The high tech and medical industry is responsible for a large part of our economic growth, and therefore of our prosperity. It is now well known that this hardware-dominated world cannot do without software expertise, but good process control, reliability and project management are at least as important. Holland Innovative helps the high-tech and medical industry with this, both in projects on location and through training. In a series of articles, we show how. Today: Marco Dominicus.
No matter how specialized a company may be, there is always a moment when it is necessary to have someone take a fresh look at the processes. Marco Dominicus, project manager at Holland Innovative, often hears it. “Sometimes it’s because, despite all that specialized knowledge, they keep running into a field problem that they just can’t figure out. Other times it is an acute risk that needs to be tackled. No matter how ‘deep’ the problem, we can always use our knowledge of root cause analysis to determine the cause of it. As outsiders and thanks to our systematic approach, we bring something extra to such a company.”
Marco has been working for Holland Innovative as a project manager for more than three years now. But during that time he only spent a small part of his time at HI’s offices. “In fact, I almost always work at a customer’s home. This is how we work in our projects: a Holland Innovative project manager really becomes part of the customer’s process, one becomes a member of the team. That always goes very smoothly, very naturally. But at the same time, you do have a special position: you are there to ask the so-called stupid questions, the typical questions of an outsider. That helps, because many internal people suffer from blinkers, take things for granted. We can break this by simply continuing to ask about the how and why of certain processes.”
What also helps is that a project manager usually does not suffer from the existing hierarchy. Marco: “I talk to the boss just as easily as I talk to someone in the office or an employee in blue overalls. And often you notice that you hear things that somehow do not penetrate from one layer within that company to another. If you manage to break through that, you really have an added value. I try to help people to develop themselves, and through them to make an organization stronger.”
Marco Dominicus didn’t know Holland Innovative at all when he started looking for a new job in 2016. He initially wanted to go to school but was still hesitant about it when he started talking to a colleague from Holland Innovative at a Career Fair. “I immediately became enthusiastic about what he said. What Holland Innovative does is really a solution for many companies that get stuck in something. I was eager to contribute to that.”
“In order to prevent a problem from repeating itself, you also want to embed new working methods”
On top of his assignments as a project manager, Marco still has various educational tasks as well. “To me, that feels like more than just a side job. You try to solve a concrete problem in a company, but in order to prevent a problem from repeating itself, you also want to embed new working methods. In order to do this, you also need to teach your temporary colleagues how to deal with it. Of course, I have my own approach. I do it in a coach-like way. Everything is done in consultation, not on the basis of coercion or hierarchy because then it only works for a short period of time. You often have to take your time for it and that’s why we can never determine in advance exactly how long we will be working for a company. Usually, this is about three to six months, but my first project lasted a year and a half.”
There is yet another way in which Marco’s educational capacities are used: sometimes he is used for specific courses and colloquia organised by HI. “This happens on this one day a week when I’m not with a customer. Sometimes they are internal courses, sometimes they are external. It’s good that I can continue to develop myself in this way.”
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