Mantra for Innovative Project Management

Subhajit BhattacharyaIT Project Delivery ManagerAccenture

Project Management as a Service – On Agile Platform

Theme: National Conference

Sub-Theme: Mantra for Innovative Project Management

Keywords: Project Management as a Service, Managed Services, Cloud Services

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Abstract

Project Management as a Service (PMAAS) is an innovative and cost effective approach to leverage

organization’s project management needs optimized in a holistic way. The objective behind this concept is

to manage all the required PM phases and processes over the cloud of project management bodies on

the “Agile” platform.

Many organizations face budgetary or PM expertise constraints to build an in-house PM capability due to

company’s traditional approach focusing towards the line of business or minimal support on the process

improvement guidelines. Organizing training and acquiring accreditation may not always result in a

successful endeavor.

In the competitive edge of marketization& globalization, PM capabilities indeed have their own standpoint

and indispensable impact on the company’s growth.

PMAAS is a unique approach wherein individual or cumulated PM processes are being managedby the

cloud of PM consultants. They individually manage each PM phase dealing with every process group

independently. When each of the phases being wrapped on the agile framework constructed on story

boards, overall management becomes much easier and transparent either for the client or to the

consultants. Each of the loosely coupled phases works independently and feeds information among them

to stimulate the PM efficiency to attain the project goal. Being individually managed services on agile

platform and working on the cloud approach, overall ROI will certainly be improved.

PMAAS approach can be applied across all types of organizations addressing: Project/Portfolio

Management, organization’s project management capability improvement, improved business continuity

from PMO perspective, project & services delivery management.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................3

2. Origin of PMAAS....................................................................................................................4

3. Failure of Integrated EBS Application – A Case Study..........................................................6

4. Key Challenges......................................................................................................................8

5. Methodology/process followed...............................................................................................8

6. Critical success factor..........................................................................................................11

7. Quantified benefits to business............................................................................................11

8. Lessons learnt......................................................................................................................13

9. Conclusion............................................................................................................................14

10. References........................................................................................................................14

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1. Introduction

Project Management as a Service (PMAAS) is an innovative approach to manage all the required

project management phases and processes over the cloud of project management bodies on the “Agile”

platform.In today’s competitive edge of marketization and globalization, project management capabilities

certainly have their own importance and vital impact on the company’s growth and establishment in the

global market.

Now a days most of the MNCs are having their own in house PMO setup, however there are still many

organizations which either don’t have PMO or having very thin project management team as a support

vertical due to budget or other constraints.

Under PMAAS, each of the project management phases and process groups is managed by

anindependent or a group of cloud based PM bodies also called cloud(project) consultantsand they are

loosely coupled bodies working autonomously. However as the phases are inter-related therefore the

output of one phase gets fed into the next. As soon the previous phase is complete, so we can get that

documented to updaterelevant organizational process assets; and then close that cloud component or we

can assign next assignment into that phase from the project pipeline. This methodology will give an in-

depth visibility to the project manager to make an overall analysis on the current progress and planning

future risk areasto make important decisions on the on-going projects. This further gives a new dimension

to the virtualization of cloud consultants and also promotes the scalability to accommodate additional

project requirements on-going basis. Overall it gives a blended flavor of abstraction wherein the project

intricacies are kept hidden but enables the project manager to have an in-depth view on the progress.

As each of the phases are wrapped over an agile model, therefore each of theproject knowledge areas

become a story board which further is decomposed into various story points describing what are all the

tasks to be performed under each of the units so that the phases should be complete and information be

transferred into the next phase within the stipulated timeframe. Each of theindependent phases

formsagile sprint under PMAAS suite, and further to this each of the sprint phases can individually be

classified and managed by different set of consultants to achieve a cost effective and quality result at the

completion of the project.

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2. Origin of PMAAS

The concept of PMAAS has been originated from the challenges that many of the organizations face

today in terms of setting up a dedicated project management body within the organization. They struggle

to develop in-house project management capabilities to deliver quality projects/services on time within the

agreed budget. Initiatives such as training for project managers, accreditation or setting-up a project

management office (PMO) yield sporadic results and performance has not been found profitable. In fact,

large organizations have estimated that poor project leadership and wrong decisions waste around 20%

to 30% of the overall project cost.

Therefore to overcome this chaotic situation of mismanagement and poor governance, a cloud based

service model has been introduced which works on service broker concept giving a blend of abstraction

and virtualization. Here each of the phases and the process groups are managed by a distinctive project

management body over acloud and they are also known as cloud consultants, and each activity within

the phase are closely monitored by the organization’s project manager, called master robot, so that he

can sensibly assign the next phase to another cloud consultant by feeding required information which he

gets from the previous one.The project manager can also share important decision making information to

the key stakeholders, including the project sponsor.

Further to thisPMAAS suite is wrapped over an agile model, wherein the project managerconductsa daily

review call with the cloud consultants to address the problem areas and shares review feedbacks. It also

makes sure to get the backlog clear as each of the tasksis having stringentdeadline.

Here the project manager plays important role as s/he interfaces the PMAAS consultants and

communicates required information among the key stakeholders (clients, vendor/contractor,

organization’s senior management teams, technical teams, etc.).

PMAAS suite gives a full visibility on the progress, budgetary aspects, and other key areas while the

project manager just have to keep track of the overall progress and timely communication to the relevant

stakeholders. To further optimize the PMAAS suite, BI enabled IPMS tool can be implemented for better

project management and imperative decision making purposes.

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Fig 2.1: Managing independent phases over a cloud of PM bodiescentrally monitored and

administered by the organization’s project manager

Fig 2.2: Adaptation of Agile framework within the PMAAS suite

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3. Failure of Integrated EBS Application – A Case Study

In the year 2012, one of the India’s top companies has come up with an idea todevelop a product:

Integrated Employee BackgroundScreening(EBS)Application. As of date the company was doing a

fairmanual job byfollowing pre-defined protocols and feeding the information into flat files and later they

process them together to prepare a wholesome knowledgebase for the clients. As the clientele got

expanded and they want real time information therefore the company chairman had decided to automate

the EBS process so that there must be a 360 degree visibility on the status to the major stakeholders:

business head of the department and senior leadership teams, company’s backend executives, field

executives, client HRs, and the candidates. It had got a world class concept as the application got both

the web and smart phone interfaces connected over a centralized database system with different sets of

access and visibility rightsmaking the application RMS (Right Management System) compliant.

The company actually followsa traditional business approach primarily focusing on the core line of

businesses and minimal supporttowards the technology excellence and process improvement aspects. To

get better business, company has over committed the product features to the existing and prospective

clients and received fair number of deals. Shortly the company started facing a lot of follow-ups from the

clients and business department heads. Following to that company has decided to launch the application

within 60 days without judging the scope & complexity of work and therefore recruited an experienced

project manager to get the product on boarded withinagreed time span without doing much due diligence

in the project scope.

Budget was officially not signed off by the project sponsor as the scope was not determined and it kept

changing. From the initial budget of INR 15, 00,000, almost 2, 00,000 were spent within one and a half

months due to procurement, hiring technical teams, and continuous re-work.

Finally after 60 days, a beta version of the application was launched which was a total failure as it could

not serve what was proposed and therefore the company had to incur a huge loss.

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Fig 3.1: Logically EBS application was feasible to deliver,however because of unrealistic project

parameters; project manager has to think hard where and how to start with…!

Fig 3.2: As there were infeasible project requisites therefore it was difficult for a project manager to

commence the project work and communicate the progress to the respective stakeholders. Project

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starts with “Amber” status and managing it from initiation to closure becamea difficult job.

4. Key Challenges

As per the case study below weresome of the key challenges:

Scope was not defined and kept changing

Due to multiple stakeholders, getting consolidated information from them was tedious job

Requirements often conflicting as different stakeholders were having different opinion

Estimated budget was neither finalized nor agreed with the project sponsor

Actual stakeholders were not identified correctly

Due to follow-ups from clients and business unit heads, unrealistic timeline was agreed without

the consent of the project manager

No formal project charter was prepared and signed off

Risk and quality factors were neveridentified

Detailed test plan was not prepared

No project governance or PMO team was setup, due to which project’s financial aspects were

also impacted

Due to above limitations, no formal project plan could be prepared or signed off

5. Methodology/process followed

In the above case study, we have figured out some of the key challenges behind the failure of the EBS

application. Now let us put the above scenario under PMAAS model and segregating project manager’s

roles.

Here we have seen four major road blocks:

1) Unclear and infeasible scope definition

2) No realistic budget estimation

3) Unattainable deadline

4) No due diligence on the project quality checks and risks mitigation plan

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All these above factors affected the overall project plan, which led to the failure of the proposed product.

Since the company does not have its own PMO team and in-house project consultants to look upon each

of the factors independently, therefore as per the PMAAS concept, the above issue could be dealt as

below:

One or group of phases could be assigned to cloud consultants

Each of the phases considered as anindependent project which arefurther framed over agile

model

Each task identified under a phasefurther decomposed into sub-tasks and assigned attainable

scope and timeline

Therefore it gives certain level of assurance that each of the phases will be delivered as

peragreed timeline and budget

A project manager has to keep eye on this to track the overall progress

At the project initiation phase, cloud consultants would primarily look into the requirements in

terms of scope clarification

They would identify the key stakeholders with the help of company’s project manager who is

interfacing them

They will prepare the initial project charter and the project manager will then consult with the

project sponsor to understand the budget and other key factors including the feasibility of

delivery timeline

Once everything is done, so the final project charter would be prepared and signed off by the

sponsor and other key stakeholders

Once the project charter is signed off, so the planning begins and the same protocol being

followed. However it is thoroughly up to the company whether it wants different clouds to

incorporate or a single cloud to remotely manage the overall project phases.

As each of the project phases has got project tasks for the cloud consultants therefore

seamlessly it would also have all the required project key parameters and this is why the overall

output is much quicker adhering to quality norms and putting risk mitigation plan in place

Being agile in nature, a rigorous iteration happens before the item being released for delivery

Backlog count is relatively lesser

Each of the phases can be termed as agile sprint

Over a daily review, we can prepare a quantified burn down chart to track the progress of the

required deliverables and communicate the progress review among the relevant stakeholders

Each phase is logically inter-related to other and feeds required information

Phases are further integrated over business intelligence enabled Integrated Project

Management System (IPMS) tool to enable better project management and decision making

PMAAS also gives a blended flavor of virtualization and abstraction along with ensuring scalability

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Besides the above project manager also manages the procurement activities and for that he may

have to engage another set of contractors

While attaining the deliverables, project manager has to keep a close eye on the integration part.

Ideally it happens jointly with the cloud consultants and other third party consultants

The ideal solution to EBS application was to opt fora prototype model initially for solution

development and according to user feedback it could be made more matured

It may happen that project initiation and planning phases might be done by the cloud consultants

within a period of 15 days, and during this period the project manager would build required in-

house project management and development capabilities to further expedite the delivery

PMAAS enables project manager to be aware of the latest updates, which can be communicated

to the relevant stakeholders to avoid surprise escalations

There could be some of the modules which can be developed in parallel and can be done on a

fast track basis without affecting other modulesand may follow a flip-flop notion

Fig 5.1: In the PMAAS, project manager plays a crucial role as a Master Robot. Each phase is an

independent project which can be termed as Sprint as they follow the agile principle. Tasks under

each phase are termed as story boards and tasks are further decomposed into manageable sub-

taskcomponents called story points which are assigned feasible timeline. Each story unitis

monitored and reviewed closely by the project manager along with the cloud consultants.Any

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change in that can bemanaged appropriately.

Phases are loosely-coupled hence few phases can be driven by cloud consultants and few can be

managed by the project manager himself for better agility and cost effectiveness.

Phases are logically connected to each other to feed relevant information. To make the framework

more dynamic, we make use of BI enabled IPMS (Integrate Project Management System) tool.

Project manager is responsible to communicate information among all the stakeholders and also

responsible to address the project integration plan along with the cloud consultants. He takes

care of the procurement related decisions along with senior management/contractor for the

smooth progress of the project.

Project Manager interfaces cloud consultants and other key stakeholders.

6. Critical success factor

A signed off project requirements and scope document along with dependencies& assumptions, if

any

Realistic deadline

Signed off project charter and project plan for smooth project execution

Daily review call with the key stakeholders (including cloud consultants) to discuss the plan and

critical issues and timely communication to them to avoid any lag

Well stated risk mitigation plan to avoid any surprises

Definite & attainable timelineallocated for each sub-task defined under a task within a phase

Rigorous review before delivering the deliverables to the stakeholders

Extensivereview feedback to the cloud consultants to incorporate the changes

In case of large project with rigid deadline, plan for a prototype model instead of targetinga larger

picture

Project manager must have ownership and decision making capability to handle an odd or

unforeseen situation

7. Quantified benefits to business

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SMART project management during the overall project lifecycle contrary to the traditional

approach

Inclusion of IPMS tool can produce a better result in timely decision making

On-time delivery and client satisfaction maybringa higher RoI

Easily manageable project units with the help of cloud consultants

As each phase in itself works as a project on an agile model, managing overall project becomes

strategically simple and transparent

Organization can keep focusing on its major line of businesses while the project work will be done

over a cloud, as a service broker

Project manager gets a clear visibility of the estimated and the actual cost to avoid over-

expenditure and keep the profitability of the company at par

Table 7.1: In PMAAS approach your overhead cost is lower than traditional project management

approach. The overall cost of the project was INR 15, 00,000.

By strategizing phase-wise plan, project manager can make sure to expedite the overall project

delivery

Forecasting risk and preparing mitigation plan becomes easy as multiple units are logically

working together for the common goal. This also ensuresa quality delivery.

Projects can be well prioritized and planned in a flip-flop manner without affecting the overall

delivery. PMAAS keeps track of the backlog units and effectively selects the one which is

currently on priority and get that processed first without affecting the earlier one.

Project portfolio management becomes easier and much efficient, thus improves overall project

KPI.

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8. Lessons learnt

Scope, Time, and Cost are three major key parameters and before commencing a project these

three parameters must be signed off by the respective stakeholders performing all the pre-checks

on achievability

Due to budgetary constraint setting up a project governance body or an in-house PMO team to

administer the project and its financial aspects is not always feasible

To expedite the delivery with minimal cost to the company, cloud consultants can be leveraged to

manage independent phases. These consultants work as a service provider

In the competitive market, due to client’s volatile needs, PMAAS enables scalability and

virtualization ensuring quality within the budget

Each phase is dealt withas an independent project but logically interrelatedfeeding data to the

next phase

IPMS tool integrates information from each phase to enable imperative decision making

These projects when further wrapped over an agile framework, accelerate the delivery as the

tasks are further decomposed into manageable sub-taskscomponents giving better visibility on

the actionable items

Project manager, indeed, has a vital role as he is the person interfacing all the stakeholders in a

360 degree manner and has to play a role of scrum master during review calls for preparing or

approving the plan for the current phase along with the cloud consultants

As the work is being managed by the independent consultants, the project manager gets enough

bandwidth to further analyze the requirements, scope, estimated budget, timeline, figuring out the

risk areas, assuring quality checks, preparing test plans, taking procurement related decisions,

and pre-checks for resource availability (in-house/contractor). All these cumulatively assure

quality product and service at the end.

While a phase is being managed by the cloud consultants, project manager can efficiently build

an in-house capability

PMAAS also assures better and efficient project portfolio management

It can help improving organization’s project management capabilities and governance

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9. Conclusion

PMAAS is a novel approach to leverage organization’s project management requirementsoptimized in a

holistic way so as to increase the overall ROI and improved KPI. The concept revolves around managing

the required PM phases and processes over the cloud of project management bodies on the “Agile”

platform, wherein each of the phases is distinct project unit with stipulated timeline. Project manager plays

a role of “Master Robot” and coordinates with the stakeholders and communicate the required information

to the relevant teams. He continuously monitors the progress and shares feedback, portraying spoke and

hub model. As this framework has got agile behavior, the overall management of the phases becomes

simpler and strategic. IPMS tool can further enhance the productivity by integrating all the phases and

exchanging relevant information among them. It also helps a project manager to take important

decisions.PMAASframework gives an end-to-end view on the project progress and other areas of project

management including budgetary stuffs. All these contribute to a best-in-class project portfolio

management.

10. References

1. Berkun Scott, The Art of Project Management, O'Reilly, 2013

2. Mantel J. Samuel, Project Management: A Managerial Approach, Wiley, 2012

3. James Shore,”The Art of Agile Development”, O'Reilly, 2008

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