Bankwest cites project management as key to capped rate home loan success

Bankwest has praised the use of project managers after revealing one of its key projects relied heavily on project management skills.

The bank launched its capped rate home loan in late 2009, with director of change management, Natasha Babich, saying that project managers were able to engage its stakeholders and reduce the projects’ time to market.

“Good project managers actively engage stakeholders and engagement is more than just emails,” Babich said. “It’s talking and listening to people face-to-face, and actually finding out what the issues are instead of just assuming.”

For more information on project management, see How to Create a Clear Project Plan and Why Projects Fail.

Bankwest chose to invest in certified project managers from the Project Management Institute for the home loan project, which was delivered within 12 months of its launch.

“The project significantly contributed to achieving Bankwest’s strategy of customer focus and using a ‘one team’ approach across the organisation,” Babich said.

“With this new product, we have been able to offer increased flexibility for our customers and the approach we took to project management formed an intrinsic part of our success.”

Bankwest’s success story comes as the Project Management Institute last year announced that careers in the sector were on the rise, with a 150-fold increase in postgraduate courses in the discipline.

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