The realities of a Project-Specific PMO

MPUG 9/22/04 Presentation 1Pcubed

The realities of a Project-Specific PMO

Microsoft Project User Group Quarterly Meeting

September 22nd 2004

Celine Gullace, PMP


The Project

• The client is a large university, with over 40,000 students.

• The project is a PeopleSoft Financials integration/implementation for the University, the Medical Center, and the Research Foundation (2,000 end users). The project will cost about $30M, and will span about 2.5 years.

• The Project Team has 270 team members (about 200 at one time).


The Project (cont.)


What kind of Project Office (POF)?

• Clerical or strategic? – Directors struggled with the POF mandate.– PM goals, tool (MS Project 2000/Project Central),

some basic methodology. – Immediate needs for assistance with technical

support, planning, and plan maintenance.

• Pre-conceptions & different skills.


• The “Big 5” type? – Manager assistant/delegate– Knows & participate in day to day business. – Minimal PM tool work.

• …Or… The “Tool Type” – More clerical/junior– Minimal business interaction– Makes beautiful plans!

What kind of POF? (cont.)


• Getting buy-in from the managers – Balancing management and project management– Showing added value– Go the extra mile

• …and respect! – Being a MS Project Guru doesn’t mean you’re

useless at everything else– Importance of hiring properly



• An ultimate wish: Communication Czar – Lessons learned from Project Director– Be able to fill-in for the manager you are paired with– Know the business inside out– Maintain good plans (good knowledge of the tool)– Report good data– Be the main information repository for the project




• POF Staff duties:– Pair up with a manager (e.g. GL/Budgets) and assist with

planning in MS Project– Maintain the plan when the phase is underway (track actuals,

push/delete un-used work, re-level weekly)– Issues analysis: anticipate delays, over-allocations, propose

solutions– Reporting on late tasks, actual vs. baseline work, budget

tracking– Keep the technical architecture and the methodology sound and

consistent– Write users manuals, train new users


Technical Architecture for the Plans

• Plan shells for every team:– For each team, one plan per phase– Standard sub-phases: Plan, Execute, Control, Close– Track tasks and “buckets” (e.g. meetings)

• Sharing data using a database

Resource

Project Plans MS Project

Project Office

Web Access


Technical Architecture (cont.)

• Consistency across plans:– To report on the same type of data across all plans– Each task has to be “tagged” with codes.

ID ProgramPhase

ProjectCode

Lif e Cycle Give/Get GGPairing

STExecBudget KeyMilestone

Name

109 TST GR EX Sy stem Test-VolumePerformance Test

No Record and test Scripts (perf ormance test)

159 TST GR EX MTPs-Apps ProdReadiness Support

No MTP3 Clean-up and Data Validation

161 TST GR EX MTPs-Apps ProdReadiness Support

No Support Dress Rehearsal

182 TST GR EX Get G859 Yes Get f rom Ops: Security in FS8MTP

197 TST GR EX Get G869 Yes Get f rom AI: Batch QA testing complete (FS8SQA)


Technical Architecture (cont.)• Weekly EAC variance by work category

• Phase statusTask Name % Wk Cp Baseline Wk Work (EAC) Actual Work Rem. Wk (ETC)

5-SysTestMTP 41% 115,879.72 h 137,293.32 h 56,680.6 h 80,612.72 h

01-General Ledger/Budgets 36% 15,228.87 h 19,391.92 h 7,076.15 h 12,315.77 h

02-Grants 46% 21,349.92 h 24,716.52 h 11,441 h 13,275.52 h

03-Procurement 36% 20,048.87 h 23,489.02 h 8,511 h 14,978.02 h

04-Application Infrastructure 41% 5,404.27 h 8,798.12 h 3,639.05 h 5,159.07 h

06-Conversion 50% 3,368.02 h 3,942.65 h 1,974.25 h 1,968.4 h

08-Operations 38% 16,515.98 h 20,117.48 h 7,785.85 h 12,331.63 h

09-Partnership Management 46% 15,390.4 h 16,873.88 h 7,787.5 h 9,086.38 h

10-Management 43% 15,223.4 h 15,281.45 h 6,605.8 h 8,675.65 h

11-HR 39% 3,350 h 4,682.28 h 1,860 h 2,822.28 h

Q1


New team, new skills

• Minimal MS Project training• No formal Project Management training (e.g.

PMI) except for a few directors• Relies exclusively on Excel• Distrust of MS Project• Very little time for sound planning and

scheduling• Hired for their technical expertise, asked to

make room for sound project management


Learning from experience

• Level of detail– In the beginning, very detailed + low tool maturity

= discontent (back to Excel? Buckets?)– Eventually reached a balance

• Interdependencies– Eventually a balance was reached: critical links

remained, the rest of the tasks were Start-constrained

• Planning for the next phase– To be completed under pressure while trying to close

the current phase on time – a real challenge.


Learning from experience• Meta plan: a more high-level view, focused on critical

interdependencies. • Tracking “Give/Gets” between plans.

ID Due Plan Pair Name Status Finish B Finish Key MilestoneVar

190 GR G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/13/04 1/13/04 Yes 0 d

171 PR G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/6/04 1/6/04 Yes 0 d

237 GB G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/13/04 1/6/04 Yes 5 d

42 OP G854 Give to Apps: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/15/04 1/15/04 Yes 0 d

10 CPG G854 Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8SQA 1/13/04 1/6/04 Yes 5 d

191 GR G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 2/27/04 Yes 0 d

172 PR G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 1/22/04 Yes 25 d

238 GB G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 1/22/04 Yes 26 d

106 OP G857 Give to Applications: FS8TST Env ironment f or Integration Testing 2/23/04 3/11/04 Yes -13 d


Learning from experience

• “The tool broke my plan”• “My Excel spreadsheet tells me I’m OK”• Reporting: too much or too little?• QA of data: too much or too little?


Anticipating issues

– Using the project plan…(The work is planned for the next couple weeks only)

– …and by being the eyes and ears of the Manager• Know the business• Attend meetings• Understand the issues

Details

W orkA ct. W ork

2/15 2/22 2/29 3/7 3/14 3/21 3/28 4/4 4/11 4/18 4/25 5/2 5/9 5/16 5/23 5/30February 2004 March 2004 A pril 2004 May 2004

1,007h 941.5h 938.25h 827.75h 950.92h 810.42h 849.2h 769.02h 769.82h 717.63h 721.83h 640.57h 477.7h 446.68h 429.4h1,007h 941.5h 938.25h 817.5h

HighLow


Lessons Learned• Be prepared for the POF role to evolve• Support of the Project Management tools, while

asking all parties to reach common ground.• Anticipate staffing issues, bottlenecks and

critical dependencies with strong plans• The team acquires Project Management skills

for a lifetime (and think they had them all along)• Strong sponsorship & flexibility are critical• Get buy-in for good plan maintenance• Conduct Lessons Learned after each phase

(also a good way for the POF be recognized)


Distribution of Work by Phase

Design24%

Development21%

System Test33%

Fit Gap14%

Project Planning2%

Production Support / Stabilization

6%


Total Work by Team

POF/Mgmt12.3%

Partn.11.8%

GL12.1%

GR16.4%

PR16.5%

HR2.7%

OPS11.8%

AI10.1%

RP6.2%


Questions?

Thank you

Documents

The realities of a Project-Specific PMO