OUCC 2015Inspiring Innovation

Presentation: Project Portfolio Management – A first year of adoption Presenter: Ramon KaganDate: May 5, 2015

Agenda

• Background

• Portfolio Management Fundamentals

• Portfolio Management at York U

• Next steps

Daily Humour

Background – The Common Thread

• IT being looked at as means for process improvement and cost reductions through process re-engineering and/or automation• More projects than can reasonably be funded, managed, deployed,

etc. are being requested all the time• What goes first? Who gets pushed? How is priority, urgency, impact

assessed? Who gets blamed when a project isn’t done?• IT should not be making the decisions, a governance body should but

how do we facilitate the discussions? Who should be involved? What are the deciding factors? Etc. Etc.

Does this look familiar?

Mandatory/Strategic

Discretionary

Keep-the-lights-on

IT Availability Desired IT Efforts

Other Factors of Influence

• Many organizations believe they have more slack in their resource pool that actually exists. In fact, exactly the opposite appears to be true• There is a perception that task switching (going from one unrelated activity

to another in the course of a day) does not impose any appreciable cost on either the efficiency or the effectiveness of project work, although the cost is estimated to be anywhere between 20 minutes and two hours, depending on the complexity of the activities.• Many organizations have trained project requesters to insist that projects

must start immediately, even if a lack of resources would extend the end date of a four-month project for a year.

- Gartner 2011

Need a Healthier Approach

Portfolio? Program? Project?

• Project Management is fundamentally concerned with making a single project successful in isolation. Focus is very localized

• Program Management is a group of related projects where tracking/doing them together supplies benefit and/or efficiency

• PPM’s attention is focused on the strategic viewpoint of the organization’s business goals. Projects rather than a project are considered for prioritization, risk/resource management, standardization and communication

Tactical

Efficiency

Strategic

Core Elements to Portfolio Management• Project Definition• What constitutes a project

• Capacity Planning/Management• What resources are available and how are they being used

• Project Portfolio Review • Consistent review of the portfolio by a review board

• Project Interdependencies• Prioritization/Sequencing

Portfolio Management Pillars

• Communication• Transparent• Bi-directional

• Capacity/Resource Planning• Project resourcing planned and accounted for

• Structured process• Consistency of approach• Quality gates

PPM Maturity Model

- Gartner 2014

Where do you start?

• Evaluate• What exists, what has been done in the past, what worked, what failed, etc• Determine you level of maturity – BE HONEST!

• Determine you definitions and goals• What’s in scope? What’s the definition of a project? Are there different types?• What do you want to achieve and by when? What are the pain points you are

trying to eliminate

• Determine strategy• Big bang? Phased?• Foundational changes? • What from current environment can be retained?

York U - Evaluate

• A notion of PPM with a Project Review Board (PRB) already established• A PMO was long established but needed some unification of artifacts

and clarity on project process/procedures• A definition of a project existed, but it left a large gap for capacity

usage understanding• Capacity planning/tracking was not formalized, but pockets of similar

activities existed• Overall maturity was a mix, with some elements from more mature

areas and some missing from less mature… overall maturity somewhere around 2.

York U – Definitions

• Previously definition was >20 man days effort and/or 25K in capital expenditure (not including internal labour costs)• 3 tiers of projects can be classified• Tier 1: Large, complex projects requiring large expenditure, labour, significant

cross team communication and affects the broad community.• Tier 2: Medium to large projects with significant expenditure. Not necessarily

complex or do not require significant communication.• Tier 3: Smaller projects often limited to a single team. Generally expend little

and have up to 4 man-weeks labour cost but no less than 2 days of effort. Standard operating procedures and standard offerings are excluded.

• Project man-week defined at 25 hours per week

York U - Goals

• Get a better understanding of how resource capacity is used• Develop an information base that can identify resource constraints

and project interactions• Facilitate fact-based conversations• Develop the underlying information as a foundation for building an IT

Governance model

York U - Strategy

• Big bang would be jarring not only to IT staff but to those we serve• Take a two-phase approach

• Develop a “roadshow” for:• UIT staff• Executives of the constituents UIT serves

• Generate standards• Templates, timelines, processes/procedures for projects• PRB standards including meeting rules of engagement and quarterly business

reviews (QBR)

• Capacity planning rather than capacity management at this time

High Level Timelines

Building the PPM and PM processes

• PPM - Consultation, Discussion, Flexibility• Key element to the approach was to ensure all areas were consulted

• Process went through ~8 iterations with final decision and approval by PRB • Wanted a balanced approach in the process for effort and reporting

• Generation of defined quality gates with defined inputs and outputs• Identification that the process is to be organic – it will need to change

• Normalize – Monitor – Refine • PRB is the owner of the process

• PM – PMO• Collaboration with the year’s of experience of the PMs within the PMO• Agreed upon process by team – a rewarding process to acceptance and

compliance

Overview of the PPM Process

Client View of the PPM ProcessConcept/Project Identification

• Motivation• Funding• Strategic alignment• End user impact

Submission of Concept and Classification

• Formal PCD submission

• Classification Scorecard

• Classification determination

Submission of Proposal

• Proposal, Initial Milestone & Communication Plan

• First resource estimation

• Business Analyst assignment

Analysis, Requirement Elicitation, Design and Planning

• Granular level of articulation of requirements

• Functional and non-functional coverage

• Solution design• Updated resource

and milestone plans

UIT Portfolio Management

• Project implementation

• Follows PMO defined best practices, including document types

• Formal project close out including lessons learned

Quality Gate 1

Quality Gate 2

Quality Gate 3

Quality Gate 4

• Coherent concept introduction

• Classification to direct projects through appropriate levels of rigor

• Reasonable proposal• Thought out high level plan• Initial understanding of

resource estimates

• Clearly articulated and signed off requirements

• Solution design and test plan• Updated resource estimates

and milestones• Baseline achieved

• Project lifecycle traversable • Deliverable sign off• Documentation up to date• Lessons learned sign-off

• Identification of the need at a conceptual level of granularity

• Articulation of need to UIT liaison (CSM)

• Increased level of articulation of need including better identification of risks, benefits, and assumptions

• High level milestone planning including resource estimates for functional team effort

• Engage in requirement elicitation efforts

• Formal signoff of documented requirements

• Test Plan generation• Resource estimate calibration

based on elicitation efforts

• Engage in Change Management

• Deliverables acceptance sign off

• Project close out engagement and sign off

Quality Gate Criteria

Client Engagement

Project Management Process

Achievements and Obstacles to Date

• Since May 1, 2014 – 240 projects have been accounted for, most with capacity plans• Standard templates are established and in use – 20 available• Capacity discussions are being facilitated between teams (IT)• Constructive conversations with those we serve are surfacing with concrete data to

back them up• First QBR cleared noise from the portfolio to allow focus on active projects• Compliance and buy-in is not at 100%, but those closer to full compliance are

realizing some of the benefits• Documents to reference are readily available• Changes of this nature are as much (or even more) cultural as they are procedural

– they take time, energy and patience

Moving Towards IT Governance

• Development of an IT Investment Board• Develop a rubric for prioritization• Based on University priorities• Common models leverage prioritization matrices as a core element

• Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) should be held to revisit priorities throughout the year• Adhoc projects inserted into the prioritized sequence

• Adjustments to resource allocation and timelines• Review of in-progress priorities and downstream dependencies (i.e.

resources, project deliverables as inputs for next project)

Closing Thoughts

• Mayo Clinic is one of the poster institutions for PPM adoption. They are currently bridging Level 4 and Level 5 maturity• Mayo Clinic started PPM adoption 6 years ago!• Mayo Clinic’s senior executives (SVP, CEO, etc) were the key sponsors of the

initiative giving the PMO unprecedented authority for rolling out PPM• KEY TAKEAWAY – this will take time, tenacity and perseverance

OUCC 2015Inspiring Innovation

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