Basics Managing IT Projects -By Glaser, John

To minimize the likelihood of IT project failure, it's important to focus on five foundations of sound project management: * Roles * Committees * Charters * Plans * Status reporting So you've developed an IT strategy and assessed the potential value of the proposed projects to support it. Chances are, this point is when you're most nervous-when it's time to let the IT projects begin. You have good reason to be anxious. After all, the rate of failure of IT projects is surprisingly high. It is estimated that one-third of all IT projects are cancelled before completion and only 10 percent achieve their original plan. For the remainder, budget and schedule overruns approach 100 percent and the functionality delivered is less than half of what was originally anticipated, according to Dennis Severance and Jacque Passino, authors of Making I/T Work: An Executive's Guide to Implementing Information Technology Systems. What can be done to reduce the risk of failure? One key area to pay attention to is project management. Even though the basics of project management may not seem very exciting, without mastering these areas you're likely to have your projects wind up in significant distress. What Is Project Management? Project management is a set of management disciplines and practices that, if executed well, raise the likelihood that a project will deliver the desired results. Project management has several objectives: * Describe the scope and intended results of the project * Identify accountability for the successful completion of the project and associated project tasks * Define the processes for making project-related decisions * Identify the project's tasks and task sequence and interdependencies * Determine the resource and time requirements of the project * Ensure appropriate communication with relevant stakeholders regarding project status and issues Different kinds of projects require different types of management strategies. For example, projects that are pilots or experiments require less formal oversight (and are not helped by large amounts of formal oversight) than large, multiyear, multimillion dollar undertakings. Similarly, projects shared by more than one organization have different decision-making structures than projects that involve several departments within one organization. There is no one way to manage projects. But all projects benefit greatly from having a well-defined approach to five areas: * Roles * Committees * Charters * Plans * Status reporting What Are the Core Project Roles? Several roles must be filled to effectively manage projects. Business sponsor. The business sponsor is the individual who holds overall accountability for the project. The sponsor should represent the area of the organization that is the major recipient of the value of performance improvement that the project intends to deliver. For example, a project that involves the implementation of a new claims processing system should have the CFO as the business sponsor. A project that affects a very large portion of the organization may have the CEO as the business sponsor. The business sponsor has several duties: * Secure funding and needed business resources (for example, the commitment of people's time to work on the project) * Assume final decision-making and sign-off accountability for project scope, resources, and approaches to resolving project problems * Promote the project internally and externally and obtain buy-in from key constituents * Help define deliverables, objectives, scope, and success criteria * Help remove business obstacles to project timeline and deliverables * Chair the project steering committee Business owner. Business owners generally have day-to-day responsibility for running a function or a department. A project may need several business owners. For example, the success of a new patient-accounting system may depend on processes that occur in registration and scheduling, and thus the director of outpatient clinics and the director of the admitting department would need to be business owners. Also, adequate physician documentation of the care provided would be a primary focus of the project. Thus, the medical group administrator would be a business owner involved in the project, too. Business owners have several responsibilities: * Represent their department or function at project steering committee and project team meetings * Secure and coordinate necessary business and departmental resources * Remove business obstacles to project timeline and deliverables as appropriate Project manager. The project manager does just that-manages the project. This person provides the day-to-day direction-setting, conflict resolution, and communication needed by the project team. The project manager can be an IT person or a person from the business office. Project managers have several responsibilities: * Identify and obtain needed resources * Deliver the project on time, on budget, and according to specification * Communicate progress with sponsors, stakeholders, and team members * Ensure that diligent risk monitoring is in place and appropriate risk-mitigation plans are in concert with the magnitude of risk * Identify and manage the resolution of issues and problems * Maintain the project plan * Manage the project scope The project manager works closely with the business owners and business sponsor in performing these tasks. They collaboratively set meeting agendas, manage the meetings, track project progress, communicate project status, escalate issues as appropriate, and resolve deviations and issues related to the project plan. What about Project Committees? Two committees are required to provide project guidance and management. Project steering committee. The project steering committee provides overall guidance and management oversight of the project. The steering committee has the authority to resolve changes in scope that affect the budget, milestones, and deliverables. The committee is expected to resolve issues and address risks that cannot be handled by the project team. The committee also manages communications with the leadership of the organization and the project team. The business sponsor chairs this committee. The steering committee should comprise representatives of the major areas of the organization the project will affect, and whose efforts are necessary if the project is to succeed. Using the previous example, a steering committee overseeing the implementation of a new patient-accounting system might include the director of outpatient clinics, the director of admitting, and the medical group administrator. Project team. The team may not be called a committee but it will meet regularly and does have responsibilities. The project manager chairs the project team. The team has several responsibilities: * Manage the performance of the project work * Resolve day-to-day project issues * Manage and allocate resources required to do the work * Work with the steering committee and business owners, as necessary, to resolve problems, communicate the status of the project, and assess potential changes in scope, timeline, or budget. Project team members can be business owners and/or their staff and IT managers and/or their staff. What Is a Project Charter? The project charter is a document that describes the purpose, scope, objectives, costs, and schedule for the project. The document also discusses the roles and responsibilities of the individuals and functions that need to contribute to the project. The project charter serves three basic objectives: * Ensure, during the development of the charter, that project goals, planning assumptions, or potentially ambiguous objectives are discussed and resolved * Help to keep participants from developing different understandings of the project's staff needs, timeline, and/or cost * Enable the project leadership to communicate with the organization, as necessary, about the project The project charter includes: * Project description, goals, and objectives * Project requirements (including business needs, scope, and limitations) * Project resource requirements * Roles of team members and the composition of the steering committee and project team * Milestones and deliverables * Project risks and strategies for addressing risk * Processes for making project decisions * Plans for communicating project status What Is in the Project Plan? The project charter provides an overview of the project. The project plan provides the details of tasks, phases, timelines, and resources needed by task and phase. The project plan is the tool used by the project team during the day-to-day management of the project. The project plan has several components: * Project phases and tasks * The sequence of phases and tasks * Interdependencies between phases and tasks * The duration of phases and tasks * Staff and other resources needed by task and phase Several software tools are available to assist project managers in developing project plans. These tools enable the project manager to develop the plan as described above, prepare plan charts and resource use by task and phase, and model the impact on the plan if timelines or resource availability change. What about the Project Status Report? The project status report documents and communicates the status of the project. The report is generally prepared monthly and distributed to project participants and stakeholders. It often forms the basis of discussion at steering committee meetings. The status report typically covers recent accomplishments and decisions, work in progress, upcoming milestones, and issues that require resolution. It often uses a color scheme to provide an overall picture of the status of a project. For example, green = task or phase proceeding well, yellow = task or phase facing a timeline or other problem, and red = task or phase in trouble and requires attention. When a status report has a plethora of tasks and phases that are tagged with red, the project is experiencing significant difficulty. On the other hand, a sea of green indicates that the project is going well. The preparation, distribution, and discussion of the project status report are part of an overall project communication plan. Other components of the communications plan might include quarterly project presentations at meetings of the organization's department heads, articles about the project in the organization's internal newsletter, and presentations at specific leadership forums (for example, medical staff, the board, and the executive committee). Project Management Considerations Managing projects requires skill, discipline, and experience. The track record and reputation of the project manager is key. When a project manager has demonstrated success over the course of many projects, then the project plan and assessment of status are likely to be sound. When the project manager is a novice or has an uneven track record, the plan and status reports may require greater scrutiny. Regardless of the project manager's track record, several additional cues can indicate a project is off to a good start or is in good shape: Message clarity. The plan charter is clear and explicit. Fuzzy objectives and vague understandings of resource needs indicate that the plan needs further discussion and development. Leadership buy-in. The leadership of the departments and functions who will be affected by the plan or who need to devote resources to the plan have reviewed the charter and plan, had their concerns addressed, and have publicly committed to performing the work needed in the plan. Reasonable timelines. The project timelines have been reviewed by multiple parties for reasonableness, and these timelines have taken into consideration factors that will influence the plan (e.g., key staff on vacation), and the relative uncertainty that might exist for certain phases or tasks. For example, if it is not clear how a specific task will be performed, that task timeline should have some "slack" built into it. Detailed resource commitment. Commitments for the project's resources have been secured, the budget has been approved, and staff needed by the plan can be named-and their managers have taken steps to free up the time needed by the plan. Specific accountability. The accountabilities for the plan and for each plan phase and task are explicit. Risk recognition. The charter has thoroughly assessed the project risks and developed thoughtful approaches to addressing the risks. Such risks include unproven IT, deterioration in the organization's financial condition, and turnover of project staff. Room for uncertainties. The project incorporates a reasonable amount of contingency for inevitable problems and current uncertainties. In general, projects should add 10 percent to the timeline and 10 percent to the budget to reflect the time and cost of inevitable problems. For very complex projects, it is not unusual to see 20 to 25 percent of the budget and schedule being labeled "unknown" or "unclear." Problem recognition. The discussion of project status is candid about the problems (after all, all projects encounter problems). The discussants have also done the homework that leads to thoughtful approaches to resolving problems. Reasonable noise. The organizational "noise," or complaints about change or distress about delay, is appropriate given the magnitude of the project. All projects generate noise, but the noise level should seem reasonable. In fairness, defining this criterion for your organization may be difficult, because different people can have different interpretations of a situation's reasonableness. Project surprises are few. All projects face unpleasant surprises. However, a project in trouble will present a seemingly never-ending series of surprises. Back to Basics Managing projects is difficult and a lot of work. No approach can lead to 100 percent project success all of the time. That said, paying attention to basics, such as managing project-related roles, committees, charters, plans, and status reporting, is key. Following these project management disciplines can greatly improve the odds of success and reduce organizational apprehension and nervousness.