Tag: Planning

I am writing this piece while waiting for boarding at Pearson International, en route to Ottawa. Oh, the glorious life of a consultant!
Another 30 minutes or so before they let us in and the waiting area is filling up. It is an
8 a.m. flight on a Monday and the crowd is predominantly professional. There are certainly a few consultants. A woman in front of me is one of them. She is reviewing notes and often glances at her Blackberry, which has rung twice on my brief watch here. The owner answered both calls, which were both related to her ongoing assignment. By now, I know the name of the client, the nature of the issue at hand, a couple of key names and what the agenda is like for the upcoming few days. I am sure that if we had more time here, I could have told you what the project sponsor’s private life is like.

Two weeks ago, while on a train, I had to listen to someone instigating a conference call in order to “sort things out” at the office. As one of the unwilling listeners to the conversation, I learned the name of the organization, the nature of the problem, the names of the vendors and a few other things that should not be discussed in a company of complete strangers.

Last year, while on a 20-minute ride on a commuter train, I was sitting across from a visibly bewildered and upset foot-soldier consultant from a very large and well-known consulting company (I owe this knowledge to the company’s insignia placed on just about every item this person was carrying). On a phone with a colleague for the duration of my short trip, and hysterical most of the time, she let me and the fellow commuters know the name of the client, why they were an abomination of an organization, why they would “go belly up in the near future”, and, of course, who was the biggest idiot there (albeit lesser idiots were not missed either).

Those of us who travel, encounter such kind of behavior often. There are a couple of problems here. First of all, it is of course a bloody nuisance when you have to hear someone yap while you are trying to read, rest or do some meaningful work. But we all have to attend meetings some time, so this is not the biggest problem.

The real problem is that, while organizations dedicate enormous expense, personnel and other resources to protect their and their clients’ data against unauthorized network access and commercial espionage, their best efforts can be so easily undone by indiscreet remarks in public by a careless employee or vendor.

Just like that, the most complex defenses are undone in a matter of moments.

It is easy to see the ramifications of such sloppiness and the issues it can potentially create, for the client organization, for the person’s employer, for the consulting company whose employees are heard discussing their clients in public.

Despite our best efforts, people remain to be the weakest link.

Hordes of well-paid professionals in legal, IT and other streams of work are employed to develop, implement and enforce security and privacy policies and measures. The real problem is that while organizations dedicate enormous resources to protect their and their clients’ data against unauthorized network access and commercial espionage, their best efforts can be undone by indiscreet remarks by a careless employee or vendor. Just like that, the most complex defenses undone in a matter of moments.

The Challenge

Roseville, Calif., is a progressive city with its eye on the future. What started as a town developed by disappointed miners from the famed Gold Rush has blossomed into a thoroughly developed, independent city boasting an estimated population of 104,655 residents. Approaching its 100-year anniversary, Roseville is a charter city operating under a City Manager-Council form of government. Out of 199 cities in the United States with greater than 100,000 citizens, 112 use this form of government, where the council focuses on the community’s goals, major projects, and such long-term considerations as community growth, land use development, capital improvement plans, capital financing, and strategic planning.

As a full-service city with 17 different operational organizations, the City of Roseville’s IT department has more than 180 projects in the works to support critical city services such as the city’s electric department, public works, fire department and police departments. As a result, the city’s CIO Thomas Freeman is faced with daily decisions that impact residents. For example, he may be asked to approve and implement an enterprise asset management software solution to improve the city’s infrastructure, while at the same time he’s being asked to review and approve a system that directly impacts the safety of the city’s residents – a computer aided dispatch system for 911 calls.

“Human nature is to move forward with the projects that are perceived to have the highest sense of urgency. In many cases, sense of urgency is defined by the departments pushing the hardest for action,” said Freeman. “We were lacking a technology solution that enabled us to assess and prioritize the projects that are most important to the city council and Roseville citizens.”

Freeman and his team were under pressure from the city council to get a governance model in place for technology, and they didn’t have much time to do it. The city council identified five organizational goals for 2007 to continue the city’s economic growth, and they expected the IT projects to map to these strategic initiatives:

• Safe and Healthy Community 
• Transportation Planning & Investment 
• Enhanced Community Services 
• Economic Vitality 
• Downtown Revitalization

“To make decisions about where to spend dollars, and to understand workloads, we needed to look at the city as a whole,” said Freeman. “To determine which projects took priority – whether it’s a homeland defense surveillance system or a voice communications system that seamlessly integrates with surrounding public safety agencies – we needed to break down the silos and gain a big picture overview of the needs of our city government.”

The Solution

PPM solutions from leading solution providers were reviewed and eliminated due to cost, time to implement and functionality. The City of Roseville selected the Innotas PPM solution because the functionality was well aligned with the city’s requirements. Plus, Innotas’s on-demand delivery model enabled the city to implement the PPM solution in days instead of months. Additionally, the Innotas PPM Starter Kits, which offer a step-at-a-time approach for implementing the Innotas on-demand solution, closely resembled the governance model laid out by the city council.

“This was no accident,” said Innotas CEO Keith Carlson, “We’ve researched the various scenarios in which PPM is needed, and have designed our on-demand PPM solution with best practices built-in. Our PPM Starter Kits closely align with these scenarios, helping customers start where they need to, bring the organization along, and then later move on to solve their next IT challenge.”

Innotas provides customers with a PPM Starter Kit to help them get Project Portfolio Management software implementations up and running in days, instead of months. Innotas’ PPM Starter Kit addresses three key PPM areas, or PPM Domains, in managing IT project portfolios: managing supply and demand, prioritizing projects, and delivering projects and applications. Customers can begin with the Domain that matches their biggest IT challenge, quickly and easily implement a project management software solution to begin resolving that challenge, and then expand their PPM implementation to the next Domain.

The City of Roseville’s most pressing pain point was prioritizing its 180 projects, and aligning them to the overall goals and objectives of the city. Next, Freeman is focusing on resource allocation. The Innotas PPM solution provides him with a consolidated view of all projects, teams and resources. He can now show the city council and management where the IT department is spending its time and moving toward accomplishment of desired results.

“We have accountability to the constituents,” said Freeman. “With Innotas’ PPM solution we’re able to quickly and easily prioritize the projects that are aligned with the city’s strategic growth plan, while best serving its residents.”

The Results

By selecting the Innotas on-demand solution, the City of Roseville was able to get its governance process in place six months ahead of schedule, and achieved a 6.68 percent savings on existing and planned projects for the year. “We were under pressure to get an IT decision-making process in place, fast,” said Freeman. “Not only were we able to get things up and running in just days, we were able to immediately begin using the on-demand PPM solution to prioritize IT projects.”

The City of Roseville now has a structured approach in place for acquiring information technology. Departments now identify needs, submit proposals, and present a business case before projects can begin. All of this critical information is captured in Innotas’ PPM solution, enabling Freeman and his team to make more informed IT investments. “We are able to capture time and attendance information for our payroll system,” stated Freeman. “We are now more accurate in our indirect charge out allocations for resource usage because the guess work of what projects the staff is working on is taken out of the equation.”

“We now have a technology governance process in place, along with the Innotas on-demand PPM solution, which enables us to track progress and accountability,” said Freeman. “By streamlining the process, we’ve been able to reduce technology projects that have minimal impact on the city’s overall growth, and we’re now focusing our resources on projects that are aligned with the city’s strategic objectives.”

For example, the number one goal of city council is to provide the residents with a safe and healthy community. “A project that got pushed to the top of the list was a public safety project giving police officers high speed wireless transmission in their patrol cars,” said Freeman. “Meanwhile, we moved a downtown revitalization project lower on the list. Although it’s still a key priority and remains on this list, it falls below the public safety projects in terms of priorities.”

The ROI

By using an on-demand solution, the city saved approximately $400,000 to $500,000 in hardware and set up costs. The city has also saved money by not having to dedicate administrator resources to keep operating systems, databases and applications patched and working properly. Training time and start up costs were significantly reduced. Additionally, Freeman projects an estimated savings of $250,000 during the next five years in annual maintenance fees.

Additionally, says Freeman, “Now, we have real-time visibility into, and control over, IT projects on our calendar. We can track both the progress of, and accountability for, each IT project and intelligently redirect resources so that we give priority to the initiatives that align most closely with the city’s goals for safety, enhanced transportation, revitalization and economic vitality.”

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Demian Entrekin is the founder and CTO of Innotas (www.innotas.com), a leading provider of on-demand PPM solutions. A recognized thought leader on Project Portfolio Management and SaaS evangelist, he has published numerous papers on PPM and writes his own blog (PPM Today) that explores important issues related to successful PPM implementation. Prior to Innotas, Entrekin co-founded Convoy Corporation, a provider of Enterprise Application Integration products, which was acquired by New Era Networks in 1999. During his 18 year career, Entrekin has also assumed leadership roles as a consultant and as an entrepreneur, delivering commercial and corporate database applications. Demian Entrekin holds a B.A. in English from UCLA and an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University. He can be reached at 415-814-7700.

As we get going in 2008, it’s a natural point to reflect on our achievements and challenges in the past year as well as to contemplate what lies ahead. Specifically, at this point, I’d like to touch on strategic planning and the role of the PMO in supporting the organization. I thought it appropriate to encourage the PMO to set aside some ME time. The PMO is much like a builder for the rest of the organization; we put most of our energy and effort into serving others.

But, every good builder knows that at the end of the day, tools must also be kept clean and sharp, if they are to continue to do their jobs well. So, for a change, lets put some time and energy into ourselves.

Something a colleague pointed out in a recent presentation bears repeating; the efforts of the PMO constitute a journey, not a destination. As we continue on our adventure, we have a responsibility to look at the landscape before us and consciously choose a purposeful path.

For PMO managers, there always seems to be a never-ending list of improvements we could make. This can easily become overwhelming and fracture focus so that we end up wandering aimlessly through a forest of half done initiatives. So, let’s explore a few things that we can practically achieve in the coming months, and resolve to select a handful that can really make a difference. Review your own portfolio of potential investments, and practice some of that balance and scope discipline that we ask of others.

Considerations such as your staff, tools and level of service should be analyzed, discussed with sponsors and stakeholders, and tuned up as appropriate. Allow me to toss out some ideas for 2008 resolutions for PMO managers to consider:

• I will ensure everyone on my staff gets an opportunity to enrich their career and skills, either through continuing education, training, user groups or by attending industry PMO events
• I will personally get out as well, and attend at least two peer events a year to broaden my own perspectives and re-energize my determination
• I will (send someone to) get ITIL Foundation certified, and foster discussion with operations managers around how the PMO can help improve service management
• I will ask the CFO to send over someone to educate my team about financial management and accounting
• I will do a formal audit of the business applications we use to manage work and resources and push for improvements, if they are required
• I will go to lunch twice a month with someone in the groups I support so I stay in touch with what they are doing and what they need
• I will review the reports we are producing and verify with recipients that they are still relevant, useful and needed
• I will review the PMO meetings and mandates we place on our organization and verify that they are still relevant, useful and needed
• I will initiate a regular PMO Customer Satisfaction Survey
• I will sit down with my sponsors and stakeholders to review results of that survey and take action
• I will benchmark our processes and level of maturity to industry standards, leveraging objective external assistance from peers and/or consultants
• I will fund the purchase of one business management book a month, actually read it, and then create a reference library to share with others
• I will quit doing that combination throat-clearing wheeze thing I do just before I speak in meetings that everyone finds so irritating

I’m sure you can add many more. Once you get a good list together, pick five of them, print them out and post them on your corkboard so you keep them in the forefront of your mind.

Share your personal PMO resolutions by commenting on mine!

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Terry Doerscher has more than 24 years experience in practical process development, project management, PMO, business strategy, and work and resource management in construction, nuclear and IT fields. Mr. Doerscher is the Chief Solution Architect for Planview, an Austin-based software company dedicated to creating project portfolio management solutions. Mr. Doerscher also writes a blog, Enterprise Navigator, where he frequently discusses issues pertaining to portfolio management and IT, http://blogs.planview.com/tdoerscher/.