Project Management Framework

Project Charter

We begin by establishing a project charter to ensure all stakeholders are in alignment regarding the goals and objectives of the project effort.

Agile Principles

Once the project charter is complete, we work with organizations to form the project team, ensuring agile principles are applied.  Teams that are empowered with appropriate decision-making capabilities and which self-regulate have higher probability in accelerating the realization of stakeholder value.

Requirements

We ensure teams understand the basic requirements of the project.  Where applicable, we help to write those requirements, which we can also reflect as user stories.  We then facilitate an analysis of requirements in order to ensure proper prioritization.

Plan for Value

We work with teams to “speculate” level of effort involved for each requirement.  The result is an adaptive cycle plan that estimates iterative delivery of value-driven milestones.  Additionally, we consider project risks and mitigation strategies.

Measure Business Value

We help to build and report key performance indicators (KPIs), thus measuring if activity is achieving the critical success factors set forth in the project charter.

Incremental Development

The goal of agile project management is to ensure rapid stakeholder value realization with high-quality deliverables. We help teams focus on producing incremental deliverables.

Feedback

We provide a mechanism for providing sprint checkpoint reviews with key stakeholders, which enables rapid course corrections when needed.

Problem Detection

Agile focuses on managing issues through the sprint, but we believe it is imperative to spend some time upfront anticipating and identifying risks that have the potential to create blocking issues.  Being proactive in risk management pays off in the long run.

Review

We develop and utilize project radiators that reflect progress and performance.

Validate

Our agile process includes validating the top three critical milestones for each functional area within an increment (sprint).

Project Transparency

We conduct either daily standup meetings or weekly project meetings, depending on the nature of the project.  Additionally, we create a project status report on a weekly basis (via email).

Retrospective

We conduct retrospectives at the end of each iteration to ensure course corrections occur in real-time, rather than at the end of the project timeline.

Project Closure

We assist in transitioning the IMO into business as usual.

Document

Our clients receive project closure documentation.

Project Retrospective

We conduct a final retrospective to ensure lessons learned may be applied to future project activities.

We begin by establishing a project charter to ensure all stakeholders are in alignment regarding the goals and objectives of the project.

In order to achieve project goals, it is critical that employees and stakeholders understand the purpose of the project.

Using our established template and proven best practice processes, we work with stakeholders to develop a project charter that is intended for internal usage, but which can be repurposed for external communication.  The charter includes the following topics:

Purpose/Value Creation

Establishes the project objectives up front.

Success Criteria

Identifies key performance indicators upon which the project will be measured.

Project Management Office (PMO)

Determines project management disciplines for administering the project.

Resources

Identifies subject matter experts who will actively participate in the PMO.

Rules of Engagement

Details decision-making approaches and project guidelines.

In summary, the charter provides a framework from which all further project activity is undertaken, ensuring resources are performing in a unified manner in order to achieve the project objectives.

In order to set the stage for a successful project, we orient teams to the 12 agile principles.

These 12 agile principles consist of:

1. Satisfying the customer as the highest priority.
2. Welcoming change and adapting accordingly.
3. Delivering incremental value frequently.
4. Working together across various disciplines and with frequent customer involvement.
5. Motivating and empowering team members.
6. Conducting face-to-face meetings, either in person or via video conferencing, as much as possible.
7. Measuring progress against a quantifiable objective (for software developers, progress = working software).
8. Sustaining a constant pace and avoiding burnout.
9. Paying attention to excellence.
10. Keeping project activities simple and reducing milestones to minimum required.
11. Facilitating self-organizing teams that encourage collaboration rather than delegation.
12. Reflecting and reviewing work at regular intervals, making improvements in real-time.

We work with our clients to develop an adaptive cycle plan that estimates iterative delivery of value-driven milestones. 

Agile project management certainly includes some of the traditional project management disciplines, including planning out milestones and tasks, monitoring project performance and control, developing task dependencies, assigning resources, and tracking issues and risks.  The difference between an agile and traditional project management approach is building deliverables that the organization may fully or partially utilize in increments, and incorporating an iterative mechanism that encourages feedback on work-in-progress.

Our process addresses the goal to deliver incremental value in a fixed iteration, along with a feedback mechanism that encourages rapid course correction.

From an agile perspective, we also recommend utilizing Smartsheet for the project management tool.  This is because Smartsheet is easy to learn as it resembles MS Excel, and does not require extensive project management expertise.

Note, however, that we can and do work with other project management tools and will adapt to the needs of our clients. We are well-versed in MS Project Management, Clarizen, and OmniPlan and are able and willing to utilize any of the standard project management tools on the market.

We work with our clients to develop an adaptive cycle plan that estimates iterative delivery of value-driven milestones. 

Agile project management certainly includes some of the traditional project management disciplines, including planning out milestones and tasks, monitoring project performance and control, developing task dependencies, assigning resources, and tracking issues and risks.  The difference between an agile and traditional project management approach is building deliverables that the organization may fully or partially utilize in increments, and incorporating an iterative mechanism that encourages feedback on work-in-progress.

Our process addresses the goal to deliver incremental value in a fixed iteration, along with a feedback mechanism that encourages rapid course correction.

From an agile perspective, we also recommend utilizing Smartsheet for the project management tool.  This is because Smartsheet is easy to learn as it resembles MS Excel, and does not require extensive project management expertise.

Note, however, that we can and do work with other project management tools and will adapt to the needs of our clients. We are well-versed in MS Project Management, Clarizen, and OmniPlan and are able and willing to utilize any of the standard project management tools on the market.

We help to build and report key performance indicators (KPIs), thus measuring if activity is achieving the critical success factors set forth in the project charter.

Our general approach is as follows:

• KPIs must be quantifiable
• Three to five KPIs per iteration are optimum.  Any more than this leads to measurement fatigue and does not add value to understanding project progress
• Each KPI must be mapped to the project charter. If a driver does not exist for a KPI, then we need to ask ourselves why we are measuring and tracking it in the PMO
• KPIs are designed to reflect project success.

We help teams stay focused on delivering incremental value to stakeholders.

Agile is not just for software developers.  Agile can and should be applied to any project, technical or non-technical, that seeks to provide stakeholders with rapid value realization and high-quality outcomes.

Consider M&A Integration.  Investors need not wait a full year to realize value creation from their investment.  In other words, the combined companies do not need to be fully integrated in order to deliver synergies.  Milestones can be arranged into sprints that generate incremental value along the integration path.

We help project teams stay focused on delivering incremental, high-quality value, whether the deliverable is a piece of working software, a user manual, or a compensation plan that motivates cross-selling.

Check in with your client. And check in frequently.

We promote frequent communication with clients in order to ensure that course corrections are made with speed and agility, and before more complications can arise.

Our templates include dashboards and scorecards, along with a process that recommends periodic sprint checkpoint meetings.

We anticipate unexpected and undesired outcomes.

Those viewing agile from a purest perspective may argue that risk mitigation is not required.  We disagree.  Rather than waiting for a risk to turn into an issue that then needs to be managed through a backlog, we believe it is much more productive to anticipate and plan for how to manage unexpected and undesired outcomes.  We differ from traditional project management approaches in that we advocate simplicity when managing a risk register, and have developed lean templates that ensure risks are easily managed, tracked and resolved during sprint cycles.

At a minimum, we recommend a weekly PMO review of top three milestones per functional area.

Each week, the Program Manager conducts a review with all of the team members.  Our recommended best practice is that the weekly iteration review be mandatory, and that each functional area present status for their top three milestone activities.  Without the weekly review, it is too easy for the “tyranny of the urgent” to overcome planned activities.  Project oversight is critical to ensuring that high-value, critical activities remains on track.

During the weekly review, issues and risks are also captured into a simple risk registry and addressed in real-time as much as possible.

Because we are adept at running the PMO, we have a proven methodology for conducting swift and streamlined weekly review meetings, including incorporating cross-geographical resources into the process.

Our agile process includes validating the top three critical milestones for each functional area.

In order to ensure teams are focused on rapidly delivering incremental value, we recommend the top three critical milestones are reviewed, either in a daily standup meeting or in a PMO weekly meeting.  During this meeting, we validate that the intended objectives of the milestones are being met and that appropriate attention and resources are focused on those objectives.

Furthermore, during the weekly PMO review, key performance indicators are tracked to ensure the project activity remains focused on objectives as set forth in the charter.  If a milestone exists that does not directly tie back to the charter, then we must ask ourselves why the milestone exists in the plan at all.

Additionally, resources are held accountable for delivering what they said they were going to deliver during a given timeframe.  Dates certainly slip in the best of planned projects, but purpose for slipping a date must be understood and a negotiation must occur to re-plan any activity.

We report project status to all stakeholders on a weekly basis.

Each week, we communicate to all stakeholders the status of the iteration, as well as note issues and risks.  We also work with departmental Directors and V.P.s to address any roadblocks in order to accelerate resolution.

Depending on project scope, we may also recommend forming bi-weekly Steering Committee reviews, consisting of membership from C-level executives. Steering Committees set the pace for projects, and these bi-weekly reviews provide the opportunity to ensure appropriate priority, direction, and level of effort is occurring.

We are experienced in presenting PMO status to clients, Steering Committees and Board of Directors, and have designed presentation templates geared toward executive messaging.

We conduct retrospectives at the end of each iteration to ensure course corrections occur in real-time, rather than at the end of the project timeline.

The sprint retrospective process includes:

Grooming the backlog

There are those times when planning is more art than science and not all sub-tasks or milestones will complete as planned.  In those situations, we groom the backlog and ensure re-planning occurs for the next iteration.

Capturing lessons learned at the end of the iteration cycle

We lead the PMO in evaluating areas that worked well and areas requiring improvement.  We then document these learnings and institutionalize them before the next iteration cycle.

Recognizing individuals

It is important to recognize significant efforts from project contributors, especially those that exceed normal expectations.  We work with the C-level executives to implement an appropriate rewards and recognition system related specifically to the project work.

We formally close projects.

While project activity can run for years (think product convergence), at some point the project should officially close and remaining tasks be transitioned into business-as-usual.  After all, our clients should not need to retain our consulting services indefinitely.  We help make that transition occur in a seamless and transparent manner.

Working with the PMO and/or the Steering Committee, we develop project closure criteria at the onset so everyone is on the same page.

While we are always privileged and honored to work with our clients, it is not our aim to become their full-time consulting house.  We desire for our clients to be self-sufficient and successful, and always hope for a positive case study and recommendation.

Our clients receive project closure documentation.

We ensure all project documentation is replicated on our client’s infrastructure, which may consist of a Box environment, zip file, or other project storage system.

Documentation typically includes all minutes of meetings, baseline project plans, evolving project plans, Steering Committee updates, risk and issue registers, and any other artifacts deemed critical by our clients.

We also protect confidentiality by not sharing any project activity with other clients.

We conduct a final retrospective to ensure lessons learned may be applied to future projects.

The project retrospective is similar to the iteration retrospective with the following noted changes:

Transitioning activities to normal business

Not all milestones will complete at the time the project is deemed officially closed.  As an example, software product convergence often takes years to finalize, but at some point, the convergence activity is documented in the product roadmap and thus no longer requires PMO oversight.  We transition outstanding activities to business units, and document the transition as part of project closure.

Capturing lessons learned at the end of the project

We lead the PMO in evaluating areas that worked well and areas requiring improvement.  We then document and share all of the learnings with stakeholders.  The purpose in doing this is to ensure improvements are addressed in any future projects.

Recognizing individuals

It is important to recognize significant efforts from project contributors, especially those that exceeded normal expectations.  We work with C-level executives to implement an appropriate rewards and recognition system related specifically to the project.