Austin Utility PWA Enterprise Portfolio Management
Overview
The Information Technology Project Management Office (PMO) for a leading Austin utility had established initial project and portfolio management processes to support its Microsoft Project Server 2007 environment. However, these processes were outdated, cumbersome, and often did not provide an accurate view into current projects’ health or contribution to the overall IT PMO portfolio. The utility selected Cognitive Technologies to undertake the Project Web Access Enterprise Portfolio Management (PWA EPM) project to:
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Improve the effectiveness of PMO tools (specifically, Microsoft Project Server 2007 project team sites – or workspaces) and processes
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Design, configure, and deploy a portfolio management tool and supporting processes to make the portfolio prioritization process more objective and better communicated
Goal
Through the project and portfolio management tool and process improvements, the client hoped to accomplish three key outcomes:
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Improved communication to customers on project status and health through updated project team sites
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Streamlined processes and automated forms to aid project teams in completing routine documentation
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An integrated and accessible project prioritization mechanism to improve utility's ability to determine projects that will provide the most payoff
Challenges
During the project, the client went through a major corporate reorganization, which resulted in the loss of the project sponsor as well as the loss of key stakeholders in the portfolio management process redesign. In addition, there was significant resistance to change in the redesigned portfolio management processes, as prior to the implementation of outcome-based prioritization mechanisms and views, executive management prioritized the IT portfolio subjectively.
Solution
To mitigate resistance to project and portfolio management process changes, Cognitive Technologies implemented a change management strategy from the beginning of the project that included frequent communication of project goals and outcomes. In addition, Cognitive Technologies collected input from a large base of executive stakeholders and PMO resources through extensive individual requirements gathering interviews. Over the requirements definition period, Cognitive Technologies conducted more than 30 individual interviews, and made the aggregated results available to all participants for review.
Cognitive Technologies also solicited end-user feedback throughout the design and implementation processes – allowing end-users to preview the redesigned Project Server 2007 site template and the Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 tool and provide feedback and suggestions on the features and processes associated with each.
Finally, Cognitive Technologies conducted interactive role-based training workshops to provide end-users with the skills needed to easily adopt the new processes and tools into their daily activities with minimal impact. This approach ensured that end-users were excited about the implementation and recognized the value it provided them as ultimate “consumers.”
Cognitive Value Added
Cognitive Technologies’ skilled team of professional business analysts, technical specialists, and experienced project management professionals allowed the team to deliver on the client's objectives and delivered a project for which the client won an award. Specifically, Cognitive Technologies:
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Designed, branded, and deployed a master project site template for use by all new projects managed with Project Server 2007. This updated template includes web parts for providing textual status updates to project teams, report on the project’s health through visual key performance indicators, communicating planned project benefits to key stakeholders, and track key actions that must be performed in order for the project to remain on-schedule.
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Redesigned project management processes to allow for better communication of project information to stakeholders and project team members, in conjunction with the new project site template web parts.
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Conducted interactive training workshops allowing end-users to become familiar with the new features of the project site template prior to using the template in the production environment.
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Configured and deployed Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 to replace the existing disparate tools and processes used to capture project ideas and select those ideas to become active projects. Tool configurations included the creation of a standard process workflow guiding projects from inception to delivery, deployment of custom Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports to provide key stakeholders information directly from the new tool in a familiar and easy-to-read format, establishment of a standardized prioritization methodology that reduced the greatly subjectivity of the portfolio prioritization process and increased visibility into projects’ contributions to the overall IT PMO portfolio.