Summary: Project Prioritization Made Easy

Created by John Borwick (Wake Forest University) on June 1, 2009

Cross-posted from http://itsm.is.wfu.edu/node/174.

Randall Alberts, head of the Project Management Office at Georgia State University, gave a presentation called "Project Prioritization Made Easy."

Their organization has 185 IT employees and 3 project managers including Randall. These three support project management in IT but do not manage all projects.

For then, work is "a project" when any of these criteria are met:

Over 80 person-hours of time
Cross-department resources are needed (e.g. a systems administrator and a database administrator)
The work has high visibility e.g. could show up on the President's desk
There are non-personnel expenses

After setting up these rules, the PMO "dug around" for six months to get a list of current projects. Managers were sometimes hesitant to volunteer projects, saying "oh, that's just a system we're building on the side."

After projects complete the initiation phase (according to the PMBOK), their charter gets signed off on by the customer. This charter is then reviewed by the PMO and "locked" so it cannot be changed when it's ready to be approved. They track requests via an on-line tool, "Virtual Project Management Office."

Their IT Steering Group (ITSG) meets at least once a month and includes the Provost, Associate Provost, and Vice-Presidents. The charter shows the cost including personnel costs, but departments are not charged unless they are auxiliaries.

They have a "priority spreadsheet," which you can download from the EDUCAUSE web site. This spreadsheet assigns a score to the project based on the project's urgency, importance, and financial implications.

New high-priority projects "bump" lower-priority projects, and this risk is communicated when the charters are reviewed by the ITSG. The top 10 projects are considered "high priority" and the next 15 are considered "medium priority." They also put projects on hold and put potential projects on a "draft projects" list.

Everyone in the department is expected to work on the highest-priority project they can, and management backs up anybody who postpones work due to higher-priority projects.

Project change requests are handled by the project sponsor and/or project team, and more significant change requests are sent back to the ITSG for re-approval.

They also have a formal project close-out where the ITSG officially agrees that the project can be closed.

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		Summary: Project Prioritization Made Easy Created by John Borwick (Wake Forest University) on June 1, 2009 Cross-posted from http://itsm.is.wfu.edu/node/174. Randall Alberts, head of the Project Management Office at Georgia State University, gave a presentation called "Project Prioritization Made Easy." Their organization has 185 IT employees and 3 project managers including Randall. These three support project management in IT but do not manage all projects. For then, work is "a project" when any of these criteria are met: Over 80 person-hours of time Cross-department resources are needed (e.g. a systems administrator and a database administrator) The work has high visibility e.g. could show up on the President's desk There are non-personnel expenses After setting up these rules, the PMO "dug around" for six months to get a list of current projects. Managers were sometimes hesitant to volunteer projects, saying "oh, that's just a system we're building on the side." After projects complete the initiation phase (according to the PMBOK), their charter gets signed off on by the customer. This charter is then reviewed by the PMO and "locked" so it cannot be changed when it's ready to be approved. They track requests via an on-line tool, "Virtual Project Management Office." Their IT Steering Group (ITSG) meets at least once a month and includes the Provost, Associate Provost, and Vice-Presidents. The charter shows the cost including personnel costs, but departments are not charged unless they are auxiliaries. They have a "priority spreadsheet," which you can download from the EDUCAUSE web site. This spreadsheet assigns a score to the project based on the project's urgency, importance, and financial implications. New high-priority projects "bump" lower-priority projects, and this risk is communicated when the charters are reviewed by the ITSG. The top 10 projects are considered "high priority" and the next 15 are considered "medium priority." They also put projects on hold and put potential projects on a "draft projects" list. Everyone in the department is expected to work on the highest-priority project they can, and management backs up anybody who postpones work due to higher-priority projects. Project change requests are handled by the project sponsor and/or project team, and more significant change requests are sent back to the ITSG for re-approval. They also have a formal project close-out where the ITSG officially agrees that the project can be closed. EDUCAUSE \| SERC09 \| southeast regional conference 2009 John's blog Login or register to post comments 162 reads
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