TECH581 Improve/Control Presentation

Fall 2008

Date: 12/09/08Team Members: xxxxxxxxxx

Sound Removed

Brief Review of Project Charter

Information Technology Department of major Insurance Company attempting to collect metrics on business requirements changes throughout application project lifecycle.

If collected, measure is taken at the end of the project, amounting to 8 hours of work for a project manager.

Tracking and recording the changes throughout the lifecycle of a project and the associated process that can be implemented across the organization can be a significant improvement to a maximum of 1 hour total for each project.

The process of requirements counts/metrics can be used to further analyze and estimate future projects.

Goal: To understand current processes for requirements metrics gathering to identify and eliminate non value add steps. Identify value added steps performed inefficiently and implement improvements.

Refresh from Analyze Presentation

Studied time to count requirements through lifecycle of project based on:– Project Size– Requirements Tool– Requirements Complexity– Awareness of Importance to Count Requirements– PM Experience

Reviewed by different factors to determine hours to count.

Review of Analyze Conclusions

Total hours to count requirements changes over the project lifecycle at the end of the project averages 7.6 hours based on historical information.

Average hours to count requirement changes over the lifecycle of the project during the project lifecycle averages 1.1 hours based on sample of projects studied.

Requirements took longer to count when using MS Word as the requirements tracking tool. ClearQuest took the least amount of time.

Projects with high complexity requirements took longer to count.

No correlation found between awareness of the priority of the task and the effort to report requirements counts.

No correlation found between PM experience (grade) and the effort to report requirements counts.

Solutions Being Considered

Move requirements counting process to throughout lifecycle rather than at the end of the project.

Move requirements to ClearQuest tool. CQ had the least amount of time to collect counts.

Document process. Documentation does not currently exist on how or why requirements counting is important or that it is required by QPE.

Impact/Effort Matrix

High 5Medium 3Low 1

# Option Impact Effort

1

PMs gather requirements counts throughout the lifecycle of the project

5 1

2

All requirements captured through ClearQuest

5 5

3 Document process 3 1

Low Effort Medium Effort High EffortHigh

Impact 1Medium Impact 3 2

Low Impact

Rating

PMs gathering counts through lifecycle is little effort and cost to IT. Process change only. Results of project show impact is high.

CQ took least amount of time for PMS to capture counts. Though CQ capture will be a large effort due to cost of licensing the product to all PMs, training of PMs not familiar with tool.

Documentation of the process may have a medium impact. Definitely low effort due to PMO work that does not impact the PM. Project showed that awareness was not a factor in less time to count.

Pilot Plan

Discuss results with Project Sponsor and obtain buy in for measuring counts across lifecycle.

Document Process with help from PMs used in the class project sample.

Create collection sheets to upload on ecollaborate site for all project artifact repositories.

Train PMs on process at Project Managers Forum Begin new process with newly started projects. Routinely insure that counts are being collected and

recorded through stage gate reviews.

Pilot Plan Schedule

Pilot Action Start Date End Date

Discuss results with Project Sponsor and obtain buy in for measuring counts across lifecycle. 12/15/2008 12/15/2008

Document Process with help from PMs used in the class project sample. 12/16/2008 12/24/2008

Create collection sheets to upload on ecollaborate site for all project artifact repositories. 1/4/2008 1/6/2008

Train PMs on process at Project Managers Forum 1/25/2008 1/25/2008

Begin new process with newly started projects. Check change to scope, schedule budget 2/1/2008 Continuous

Routinely insure that counts are being collected and recorded through stage gate reviews. 3/1/2008 Continuous

Standardized Processes

Spreadsheet to be filled out by PM as part of Stage Gate review process.

Spreadsheet will be kept in project artifact repository.

Project Number: PM: CHANGE NEEDED?

Stage Gate Requirements Count

Change from previous count (Calculated) Scope Schedule Budget

Time to count

Baseline (Beginning)            

Initiation   0        

Design Readiness   0        

Construction Readiness   0        

Production Readiness   0        

Project Closeout   0        

Standardized Processes

Stage Gate checklist will include requirements count spreadsheet completion at gate.

Stage Gate will not be passed unless requirements count spreadsheet complete. This means PM will not be able to continue with project.

Measuring Success

Continue measuring at the end of the project the amount of time it took to count.

Average for the project will be reviewed by PMO to insure that projects are still taking less than 7-8 hours as found when counts were taken at the end of the project.

Success = less than or equal to 1.1 hours to count. Any projects that are deemed “less than succesful” will

be reviewed for reasons, remediation to process, or training.

Control/Sustainability

Again, control will be through stage gate reviews. Projects will not be able to continue until counts are recorded.

This stage gate review added step will insure sustainability as well.

Measurements will be recorded and published on PMO website for organizational review.

Evaluation Metrics

Average Time to Count Requirements by Month and Tier

Tier

Month 1 2 3 4

February        

March        

April        

May        

June        

July        

August        

September        

October        

November        

December        

Total        

Average measure of time to count will be recorded by PMO monthly.

Data will come from standardized process sheet filled out by PMs during Stage Gate reviews.

Continue to review for any outliers or changes needed to process.

Updated ROI

Current Project Time/Cost to gather requirements change counts at end of project:

– 7.625 hours X $75/hour base = $572 per project.– Estimate per year AMIT completes 100 New Development Projects.– 100 X $572= $57,200 per year.

Project from class showed average can be brought down to 1.1 hours.– 1.1 hour X $75/hour base = $82.50– 100 X $82.50 = $8,250.

Investment:– 1 PMO Staff at $75/hour base, 8 hours per month to review and insure

process, 8 hours X 12month X $75/hour = $7,200 annually Potential return on investment=

– $57,200 (previous cost to count requirements) - $8,250 (cost to count under new process) - $7,200 (PMO staff to insure process success) = $41,750 yearly savings.

Diffusion and Spread Plan

PMO will continually update PMs through weekly PMO email of requirements count process with link to process documentation.

PMO will highlight the cost savings through the monthly PM forums.

PMO will continually insure process is followed through stage gate reviews.

Final Thoughts

Counting requirements will shed light on other items of importance– Scope– Schedule – Budget