Effective Project Management

John ReillyDirector – PeopleSoft Global

ServicesEducation and Government

Practice

Agenda

Introduction Project Management Today Project Offices Best Practices in Project

Management Project Management Model Questions and Answers

Introduction

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)

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:

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

Poor Project Management Leads to Significant Levels of Project Failure

The PMO provides the resources and tools necessary to consistently improve the success of IT projects.

Project Management Skills Are Transferable 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 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 State of New York

http://www.oft.state.ny.us/pmmp/pmo.htm State of North Dakota

http://www.state.nd.us/epm/ State of Kansas

http://da.state.ks.us/kito/default.htm State of Minnesota

http://www.state.mn.us/cgi-bin/portal/mn/jsp/content.do?subchannel=-536879888&id=-8484&agency=OT

State of Michigan http://michigan.gov/dit/0,1607,7-139-18391_22016---,00.html

State of Virigina http://www.vita.virginia.gov/projects/pmd.cfm

State of Texas http://www.dir.state.tx.us/pmo/index.htm

Focus Areas for Public Sector PMOs

Name

Standardized Methodology

and Tools and

Repository of Best

Practices

Training and Certification,

Coaching and Mentoring

Project Monitoring

and Oversight

Enterprise -wide PM Services

Project Review and

ApprovalState of New York x x x xState of Michigan x x xState of Minnesota x x x xState of Kansas x x x xState of Virginia x x x x xState of California xState of North Dakota x x x xState of Missouri x x xState of Texas x x x x

Key Roles of the PMO

Structure – State of Virginia

Structure – State of Minnesota

Project Management OfficeIn 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 – MissionsNew 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 DakotaEnterprise 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:

Instill best practices to maximize project successes and leverage expensive project expertise resources.

Provide expertise and support to project managers. 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:

Collaborate with State agencies to help ensure achievement of their project goals and objectives.

Conduct project tracking, review and oversight on behalf of the Legislature. Encourage adherence to repeatable project management processes with

established standards and measurement criteria. Provide sustainable project management methodology and best practices

tools. Coordinate statewide project management training, coaching and mentoring

programs. Actively participate in project governance.

VirginiaCommonwealth 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

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 When asked which project management practices were most

effective in helping the organization meet its goals, respondents most frequently answered:

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

Have project success rates (defined as projects completed on time and within budget) increased, decreased or stayed the same as a result of PMOs?

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: 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:

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 ofProject Management

Project Areas 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”

The leading reason reported:

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 StructureProject structure is an on-going process focused on the management of all resources and materials associated with the project

Project CommunicationThe 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 ControlProject Control, similar to all the Project Management processes, is a continuous process associated with the overall control of the project.

Questions and

Answers