March 18, 2014 Agenda Welcome & Introduction Congratulations to our newest Credential Holders Welcome to newest PMI Metrolina members Volunteer of the Month Volunteer Opportunities Corporate Partnership PDU Opportunities Upcoming Events Speaker Presentation Closing Congratulations to our Newest PMPs! Olufemi Jenna Charles Joshua Caroline Amy David Mike Heather John Holly Peter Aborisade Ackerson Asmus Ayers Johnston Kolovich Lownds Mostaghni Pees Stone, Sr. Thomas Zelinski Welcome to the Newest Chapter Members! Utkarsh Ahuja Jacob Ajayi Jeffrey Antman Sharonda Aplon Joseph D. Arancio Alfredo Azpurua Ramesh Babu Peter Barclay Butch Barksdale Sadrita Barnes Pamela Baskins Jana Beyo Kisha Bibb Kyle Andrew Black Bryan A. Blair Boutros Magdi Boutros Ross Brigman Scott Brooks Andrea Bruno Bryan Chun Trista Collins Barry Cox Daniel Curlin Nancy Faith Daborowski Tejinder Datt Michelle de Beus Donald DeBouse Crystal Duprey Desmond Duru Victoria Eastwood Zaher El Ali Inas Eldewek Beatriz Escobar Mark Fawcett Sandy Fischer Steve Frank Ryan Gabel Angela S. Gabriel Stephen Paul Gould Stephen Graybill Natasha Green Lisa Harwell Christopher L High Kathleen Hohenstein Aaron Holcomb Donald L Hunley Christopher Hyland Tiffany Jamison Duval Johns Michael Lawrence Julius Ryan Kehoe James Keirstad Scott King Jeffrey Knight Christopher Lancaster Jenny Linger Daniel W Little Anthony Lugo Vito James Macioce Kevin Malvey Paulo Marques Mary S Martin Clare Yuping-Fan Miller Helder Meneses LaTonya Middleton Mark Morton Aparna Narayanan Mariama Ndong Leah Neely Mark Nicasio Chaitanya Parkhi Patrick Parson Anand Patel Jessica Patton Jim Perkins Rebecca Phillips Jeremy Puzycki Brady Readling Diana Register Dawn Rennick Fabio Rincon Rosanne Rodriguez Bruce Rogers Scott Roosa Timothy Schneider Christie Sears Bradley Sullivan Susan Talton Cyrus Taheri Holly Thomas Theseia Tribble Rich VanKoughnett Yatish Vora Troy Weatherford Brian White Adam Winters Kelli Woodward Robert Wright Judene Wright Volunteer of the Month Dan Travieso works with the Communications Team on the chapter website. Dan is a PMP, PMI-RMP and Lean Six Sigma Sensei. He has also been a speaker for both the Fayetteville and Wilmington satellite meetings. Volunteer Opportunities Writer/Researcher/Proofreader - Content creator, researcher and proofreader for Monday PDU Opportunities Email, Monthly Newsletter, website and other special duties assigned. For more information about this opportunity, contact John Schneider at vpcommunications@pmi-metrolina.com Corporate Partnership Networking Partners Web Partners PDU Opportunities Satellite Meetings Next Chapter Meeting March 20 – Concord March 25– East Lake Norman March 27– Hickory March 27– Mint Hill April 8 – Southwest Charlotte April 10 – West Lake Norman April 15 Community Service March 22 - 2014 Rotarians Against Hunger Initiative (Asheville) Upcoming Events PMP Prep Class Partner Offerings September 27 PMI Global Congress – North America June 23 August 25 Professional Development Day April 26 – Microsoft Project & Microsoft Visio Skill Fest at Bubble Charlotte in the Epicenter Determining Business Requirements – March 18 Leading Six Sigma Projects as an Engineer – March 19 Lean Six Sigma Boot Camp starting March 24 Gathering & Documenting Requirements – March 25 Saturday PDUs Starting April 5 October 26-28 International Project Management Day November 6 Speaker Presentation Tom Gray, MBA, PE, PMP, CSPO, CSM Tom is a resourceful management professional with diverse operations and program delivery experience in business applications, manufacturing and technical products and services. He is a highly organized business strategist with the ability to effectively communicate with diverse personalities. "I built my reputation of being a hands-on leader willing to work shoulder to shoulder with the team to achieve the objectives of the business but my real value is my ability to empower a team to own their work and perform to their highest potential." - Tom Gray Lessons Learned A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company Presented by: Tom Gray, PMP A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company (KELLY) “That database conversion project for Sales was the worst experience ever!” (STEVE) “Yeah, with all of the changes and then the arguments about the way the U/I screens were designed, I was glad when the project ended.” (KELLY) “Just exactly when did it end because I’m still getting requests to make changes?” (LANDON) ”I thought Sales finally agreed to use the U/I ’as is’ until they can clarify what they want. So who is asking for changes?” A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company (KELLY) “Marketing is complaining because some of the legacy data fields are no longer supported and Customer Support is complaining because they can no longer look up volume discount information to assist customers. No one is organizing or reviewing requests so it is very frustrating.” (STEVE) “This project was requested by Sales and was not supposed to impact anyone else.” (KELLY) “Well apparently the database was more widely used than we thought. I learned that besides Marketing and Customer Support, the Purchasing Group and HR are also using it.” A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company (LANDON) “So are you making any changes?” (KELLY) “I’m assigned full time to two other high priority projects and my boss told me to ignore any other requests. But people from all groups seem to think that if they tell me to make the changes it will get done.” (STEVE) “If you’re not running that project then who is?” (KELLY) ”I don’t know. I’ve seen no communications in over two weeks.” A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company (LANDON) “Jim from Accounting said that project was way over budget and Terry in Sales says that no one has been trained on it and many people are still using the old database which remains operational because of errors in the legacy data conversion.” (KELLY) “I’m getting heat from everyone and this project may tarnish my image.” (STEVE) “You did remember to document everything as part of your ‘Lessons Learned’ so that you could use it on future projects didn’t you?” A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company Does this sound familiar to you? If you were Kelly what would your Lessons Learned include? A conversation between project managers at Future Learning Company A few suggestions to get started: Stakeholder Identification Requirements Specification and Approval Process QA Validation Scope Control/Change Control Project Sponsor/Owner Resource Scheduling Training Risk Mitigation Project Closure Communication STAKEHOLDER IDENTIFICATION Verify that Stakeholder Identification occurred. Even though Sales was the requesting group it is now obvious that the database was more widely used within the organization. The database may also interface with external sources including suppliers and/or customers, other business operations such as sister companies or partners. Stakeholders include all parties impacted by the project; those who support it and those that oppose it (if they exist). In this case it includes Sales, Marketing, HR and Purchasing departments and all individuals within these groups that will be required to operate the system or those who get information from it. A loss of legacy data points could create a negative stakeholder (Marketing in this case) as noted earlier. (Clarification) Stakeholders include anyone that is impacted by or has an interest in the efforts/results of the project. REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION AND APPROVAL PROCESS Verify that detailed requirements exist. Verify that an approval process for the requirements exists and has been executed. It appears that someone within the Sales group is not happy with the implementation of the U/I (User Interface). This could be attributed to a deficiency in the detailed requirements specification, a lack of a final approval process to clarify what will be built or it could indicate that the deliverables did not align with the approved requirements. If the team failed to deliver according to the requirements this may indicate a lack of proper QA validation. In this example it is not clear what the root cause is for the Sales group’s dissatisfaction. A review of the approved requirements and assessment of the U/I should provide clarification. QA VALIDATION Verify that QA Validation was part of the process If the deliverables do not match the approved requirements then some changes within the QA validation process are required. All project deliverables should be validated to insure alignment with the business requirements. Having QA involvement from the beginning of the project could identify any potential deviations before any physical work is started. Corrective action is least expensive in the beginning of the project. SCOPE CONTROL/ CHANGE CONTROL Verify that a Scope Control/Change Control process is in place. Continuous changes throughout a project may indicate that the scope control/change control process is not working properly. Change requests do not equate to changes implemented. Critical changes may need to be accommodated; some may require scope trade-off to avoid unnecessary scope bloat, which can result in cost over runs and schedule delays. Other requests may be recorded for future updates while others are rejected. A project without an effective Scope Control/Change Control process is likely to fail. PROJECT SPONSOR/OWNER Has the Project Sponsor/Owner been identified? Is there a process for properly channeling change suggestions for approval? The Project Sponsor/Owner should always be aware of change requests that are being made by others and they should have the authority to approve or reject requests as they deem necessary. After all, they are funding the work and will be responsible for being good steward’s of the company resources. The project manager is fielding requests directly from all departments and there appears to be a lack of adherence to proper process. RESOURCE SCHEDULING Kelly clearly is assigned to other projects. Other resources may or may not be available and/or assigned to continue work on this project. Since Kelly was the project manager on this effort he should have the resourcing information. TRAINING Is there a training plan? Confirm the status of the training delivery and if no training has been provided, determine what approval processes were bypassed allowing the new database to go online without proper user readiness. Training must accommodate all users of the system across all departments impacted, not just the Sales department. RISK MITIGATION Have risks been tracked, assigned for review and mitigation plans documented? The following Risks have been identified in the conversation: Continuous changes requested from various sources without proper channeling Issues with the U/I exist Stakeholders may not have been fully identified New and legacy databases operating simultaneously, data migration/data loss Also - System Errors, Resourcing, Budget, Training, User Adoption and Communications PROJECT CLOSURE Is there a formal project closure process? Has the formal project closure (sponsor acceptance and sign-off) occurred? Does some confusion exist as to the completion of the project? Have resources been officially released from the project? Have lessons learned been captured and post mortem reviews taken place? COMMUNICATION Verify that Communication process/plan is in place. All three Project Managers seem confused about the status of the project which could indicate that communications have been less than adequate. Continuous arguments about the product deliverables raise the question about sufficient communications and the setting of expectations to the stakeholders. Confusion on this project could be reduced and/or remedied by improved communications. COMMUNICATION Suggestions for improved communications include: Communications restating the process for change requests Announcing project completion Communicating Kelly’s new reassignments Publish the time-line for the legacy database shut-down Communicate the training schedule for the new system Communicate the benefits of the new project and system Communicate future updates to the system, including scope and timing Continuous communications as part of a project’s transformation and change effort should be employed. Consider using surveys, tips, request for feedback, success stories and examples, sponsor testimonies, etc. WHY USE LESSONS LEARNED?…… Better preparation and organization increasing project success More reliable requirements and clearer implementation Improved Risk identification/awareness based on past experience with the same people and organizations Professional credibility (Establishing and maintaining) Others? Conclusion and Q&A Closing