Effective
Project
Management
John Reilly
Director – PeopleSoft Global Services
Education and Government Practice
Agenda
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Introduction
Project Management Today
Project Offices
Best Practices in Project
Management
Project Management Model
Questions and Answers
Introduction
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Performing projects on-time, within budget and meeting
goals is highly praised but not easy.
These goals are even more difficult for a typical IT
department of a government—an organization faced with
stagnant budgets, changing business requirements, and
fast-moving technology.
Project management approaches successfully employed
by traditional industry can help IT departments.
Project Management Today
Project Management Office (PMO)
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A project management office (PMO) is designed to integrate project
management practices within an organization.
A PMO can be a key resource in establishing an organizational
competency in project analysis, design, management and review.
Given the appropriate governance, a PMO accomplishes the
following:
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Establishes an enterprise standard for project management.
Improves communication and the leveraging of resources within the
organization.
Helps reduce the disastrous effect of failed development projects on enterprise
effectiveness and productivity.
Why is a PMO so Important
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Poor Project Management Leads to Significant Levels of Project Failure
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Project Management Skills Are Transferable
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The PMO provides the resources and tools necessary to consistently improve
the success of IT projects.
Ability to negotiate for resources, high motivation, coaching or other skills
necessary for good project management.
When an individual exhibits such skills, they become a resource that can be
moved between applications or projects coordinated by a PMO.
Decentralized Development Requires Centralized Support
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Project Management skill sets are not distributed evenly throughout the
organization.
It is crucial to have a support structure in the centralized IT group to monitor
and facilitate best practices transfer, along with infrastructure issues such as
reuse, methodology and measurement.
Public Sector PMO Trends
PMOs are being formed in the public sector at an ever
increasing rate. This has been mainly due to the
following key factors:
1. Legislative IT Project Management Mandates
2. Increased Practicality of Government
ERP/Enterprise Applications
3. The Rise of E-Government
Sample Project Management Offices
Sample Project Management Offices
Sample Project Management Offices
Sample Project Management Offices
Sample PMO – Web Sites
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State of New York
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State of North Dakota
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http://michigan.gov/dit/0,1607,7-139-18391_22016---,00.html
State of Virigina
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http://www.state.mn.us/cgi-bin/portal/mn/jsp/content.do?subchannel=536879888&id=-8484&agency=OT
State of Michigan
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http://da.state.ks.us/kito/default.htm
State of Minnesota
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http://www.state.nd.us/epm/
State of Kansas
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http://www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/pmo.htm
http://www.vita.virginia.gov/projects/pmd.cfm
State of Texas
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http://www.dir.state.tx.us/pmo/index.htm
Focus Areas for Public Sector PMOs
Standardized
Methodology
and Tools
and
Training and
Project
Repository of Certification, Monitoring
Best
Coaching and
and
Name
Practices
Mentoring
Oversight
State of New York
x
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x
State of Michigan
x
x
State of Minnesota
x
x
x
State of Kansas
x
x
x
State of Virginia
x
x
x
State of California
x
State of North Dakota
x
x
x
State of Missouri
x
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x
State of Texas
x
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x
Enterprise Project
wide PM Review and
Services
Approval
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Key Roles of the PMO
Structure – State of Virginia
Structure – State of Minnesota
Project Management Office
In order to enable the successful completion of state Information Technology (IT)
projects and realize expected benefits, the Office of Technology has created an
enterprise wide (statewide) Project Management Office (PMO).
Structure – State of North Dakota
The State Information Technology Advisory Committee (SITAC) is
responsible for prioritizing all IT efforts in relation to the business requirements
and for reaching a common vision between the business and IT on the business
drivers and on the role of EA and technology.
The Architecture Review Board (ARB) is responsible for reviewing and
approving the conceptual and domain architectures, including products, domain
technologies and standards.
The Architecture Team (AT) is responsible for facilitating the enterprise
architecture process, creating and maintaining deliverables, communicating
architecture standards to all interested parties, and reviewing technology
infrastructure projects for compliance to the architecture.
The Domain Architecture Teams are responsible for selecting product
standards, defining standard configurations, and collaborating on component
architecture design principles with the architecture team.
The Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) is responsible for
tracking all projects, resources, budgets, and project interdependencies. The
EPMO is staffed from the Policy and Planning Division of ITD
The EPM Advisory Group is a group of agency project managers who
proactively identify project management issues, and collect/develop project
management best practices such as tools and templates.
The Project Management User Group is an informal discussion group that
discusses project management topics.
Structure – State of Kansas
Structure – Missions
New York
PMO was charged with the following mission: to increase project management
competence and foster sustained success of projects carried out by New York State.
The top priority of the PMO was the development of a common Project Management
methodology for use by Project Managers across the state.
North Dakota
Enterprise Project Management is a process that coordinates projects across the
enterprise and provides project management guidance to all agencies. EPM seeks to
provide the following benefits:
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Instill best practices to maximize project successes and leverage expensive
project expertise resources.
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Provide expertise and support to project managers.
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Provide ongoing process improvement approaches that, over time, will provide
an even greater chance for successful projects.
Structure – Missions
Minnesota
To enable successful completion of projects and realize their benefits, the PMO will:
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Collaborate with State agencies to help ensure achievement of their project
goals and objectives.
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Conduct project tracking, review and oversight on behalf of the Legislature.
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Encourage adherence to repeatable project management processes with
established standards and measurement criteria.
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Provide sustainable project management methodology and best practices tools.
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Coordinate statewide project management training, coaching and mentoring
programs.
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Actively participate in project governance.
Virginia
Commonwealth Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools,
and techniques, to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a
Commonwealth Project. The objective of CPM is to define a structured, disciplined
approach for project management in order to deliver anticipated benefits from
business-driven IT investments.
Focus on:
Scope, Costs, Schedule, Performance and Risk
Public Sector PMO Lessons Learned
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PMO must have a motivated and highly involved executive sponsor
(preferably agency director or above)
A phased approach to implementation (repository --> coach -->
manager models) over time is best in order for the PMO to gradually
develop its capabilities and the organization to recognize the PMO’s
value.
Develop strong marketing and communication plans to aggressively
promote the capabilities of the PMO to departments and agencies.
Define and communicate the PMO’s balance between project support
and control functions to ensure departments or agencies understand
what is expected of them and what they should expect from the PMO.
The invocation of legislative mandates should be used if necessary.
Measurements of Project Management
PMO Effective Practices for Success
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When asked which project management practices were most effective in
helping the organization meet its goals, respondents most frequently
answered:
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providing standard methodology for managing projects (56%),
having responsibility for process and project reporting and tracking (38%),
ensuring that similar projects are executed in a similar way (37%),
having the funding and information needed to speed up or slow down project
delivery (29%),
providing a process for resource allocation and capacity management (27%).
Measurements of Project Management
Benefits of PMO
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Have project success rates (defined as projects completed on time
and within budget) increased, decreased or stayed the same as a
result of PMOs?
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12% Not answered
50% Increase
1% Decrease
16% Stayed the same
22% Don’t know/do not track
When asked about the top benefits of having a PMO, the surveyed listed:
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implement PM standards (62%),
increased internal satisfaction (38%),
increased employee productivity (39%),
lower costs (27%)
increased external satisfaction (25%).
Measurements of Project Management
State of New York – PM Development
Who benefits?
The program design is intended to benefit both the participants and all
State agencies. The participating agency benefits by the fact that its
participating employees, whether mentors or interns, will gain
tremendous expertise through the formal training being offered. This
increased expertise will benefit the agency in the execution of any and
all business transformation and technology projects it conducts in the
future. Mentors and interns also gain through the formal training
offered, and through the continuing training that will be offered on an
ongoing basis through the Office for Technology to the program
participants. Most importantly, New York State will benefit from the
increased success of large-scale projects designed to make New York
work better for its citizens.
Case Study
The Project Management Officer for Arlington County, Virginia Department
of Technology Services oversees the management of $15 million in
information technology projects. Recently the Officer led an implementation
of project portfolio management for the county.
How many projects are in your portfolio and what kinds of projects do
you have?
Our portfolio includes 15 IT projects ranging from business system
implementations to enterprise and department level intranet portal
implementations, from network improvements to desktop computer
replacements. To qualify for inclusion in the portfolio, the project must be
funded from capital funds.
Case Study
What sorts of gains are you hoping to see from PPM?
Both the CIO and I were looking for numerous qualitative and
quantitative gains in the overall portfolio, especially from our
management of the projects and across projects. Some of our
expectations include:
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Better success rates among projects
Cost-effective selection, balance and coordination of projects
Selection of projects that are more tightly tied to the business strategy
Better allocation of our resources to projects
Opportunities to accelerate the completion of projects
Opportunities to re-allocate resources away from failing projects
Development of synergies across departments that have similar
business needs
Better accountability to our taxpayers
Case Study
What have been your results so far?
One project in particular told a dramatic success story. It had been given a
"red light" three quarters in a row. It was way under-spent and long
overdue, making it far off track for delivering business results. Then, in one
quarter's time, the project delivered all the expected business results from
the prior fiscal year plus the expected business results of the current fiscal
year. We now have a very satisfied set of end-users, which might not have
been the case otherwise.
Where do you hope your efforts will lead?
We're already seeing "mini-PMOs" arising in individual departments as
they go through their process to determine which IT projects to submit for
capital funding. This is a clear indication that the selection process is
adding value to investment decision-making. My greater hope, though, is
that the model created in the IT department will be embraced in the County
Executive's office for selection and oversight of all capital initiatives.
Best Practices of
Project Management
Project Areas
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Develop a business case
Develop a mission statement
Define “success” criteria
Creating Statement of Work and Contracts
Time
Resources
Scope
Managing Scope
Scope creep is the change or growth of project scope.
In a Computerworld survey of 160 I.T. professionals 80%
reported requirements creep either “always” or “frequently”
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The leading reason reported:
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44% of respondents for why scope creeps so frequently was “poor initial
requirements definition”
The second leading reason that “new applications were unfamiliar to users” was
reported by 36% of respondents.
28% reported “projects take so long that requirements generally do change”.
22% of respondents reported “poor management/failure to manage user
expectations”
19% reported “failure to involve users in early stages”.
Project Management Model
PMO Model
Project Planning
Project planning is the first essential step to achieving a successful
implementation.
Project Structure
Project structure is an on-going process focused on the management
of all resources and materials associated with the project
Project Communication
The Project Communication process is effectively the
communications hub for the entire project. All reporting,
disseminating of information, and multi-project cross communication
is managed through this process.
Project Control
Project Control, similar to all the Project Management processes, is a
continuous process associated with the overall control of the project.
Questions
and
Answers