better respond to communication needs.

For this project, Matthijs uses the Pragmatic Project Management (PPM) methodology developed by Improven, which is a combination of the waterfall method and short-cycle working, also known as an agile approach. In concrete terms, for the project this means that Matthijs and his project team work towards a set goal and discuss progress with the Merem project team on a weekly, short-cycle basis. Afterwards, the next steps in the process are determined.

This method helps Matthijs, as he himself says, "to deliver the desired result within the target time and budget". As all project managers within Merem have switched to the Improven Way of Working (with PPM), the organisation has become more project-based, agile and predictable.

The employee and client insights form the basis for the creation of the improvement proposal. Once this phase is completed, the implementation plan and, of course, the actual implementation follow. "In healthcare, people work incredibly hard. It is great to be able to contribute to these people as well as the clients."

The client, Marleen van Toorn, Marketing & Communications Manager, is very satisfied with both of Improven's gentlemen because they work towards a solid result in a professional and project-based manner. "Thinking along with the solution direction to improve the satisfaction and involvement of employees and clients is what I get out of bed for in the morning," says Matthijs, who adds that practice is also the best teacher.

A warm bath

Since October this year, Nina Wieringa has been working for Improven as a Young Improven consultant. "The first two weeks at Improven were like a warm bath. I was able to get well acquainted with my colleagues at the Utrecht office". Nina was then immediately allowed to go on assignment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ) in The Hague. BZ makes the Netherlands safer and more prosperous and is committed to a fair and sustainable world.

Nina works as a PMO in the information services department for two project managers. Her first assignment involves a complex IT project. Currently, BZ is working on a major BI migration project. For this project, Nina mainly fulfils a role in external communication. For Nina, this project in particular is very challenging. "With my change management background, the IT cq BI world is completely new to me, which makes it challenging and instructive".

The second project involves the digital optimisation of service applications within the ministry. For instance, they want to capture all the activities required to send a diplomat abroad in a digital process. This is first mapped out by means of a customer journey. During this project, Nina is a sparring partner for her project manager and deals with reviewing plans, creating budgets and taking care of communication towards stakeholders, among other things. "The challenge of the project lies in bringing together the different visions within BZ."

Before Nina joined Improven, she worked mainly for commercial organisations. "Initially, I had reservations about the fit between government organisations and my own profile. But after one-and-a-half months at the department, my preconception about the government was completely dispelled." For instance, Nina experienced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very dynamic. Two projects at the same time can involve a lot of hectic work. Here she fortunately finds support from her more experienced Improven colleagues.

Social impact

Andjnie Patti, a Young Improven consultant of the first batch, is currently working as Interface manager at Royal Schiphol Group. Royal Schiphol Group is the owner and operator of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, among others, and has an important social mission of creating value for society and the economy.

Due to the continued growth of passengers at Schiphol in recent years, the process locations of target groups, roads and infrastructure on the landside of Schiphol Centre have reached their maximum capacity. This brings a lot of challenges for accessibility. Thus, the 'SLIM-Integrated' programme was born. SLIM stands for Schiphol Landside Infrastructure and Mobility and aims to secure the accessibility of Schiphol-Centre at strategic and tactical level.

In her role as Interface Manager of this programme, Andjnie is concerned with the cohesion, monitoring, coordination and alignment of the various projects. She also reports to the programme manager and director on ongoing projects that may affect the programme's objective. This information ensures better alignment of projects and leads to the initiation of new measures.

According to Andjnie, the challenges in this programme are maintaining an overview while diving into the content, gathering information and ensuring that the right project managers are aligned in time. The APEF training courses from Young Improven's training programme come in handy for Andjnie. During these trainings, consultancy skills (A) and personal effectiveness (PEF) take centre stage. Among other things, these consultancy skills have helped her to deal well with resistance and to be a firmer discussion partner for Schiphol's management.

"The great thing about this project is that in my role I get to know the organisation very well and I get to think along at strategic and tactical level". In addition, Andjnie feels very satisfied when she has been able to extract from a conversation the most important interfaces with other projects that no one has thought of yet. Every week, Andjnie starts with the question "what important interfaces will I discover this week?".