The Project Online Implementation Cookbook: Principles for Success

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Summary: This article provides admins and organizations, the key considerations to focus on when implementing a project management system, such as Project Online.

Applies to: Project Online

Introduction

In this day and age, there is immense pressure on enterprises to be the most competitive and to drive the value to their stakeholders. by being the most efficient and value-driven in whatever they do, including their processes and projects.

However, to drive these efficiencies and to make insight-driven decisions around processes and people, the organizations need quick access to information about the projects and work being executed. This is where a project management system like Project Online comes into picture. True to the axiom, "What is measured, can be managed", a project management system provides tools to organizations trying to move away from ad-hoc project management, to a more data-driven decision-making process.

The Challenge

While the need for a project management system is easily justified, the implementation of one may not be quite that simple. Many fail to realize that implementing a project management system is essentially a fundamental behavioral change for the people involved, which is a significant undertaking. There are several factors that influence the success of such an implementation, such as a robust system, change management, or training, among other things.

As anybody who has implemented a large system change realizes, it is not about the tools themselves but the people who use those tools and systems that need to be managed as part of the project. So how does one go about implementing a project management system? How does one ensure the success of the implementation?

This paper attempts to lay out step-by-step guidelines for implementing a project management system, so that users and organizations that attempt it will have a recipe to follow.

Preparing for the Implementation

There are a number of considerations the organization needs to consider prior to actual implementation on a project management system like Project Online.

1: Establish the real "WHY?"

One of the most critical aspects of a project management system implementation is the pre-implementation part of the project. Similar to any other project, before embarking on the journey of implementing a project management system, it makes sense to evaluate the basic needs and establish the 'WHY' for an initiative like this.

Many times, a need for a project management system is identified as a consequence of some other initiative failing. For example, an executive might want a report of all the projects that his organizations resources are working on, and if the data is not stored in a centralized repository it might be very difficult to provide it. Similarly, an organization could be trying to plan its next year's project portfolio, and without a system, it could lead to chaos.

However, the critical thing to remember is that it is important to identify the true "why" in these scenarios, and evaluate if a centralized project management system would really help the case. Without a real pain-point to solve, the implementation does not have a background to stand on.

Some examples of the common themes for implementing Project Online are:

  • Lack of visibility to the overall project work within the teams.
  • Cross-organization resource management.
  • Budget and portfolio management

2: Identify the requirements of ALL the stakeholders

After the core reason to implement a project management system has been identified, you next need to learn the needs of various stakeholders.

As discussed previously, a project management system is different from other system implementations because it brings change at a fundamental level to a large group in the organization. While the need to implement a project management system my have originated from users with a critical pain-point, it is important to engage the other key stakeholders like the project managers, resource managers, team members, and so on.

Each of these stakeholder groups will be impacted in a different way as part of a project management system implementation, so it is important to understand the impact, analyze it and agree on a desirable outcome for each of the parties.

3: Identify the current state

Many times, just because an organization does not have a centralized project management system does not necessarily mean that they do not have a project management practice at all. There could be several in-place processes and procedures that could be a great stepping stone for the implementation if used appropriately.

So, the next step in this journey is to identify the current state and maturity of project management. This exercise should answer questions like:

  • What are the current processes that are working well, and what is not working well.
  • Which processes that will be replicated in the project management system?
  • Which processes or parts of the processes are tribal knowledge and will need to be defined further?
  • Which processes lend themselves to further standardization and definition?

4: Define the future state

As a continuation of previous step, it is important to define the future processes of your project management functions and related processes. For example:

  • How will projects be initiated?
  • What constitutes a project?
  • Will both project and non-project work be modelled in the project management system?
  • How will resources be allocated to the projects? Will there be any approvals required for allocation of resources?

This will allow you to define the processes and methodologies that will be modelled in the project management system. There may be scenarios where a process may not currently exist to accomplish a specific function.

In those scenarios it is very important to define the process first without regards to the tool/system itself, and then figure out how to make it work within the system.

Define Success

Define what the success of the project management system will look like and clearly outline the ideal result. Without a baseline for measurement, you will have no way to evaluate your project.

5: Determine the ownership of the project management system

A common mistake that is made during a project management system implementation is that it is not defined clearly who will own the tool. It is important to understand that a project management system is not an IT tool only. It is strongly suggested that some part of the business owns the processes and standards implemented into the project management system. In organizations where a formal Project Management Office(PMO) exists, this is generally assumed to be the responsibility of a PMO.

Do you need a centralized Project Management Office?

A Project Management Office is a team within an organization that has the responsibility of defining and maintaining the standards for project management within that organization. The goal of a PMO is to ensure the delivery of value through projects by streamlining their execution.

Commonly and inaccurately, the implementation of a project management system is coupled with a PMO. Moreover, the group that spearheads the project management system implementation becomes a sort of a PMO. However, implementing a project management system does not necessarily mean that a PMO is established and ensures the success of the projects.

It is important to ask the question - does your organization really need a PMO? In general, having a central body responsible for the project management practice and the project management system tool proves beneficial for maintaining consistency and driving adoption, but it is a decision that is different for each organization.

In addition, there are several types of PMOs, which the organizations can choose based on the projects and culture of the organization.

The size of the organization also plays a part into the decision of establishing a PMO. While a formal PMO is desirable, most small/medium businesses do not have a PMO. They usually have a decision maker or a small group that serves a similar function. The emphasis is on defining and maintaining the standards for project management, and not necessarily having a group labelled as PMO.

6: Prioritize Requirements

As with any other project, implementing a project management system requires proper scope identification and prioritization. A common mistake that organizations make in this stage is to try to do everything, which does not make for a good approach. Organizations should seek to solve the single most critical pain-point identified in the prior steps, earn some early wins, and then embark upon adding other functionality in later phases.

  • It is recommended to think of building these requirements as LEGO blocks, where requirements build upon one another. Without a strong core platform, this will fall apart.
  • Identify the critical requirements and the elements that are needed to enable that requirement. For example, to enable accurate resource management, it is imperative that you have a well-defined project creation and lifecycle management process, a well-defined process for measuring resource capacity, and allocation based off of those projects. There are several ways to build these functionalities, and the organization should pick the approach that suits their culture and needs. For example, some organizations are used to using timesheets to track work, but the same is not received well in other organizations.
  • Once all requirements have been identified and filtered for the critical ones, prioritize them based on the value they deliver.
  • Identify the acceptance criteria for each of those requirements, and define what is success on each of the requirements.
  • And finally, try and quantify the benefits derived if each of the requirements are met.

7: Identify the stakeholders and the core team for implementation

Once you have identified the scope of the implementation, identify your partners in this initiative. A typical project management system implementation team looks like this.

Sponsors

You will need strong sponsorship for your project from top-down. Identify the sponsors that will support you, and have enough influence to remove obstacles as you encounter them.

Core Team

This would be the actual project team that would be doing the hands-on work in the project of implementing a project management system.

Reference Team

Since you cannot make all the decisions yourself, nor can you go to all of your users every time you need feedback, you will need a team of users who provide guidance on various processes. This could be your 'quick-feedback-group'.

8: Define a timeline for Implementation

It is ironic that many of the implementation projects for a project management system do not have a project schedule themselves. This is generally one of primary reason for these implementations to go off the rails. Make sure to develop a clear project timeline for the implementation with clear deliverables.

9: Develop a Change Management Plan

As discussed earlier, a project management system impacts almost all parts of the organization at various levels. It requires a concerted effort towards change management to make sure the organization accepts the change.

A clear plan to manage the change should be laid out well ahead of beginning the implementation. A good change management plan includes spreading awareness about the initiative, efforts to increase the desire of the participants to learn and adopt the system, and enough knowledge and training to sustain the change.

During the implementation

Now that the ground work before beginning the implementation has been completed, it is time to start the execution. The following will provide some guidelines as to how to work through the implementation.

1: Manage it like a project

As discussed before, implementing a project management system is like any other project. With your deliverables defined, actively monitor the achievement of deliverables in a timely fashion.

2: Don't let it go dark

Traditionally, an average project management system implementation takes six months to a year. This is because a project management system was always seen as an interconnected series of features and it is assumed that one feature cannot be delivered without another. In the age of Agile projects, this is a recipe for disaster, and more so in the case of a project management system.

Try to divide your implementation into easily deliverable work packages, and deliver them fast. For example, let’s say one of your deliverables is to enable your projects to go through an approval workflow. In this case, you would enable a Project Online instance, then enable the Project Creation functionality as the next step. You would then create an approval workflow for projects each as a separate deliverable, instead of trying to deliver all the functionality at the same time.

This will not only allow you to score quick wins, but also allow the team to test and provide feedback before the implementation goes too far off the tracks. This will feed the appetite for the users, and will also validate the design assumptions and give a chance to correct them.

3: Do not design for exceptions

A common trap that most project management system implementations fall into is to spend a lot of time designing for scenarios that are more of an exception than a standard one. This not only wastes time and resources, but also skews the implementation into something that fails to satisfy the core audience.

It is important to acknowledge that no tool can satisfy 100% of the scenarios, and the better choice is to pick solutions that solve the ones that are most critical.

Another perspective to this would be the "paralysis of analysis". Indecisiveness kills the momentum of a project. It is important to have a strong team and sponsor who can make fast decisions with enough data.

4: Keep it simple

As mentioned before, it is tempting to open up the doors to a brand spanking new project management system, and turn every single functionality and feature on and impress the users. However, this approach does not impress the users, but overwhelms them. People cannot handle too much change in one go. In this context, keep things simple to begin with. You can always add additional functionality later once users get used to the system.

5: Measurable data

One the key reasons a project management system is implemented is the ability to report and the associated visibility. However, to generate meaningful reports and dashboards that can result in insight-driven decision-making, it is important to put thought into reporting while the project management system is being built. In many instances the reports are an afterthought, and this not only undermines the impact of a project management system, but also takes away the "wow factor".

6: Plan for training

Enough cannot be said about the time needed to develope a solid training plan for users. It is important to realize that people learn in different ways, so develop a training plan that includes written material, video, audio and face-to-face interaction.

In addition, many of the training manuals focus only on the technical "how-to do things" in the tool, and ignores things such as explaining why a certain approval is needed, or why a team member needs to update his or her tasks. It is of utmost importance that the training material not only covers the how-to but also puts the time in explaining the benefits of doing things a certain way.

Post-Implementation

Please refer to the following articles for more tips on how to manage your project management system post implementation.

7 Ways to Sustain Adoption of your PPM Solution, Post-Implementation: white paper

Beat the Half-life (t ½) - Governing Your PPM Solution: Post-Implementation