Programme Management Initiation - PMI Global Congress Barcelona
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The document discusses focusing on in the first 90 days of a new program. It recommends focusing on: 1) Establishing the program vision and scope through iterative dialogue to define charters and scope. 2) Building relationships with key stakeholders to understand goals and communicate effectively. 3) Setting up the program organization and governance structures to facilitate decision making. 4) Establishing regular communication cadences to provide updates to stakeholders. 5) Secondary focus on selecting program tools and processes.
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Programme Management Initiation - PMI Global Congress Barcelona
- 1. Programme Management Initiation: What To Focus On In the First 90 Days Andrew C. Galbus Mayo Clinic
- 2. Outline • Programme vs project • What to do in the first 90 days • Research
- 3. Mayo Clinic STATES6 EMPLOYEES59,500 from every state & 143 countries UNIQUE PATIENTS1.3 million all income reinvested ENTERPRISE REVENUE$9.8 billion SCHOOLS5 Rochester, Minnesota Jacksonville, Florida Phoenix/ Scottsdale, Arizona MAIN CAMPUSES The first and largest integrated, not-for-profit medical group practice in the world. ©2016 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
- 4. Mayo Clinic Today • Mayo Clinic is one of the best-known and most-trusted names in medicine throughout the world. • More than one million people receive care at Mayo Clinic locations each year, and millions more benefit from innovations and discoveries that provide answers, healing and hope. ©2016 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research www.mayoclinic.org
- 5. Level Set Programme vs. Project • Programme definition: “A group of related projects, subprograms, and programme activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually” PMBOK Fifth Edition ©2013 • Reality?
- 7. Question • What should you focus on in the first 90 days? • PMI & experience = programme management plan activities • But if you focused your efforts in some areas more than others where would you focus for success in those first 90 days?
- 9. What to focus on in the first 90 days 1. The what & why - vision & scope 2. Relationships with key stakeholders 3. Programme organisation & governance 4. Cadence with communications 5. Tools and processes
- 10. The What & Why - Vision & Scope • 3 large programmes with visions • Initial scope • Budgets • Schedules Through iterative dialogue and understanding and documenting succinct visions, charters for scope, teams were formed (projects), and it started to come together…
- 11. Elevator Speech • Definition • Turn to a person next to you and give an elevator speech of a programme or a large project you led or were part of (10 seconds each)
- 12. Real Life Example 1 Organize Mayo Clinic Information and Knowledge, making it universally accessible, useful and actionable …KCMS – Knowledge Content Management System Programme Elevator Speech
- 13. Complexity Example 1 - KCMS • 5 projects • 100+ team members • $11M & multiple checkbooks • Over 50M visitors a month mayoclinic.org • 5 major stakeholders • Technology–ontology & content management • 30 developers in Argentina
- 14. Example 2 - HLSL A connected experience that leverages Mayo Clinic knowledge to encourage positive change in lifestyle behaviors for improving or maintaining health and well-being …Healthy Living Service Line Programme (HLSL) Elevator Speech
- 15. Complexity Example 2 - HLSL • 3 development organisations – Mayo Clinic, Everyday Health, Workplace Options (MN, NY, NC) • Migrate hundreds of existing customers, gain new accounts (sales) • Integrate with an on-site programme too • Multiple checkbooks • More than $5M
- 16. Example 3 – Network Renewal Aggressive refresh of Mayo Clinic’s network technology protecting Mayo’s patients and their information. Increase capability, scalability, and growth while offering increased security for all of Mayo Clinic businesses …Network Renewal Programme Elevator Speech
- 17. Complexity Example 3–Network Renewal • 432 buildings • Over $300M USD • Over 11,000 devices • 7 states • 52,000 people affected • Multiple stakeholders • Refresh hardware in less than a year • Complete entire scope in 2 years
- 18. Relationships With Key Stakeholders • Stakeholder management • Understanding interests and goals • How each prefers to communicate • Understand the programme and vision through their eyes • Build trust and transparency
- 20. Programme Organisation & Governance • How can the scope be broken up? • What are the various approaches you could take to assign project managers and which one sounds best? • How can decisions be made closest to those who understand? • Who is able to decide? • Who will have the authority, accountability, responsibility and for what?
- 21. Project Steering John Wald, MD Core Team Andrew Galbus, PM CMS (Sitecore) Team Wendy Flanery Semantic Services Environment Team Anne Larsen Content Reconciliation Jane Shellum 4D Replacement Chuck Charbeneau Sitecore Delivery Team Jon Blixt Stakeholder Leadership Planning and Escalation KCMS Project organisation & Governance Workstreams versus projects Build Relationships
- 22. Project Steering Team Responsibilities • Provide executive leadership guiding the overall project • Communicate to the Office of Information and Knowledge Management on status of project • Escalation point • Act as an advisory board for changes and clarifications in scope, schedule, and resources
- 23. KCMS Core Team Responsibilities • Overall resource, schedule, scope, cost management • Draft operations model • Project reporting, budget • Communication & (project and organisational) change management • Issue & risk management • Vendor, implementation partner management • Stakeholder engagement
- 24. 1. Equipment Refresh – Replacement of legacy network equipment to support analytics, access control and segmentation capabilities. 2. Network Analytics 3. Network Access Control and Segmentation 4. Secure Internet Presence 5. Operational Readiness – Transition from the project to operations Programme Organisation Equipment Refresh Network Analytics Network Access Control / Network Segmentation Enable new business services in a secure network environment Our Goal Enabling Technology Technology Foundation Secure Internet Presence OperationalReadiness Across 3 organisations: Mayo IT, Mayo Security, Cisco, KPMG Consulting
- 25. 1. Equipment Refresh – Replacement of legacy network equipment to support analytics, access control and segmentation capabilities. 2. Network Analytics 3. Network Access Control and Segmentation 4. Secure Internet Presence 5. Operational Readiness – Transition from the project to operations Programme organisation Equipment Refresh Network Analytics Network Access Control / Network Segmentation Enable new business services in a secure network environment Our Goal Enabling Technology Technology Foundation Secure Internet Presence OperationalReadiness Across 3 organisations: Mayo IT, Mayo Security, Cisco, KPMG Consulting Build Relationships
- 26. GBS Healthy Living Online 2/11/14 Executive Team GBS Oversight Team Programme Execution Core Team GBS Nicole Spelhaug Kent Stewart Bianca Shelby Andrew Galbus Eric Poole Bonnie Handmacher Sabine Brandt Carrie Kowalczyk Outcomes & ReportingUX & Design IT/BI/QA ContentFinance Charlotte Nordrum Paula Marlow Limbeck Maggie O’Malley Ryan Wiltgen, Brad Phelps, Chris Kaspar, Kim Jacobson Deepak Chokkadi James Senior Zack Rosalie Bakken ITFinance C. Nordrum J. Yolch N. Spelhaug K. Stewart B. Shelby J. Sigrist J. Hovell K. Jacobson T. Boland J. Lee Programme Full Team BAContent Office of Wellness QA GBS R. Wiltgen A. Jeevan P. Peterson B. Phelps G. Belhari E. Bohn L. Carlson E. Coleman D. Das P. Dhanavade R. Glasspoole V. Guittikonda M . Hoque R. Kanchumarthy C. Kaspar R. Nadimpally R. Richard + Oversight T. Besch, M. Casey, J. Even, J. Cross, L. Dingle, C. Nordrum Brad Phelps Paula Marlow Limbeck Rick Van Ert Kurt Hobbs EDH Melissa Weiner Bernard Horowitz Brian Craine WPO Careese Bullock Toni Smith Client/Customer SX Rick Van Ert EDH, WPO Account Management Kurt Hobbs P. Marlow S. Vande Loo S. Vaughan L. Engfer Alicia Bartz M. O’Malley M. Namkoong Outcomes& Reporting Medical SMEs C. Kowalczyk S. Chatterjee R. Miller D. Beaulieu C. Colburn R. Bakken J. Robert K. Smith A. Bol J. Ferguson P. Jaiswal K. Kaur P. Komatreddy M. Rayapati J. Shedhai K. VanDenberg A. Viruthagiri N. Yolugoti M. Clark, Ph.D P. Hagen, MD D. Hensrud, MD W. Thompson, MD K. Vickers-Douglas, Ph.D Coaching Corey Knauss Brandon Middleton Marketing/ AM L. Buss B. Ries K. Hobbs J. Flynn K. Wood W. Hanson F. Hangge Product Management M. Kaske G. VanBenchoten S. O’Reilly B. Crane Discipline Leads IT Leadership K. Jacobson J. Street S. Kluck O. Betiku S. Bhattacharya J. Hansen M. Mullenmeister C. Williamson EDH S. Kulkarni GBS Executive Team M. Casey, J. Even, D. Herbert, D. Hensrud, MD, P. Limburg, MD, J. Yolch, M. Roberts, C. Nordrum, L. Hudson (WPO), A. King (WP), Dean (WPO), P. Parikh (EDH), L. Stanich (EDH) Coaching C. Knauss J. Steinkamp S. Glaeser L. Haglund B. Middleton CHARGE: Coordinate/manage daily execution CHARGE: Ensure knowledge transfer & use of discipline best practices M. Sonnenberg K. Sundar C. Umathurappan WPO A. Shankar EDH J. Yolch – HLP Administrator I. Ahmed – HLP Ops Manager Programme Managers: R. Eastman, H. Preston, L. Dierks J. Ferguson – HLP BA S. O'Reilly – Product Manager J. Lee, E. Pool – PM C. Leung – S&P BA N. Wood, S. Oliver- IT Leads J. Rice – Test Lead HLP Core Team HLSL Governance Build Relationships
- 27. 5/19: Earliest Go-Live (New, w/o SSO) May Release: Enhanced HLO Homepage Promote Coaching Eligbility Healthy Living Base May Reports Coaching May Reports KAM Integration 2-way goals Customer Service Lookup May Tools June Release SSO Connectivity (6/6) Coaching registration with ID only 2 way messaging Healthy Living Service Line 2014 Timeline Revised 2/17/2014 Release Components Delivered Monthly DecMayAprMarFebJan Tunne l Feb Rel: HLP Pilot Delivera bles June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Jan Feb Mar August Release: Coaching view of HA data Import Biometric Data Points Program Device Integration (Fitbit, Withings Scale) Stand-alone Coachng (with dual enroll) Customer Support/Lookup August Tools IDM registration enhancements Self-enroll Coaching without Health Assessment Expert Videos Client Data Migration GBS Begins Transition of Existing Clients 2/3 Live in Production 8/4 12/1 Release Complete Requested Enhancements: Team Step Challenge Team Weight Challenge Food and Fitness Native Mobile App Stand Alone Health Assessment NCQA Accreditation Health Assessment – other languages Yet to be scheduled NOTE: RED font indicates a request to move to prior release – request under evaluation or clarification of deliverable pending 2015 December Release: Enewsletter/Syndication Suite HLP onsite (Individualized Fitness Plan) Contact Us Enhancements Spanish Health Assessment Coach Viewing of Tracker Data 6/? 5/5 Outcomes Report GBS Begins Implementation of New Clients 8/18: Earliest Go-Live (existing clients) Earliest “Go-Live” (Actual Go-Live dates coordinated through Client Services Team) 8/11: Earliest Go-Live (New, w/SSO) PM’s for features Teams surrounding skills & focus areas
- 30. • Timing & regularity of meetings • Clear agendas & timely minutes and action items • Purpose and goals of agenda topics • Audience Programme Communications & Meeting Cadence
- 31. • Roles and responsibilities • Regularly review what is/isn’t working • Team “agile-like” standup meetings (what did you accomplish, what’s next, blockers?) Programme Communications & Meeting Cadence
- 32. Communication – Weekly / Every Other Week Status Reporting
- 33. Programme Communications & Meeting Cadence - Outward Communications • Prosci® ADKAR model – Address the timing and tailoring communications to the audience – Ties in with organisational change management • A-wareness (what do I need to know) • D-esire (and now I care to know it) • K-nowledge (now I am trained/educated/informed) • A-bility (I can do it – competent) • R-einforcement
- 36. Processes - Some ‘agile-like’ • Co-location • Project room • Iterations • Releases • Daily scrums • Scrum of scrums • Retrospectives • React and revise processes as needed • Backlog • On-boarding
- 37. Tools • Microsoft SharePoint – Universal access for whole team – Version control – Single repository – Wiki • Microsoft Lync/Skype for Business – Excellent for remote teams and IM for local teams too – Group chat, voice, video, share desktop
- 38. Tools • Microsoft Project master project (program) & subprojects (projects) • Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) – Issue tracking and quality assurance in same system linked to task and requirements – Project Plan tasks linked to TFS Result - one cohesive master programme plan used by entire team with subprojects
- 42. Research Oct 16, 2015 – November 11, 2015 Surveyed project managers, What would you focus on in the first 90 days of a program?
- 43. Demographics of Respondents 128 participants PMP 73% PgMP 2% PfMP 1% PMI-BA 1% PMI-ACP 1% Other (please specify) 21% n=128
- 44. Demographics of Respondents Experience as a PM 0-5 yrs 12% 21+ Yrs 14% 6-10 yrs 24% 11-15 yrs 24% 16-20 yrs 26%
- 45. Demographics of Respondents 1-9 16% 10-19 13% 20-29 24% 30-39 6% 40-49 6% 50-59 10% 60-69 3% 80-89 2% 100-199 14% 200-299 6% Nbr of projects managed
- 46. What to Focus On – Respondents Agreed • 26% The what - vision & scope • 26% Relationships with key stakeholders • 25% Project organisation & governance • 23% Cadence with communications • 3% Tools and processes 64 out of 128 answered this question
- 47. Other Themes From Respondents • 20% Confirm/acquire resources • 14% Validate the budget • 9% Schedule • 8% Confirm requirements • 8% Create a roadmap • 8% Programme management plan • 6% Risk • 6% Success criteria
- 48. Challenges During Initiation and Planning 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
- 51. Conclusion
- 52. What to focus on • The what - vision & scope • Relationships with key stakeholders • Project organisation & governance • Cadence with communications • Tools and processes
- 53. • Name | Andrew Galbus • Email | andrewgalbus@gmail.com Thank you! Please rate my session! Visit the “AoF Sessions” section of the mobile app and tap on my session to rate. linkedin.com/in/andrewgalbus projectmanagement.com@AndyGalbus
Notas do Editor
- Good morning and Buenas dias. I am very excited to be able to share with you some good practices I have learned managing large programmes.
- This year’s theme focusing on accelerating progress and improving performance fits well. Initiating and planning a programme or any large complex project effort is critical. The world’s organisations cannot afford to waste time and resources to start over doing important work. I will be sharing complex programmes in the volatile complex environment of healthcare. With this in mind at a I am going to talk today first very basically what is a programme versus a project. I am then going to go into much detail on what should one do in the first 90 days of a programme to better achieve success, and then I will share some research I did through a survey to validate and inform my experiences. I hope in sharing these stories and experiences to help you become greater project and programme leaders so you can be the catalyst to ensure success.
- Just a little bit of background of where I work so you understand the context of the large programmes I have led. We are the first and largest integrated not-for-profit medical group practice in the world. We have offices, clinics, and hospitals across 6 states with 5 schools in medicine. We employee close to 60,000 employees and serve 1.3 million patients from every state in the US and 143 countries. We bring in 9.8 billion US dollars each year in revenue. You can see our largest 3 sites are in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida.
- Today we are considered the best-known and most-trusted name in medicine throughout the world. Millions more benefit from innovations and discoveries that provide answers, healing and hope. I am honored and humbled to work for this great organisation.
- First off what is a programme? A programme is “a group of related projects, subprograms, and Programme activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually” This definition comes from the PMBOK Fifth Edition ©2013. It’s a great definition and I use it but I have found in several organisations depending on the PMI maturity of the organisation the term is not well understood. Many parts of our organisation for example still use the term to describe initiatives or business units that have a scope of work but not organized into projects with project managers and charters necessarily. We have some formal programmes as well and are teaching our organisation the value of the term and use of formal programme management practices.
- Ok, imagine one day, someone had a vision or idea and some crazy perhaps idea of when they wanted it done. They drew up a business case, maybe a charter, perhaps had a budget amount in mind, and something was approved. Now you were asked to help lead this effort. Where would you focus your efforts? We likely all know the formality of PMI and how you should have a programme management plan where you create management plans surrounding communications, procurement, stakeholder management, risks, changes, etc. The real question though is for the overall success of the programme are there areas to spend the most time or be sure you really have more attention spent in the first few months? Take just a minute and think what comes to mind.
- I found these areas to be the most critical from my experience leading several large programmes. I will go through each of these giving examples and stories of how I found this to be true.
- First, I found it critical to define the true scope of the programme and the vision and importance to the organisation. Working with the sponsors and key stakeholders in an iterative fashion we developed or refined the vision, scope, schedule, and resources. Over time, the vision and scope would be revisited and tested as the programme developed. Remember the importance of this in conjunction with your stakeholders and the relationships you build and maintain. With trust and respect you will find success as the program evolves. The vision and the scope needs to have proper alignment and integration with the organization’s larger strategic objectives. Listen for this when you work with the key stakeholders and use it to drive home the importance of the work with the teams doing the work.
- In each of the programmes I led we developed an elevator speech. – something that could be easily remembered and shared with anyone to describe what we were working on and why. We referred to it as that because it should be short and succinct – something that could be shared with someone in seconds while travelling on an elevator or in a hallway briefly.
- Here is an example of a vision that helped set the scope for a large complex programme I had. The vision was to organize Mayo Clinic’s Information and Knowledge making it universally accessible, useful and actionable. Each of these words were chosen carefully. This was our elevator speech. We call it an elevator speech because you should be able to explain the high-level vision of your program in a few seconds as if you were riding down an elevator explaining it to someone before they had to leave. We were building a Knowledge Content Management System.
- Just to share with you a little more on this programme here are some statistics; There were 5 projects in this programme. At one point in time there were over 100 team members across those 5 projects. Our budget exceeded $11 million US dollars. One of the stakeholders managed our public web content that had over 50 million visitors a month. We had 4 other stakeholders as well needing this system. We were also going to need to add technology – semantic services technology using ontology to help manage the content. This had never been done before in healthcare to our knowledge researching the world. We also had 30 developers in Argentina and Mayo Clinic had not had much experience with international remote resources like this. This was probably the first time I personally started to think much more globally about about globalisation itself and its effects in the workplace and on our PPPM community. Is there anyone in the audience that has completed an upgrade of a content management system before?
- The second programme I wish to share was called the Healthy Living Service Line Programme. Our elevator speech was, “We are building a connected experience that leverages Mayo Clinic knowledge to encourage positive change in lifestyle behaviors for improving or maintaining health and well-being.”
- This healthy living service line had 3 organisations involved, Mayo Clinic led the effort put partnered with Everyday Health out of Manhattan, New York for the online site. Workplace Options out of Raleigh, North Carolina in the US had a coaching company that we integrated into the solution. We had to migrate hundreds of existing customers from an old system/platform to this new one and at the same time create new features that would allow us to bring on new customers. We also had to integrate it with a physical Healthy Living on-site experience where a person could come to Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN and receive the best evaluation, training, and relaxation experience ever. We had multiple checke books or funding sources we had to manage in our budgeting process. We had over $5 million US dollars as a budget. How many of you in the audience are in healthcare or wellness of some type?
- My third and final example was a Network Renewal Programme. Our vision was to refresh Mayo Clinic’s network technology so we could preserve our patients and their information. At the same time we wanted to be able to increase our scalability and capabilities and provide growth while offering increased security for all of Mayo Clinic businesses.
- This too was a massive complex programme. We had to make major upgrades across 7 states and 432 buildings. We had over 11,000 devices that needed to be replaced. All of our employees and patients that use our networking equipment daily would be affected in someway. We had multiple stakeholders including our security department, clinical areas, research departments, education, and our administrative areas. We had to complete the hardware upgrade in less than a year and complete the whole effort in 2 years…at least that was the expectation. How many of you have networking or security related projects or programmes you are working on?
- My next key is building relationships with stakeholders – especially key stakeholders like your program sponsors and project managers. I found it is really important to get to know them and their interests and how they view the programme. Assess what their goals are and be sure you understand what they want to accomplish. Document these goals and remember to update them. In terms of updating them be sure you understand how they like to be communicated with. Do they wish to meet in person and hear status updates? Would they prefer emails or reports on a regular basis? How critical is the programme to them and when would they want to know about issues? How urgently? Do they give out their personal phone number and would they be available off hours if there was a desire to reach them? During the early initiation and planning phases take the time to really build trust and transparency with the stakeholders. Throughout the programme there will be issues and concerns you will want to be comfortable sharing without hesitation. If you have build trust and openness it will feel very natural to share the concern and ask for help as needed.
- With relationships being built with key stakeholders and a good understanding of the “What” or the scope of the work to be done, now you need to consider these questions in order to break up the work into logical groupings of scope so that a project manager can be given that scope. There is no one answer to this approach and some programmes will naturally fit into one approach an structure but others will be less clear. My advice is to work with your stakeholders to consider several options and then try one but be willing to get feedback later on and open to adjust and totally arrange the work if the initial structure is not working. This will not be easy to do once teams are formed but for the good of the programme if the organisation of the programme is not working you must be open to changing it. As the structure is getting decided also consider the governance and decision making process. Consider how you structure the programme and the project managers and key stakeholders and how they will play a part. Try to come up with a governance structure that keeps the decision making as close to the groups and teams that understand the details and impact. Try hard not to add layers without validating it is absolutely necessary.
- Here is one example from the Knowledge Content Management System programme. For this programme we divided the work up into workstreams. At the time our organisation was not comfortable using the words “programme” that would have “projects” within it so we called the whole thing a project and each of the efforts/scopes of work workstreams. Regardless, we created a documented scope of work for each. Each workstream had a team of individuals that were almost 100% just on this project or workstream. We also created a core team made up of each of the workstream leaders (really project managers) along with key subject matter experts important across the whole project (programme). This included one key stakeholder from each of the 5 stakeholders that would benefit from this programme. We also had a technical specialist or IT architect and a business analyst leader along with myself. The charge and membership of each of these groups were documented and reviewed periodically to ensure we were focusing on the right things in each of the teams. We also had a leadership planning team comprised of just two key stakeholder leaders and myself and periodically a few other leaders that would overall plan how things were working and strategize our project steering meetings. This group was able to meet more often than our executive leadership project steering group but had that project steering group’s interests and what would need to be escalated as a high priority topic we discussed. The project steering group had our physician leader stakeholder along with the planning and escalation team members and each executive stakeholder. You may recall we had 5 stakeholders benefitting from the programme. Finally, the stakeholder leadership meeting was an ‘as needed’ group we met with if there were any topics that the five stakeholders needed more representatives to get an update from us or for us to have a discussion with. This too would involve key executive stakeholders that were difficult to find calendar time for but if the topic was important enough to them or us time would be found to discuss with them that topic.
- We took the time to define the responsibilities of each group in the organisational chart and here are two specific examples. I recommend having these on every programme, project steering and a core team. [touch on each point briefly]
- Here is that important core team responsibilities listing. Notice some of the specific duties such as being overall responsible for the resourcing, schedule, scope, and cost management.
- Now, moving onto another programme, the Network Renewal programme. You can see a different visual on how that programme was represented. For this one the organisation was comfortable referring to it as a programme with projects. We had 5 projects within the programme. One focused on all the hardware replacement across the 432 buildings and 7 states in the US. Another was focused on the analysis of the network and how that effort would be planned and executed. The third was focused on access controls and segmentation of the network and the technologies and processes surrounding that effort. The fourth focused on the firewalls and technologies associated with our systems being exposed outside of Mayo Clinic through the internet. Finally, the fifty was focused on how all of these efforts would transform our organisation and necessitate us changing the way we are structured to support this effort when the programme has concluded. We created the graphic to convey how each of these projects are interrelated too. We had to start with the refreshing of the equipment to allow for newer technologies, then we could analyze the network and from there add access controls and segmentation as well as further secure our firewalls and internet security. All along the way we needed to plan for how we operationalized for beyond this programme.
- I won’t go through this in great detail but this is a much more comprehensive organisational chart of the network renewal programme. Just a few notations: we formalized a program management group to shape and support the programme. We had an architecture group. OCM stands for organisational change management and we needed a group focused on communications and planning for how to communicate just what was needed and when it was needed. We needed a procurement group (contract management) as well to ensure we were proper stewards of the funds we were accountable for. The boxes at the bottom
- Here is another programme, the healthy living program organisational chart. For this one we had a core team as well but then the teams were made up of a person from multiple disciplines. There was an IT team, a Quality Assurance team, etc. Each had leaders. On the next slide you will see each of the projects within the programmes.
- This depicts the projects and the programmes. We took an agile approach on this programme where we delivered software in releases and each of the features of the product were within the release. You can see the May release had features which included an enhanced homepage, a promote coaching feature, and reports as well as integration with KAM exercise devices. We had project managers managing each feature – 1 or more each.
- Another major key learning that contributed to the success surrounded communications methods and processes. It is important to establish clear and consistent meetings focused on the team structures and cross team needs. Consider how teams will know what each other is doing especially with a large team and/or complex topics. Normally what I see is that each team needs to meet formally at least once per week as well as the core team. Principles as simple as agendas with goals for each agenda item, quick minutes with action items. It helps to have the project maangers and programme manager truly consider the agendas and audience that needs to be there to ensure you are using everyone’s time effectiely. Often, meetings can go on the full allotted time regardless if the topic warrants it or if there is value.
- With all of the organisational structures as with the meetings each team have it is important to ask the teams what is working and what is not? Review the charge and membership of the teams and ask periodically if the right people are at the table, if everyone needs to be there if the groups are meeting too little or too often, etc. adjust as needed. Another communication topic and meeting cadence item involves considering if there is value in an agile-like standup meeting. Many programmes have these to get a very quick status update and communicate often within a team who is working on what and are there any things blocking them from getting work completed. This is an Agile team used with software development projects but many team have this and most stand-up and ask for status from each person for literally 30 seconds or less.
- It was important in each of the organisational structures to decide what would be formally and informally communicated when and to whom. With stakeholder management having been initiated so you know what your key stakeholders are interested and how they wish to be communicated with. At minimum, the programmes I have been part of needed written communication sent to the whole team at least weekly for the team to have a report of all key progress, issues, risks, and other essential items. Here is just one example of how we communicated the status of the healthy living programme weekly. Initially it was produced every other week but later on became a weekly report primarily for the whole programme along with key stakeholders.
- Another communications technique involves more outward communications to end users or customers. We refer to this as organisational change management. A company called Prosci® developed a great model that takes into account communicating just the right amount of information at just the right time. ADKAR pronounced adcar is the acronym. A-wareness focuses on what does a particular audience need to know now? D-esire is a stage of communication after awareness when you now want an audience to have a desire to know something about the programme. K-nowledge is communication that involves making sure an audience has the knowledge of what they need to know and understand. Training is often the approach or education to convey what is needed. A-bility is now ensuring the audience not only has the knowledge but there is a test or some aspect of ensuring they not only have the knowledge but have the proven ability to do what is necessary. R-einforcement is communication and processes that would reinforce what was conveyed early to ensure the change or effort ‘sticks’.
- Another key in the first 90 days is to set up tools and processes that would be needed throughout the programme and even potentially beyond the programme. Many project managers do not consider how long it can take to set up procedures to bring in contract staff and give them access to various tools or how long it can take to set up a sharepoint site and create necessary libraries. Even distribution lists and considering an on-boarding set of communications materials can take significant time later on when there is less time to do so.
- Here are some specific processes and considerations for programmes. Some I have already mentioned. [now touch on each of these and be sure to mention] Co-location is a process or rather a concept that can really help a team reduce communications efforts and help build a cohesive team. If you can find the space to have most if not all projects in your program in the same room do it. You may have some minor challenges with noise and people not wanting to move but in the long run your programme will benefit greatly. Our knowledge content management programme is pictured below. Almost everyone worked in that room in the US and in Argentina there was one room with up to 30 developers that were co-located there.
- Here are some of the specific tools I found to be very very helpful. Microsoft Sharepoint has been an intuitive tool that allows for a central repository for all programme documentation and key artifacts. We turn on version control for the documents and give everyone access for full transparency. We have used features such as a Wiki to allow for collaboration as well. Microsoft Lync now known as Skype for Business has also been an excellent productivity enhancer. We use the instant messaging feature to easily see if a team member is available for a quick chat. We use the share my deskop feature so a person can get help or demonstrate something with a person not right nearby physically. We use voice and video for real time chatting and communications where a phone is not available or in the case of our knowledge management programme with developers in Argentina we didn’t have to pay a phone bill because they too were on the same Lync tool. Group chats were also pretty common across a team. The video phone from Polycom and Cisco also allows for integration with Skype/Lync where there was a 360 degree camera that showed a team during a standup and the device would focus on the person speaking.
- All of our programmes had a Microsoft Project Plan. This plan had subprojects where the main project was the programme and the subprojects were the projects within the programme. Some referred to this as a master project and subproject relationship. On another programme (Knowledge Management) we incorporated the program plan in with Microsoft Team Foundation Server so that we could track costs of resources against tasks and also have tasks sent to an IT developer or software quality assurance team member. The result was that we ended up with one comprehensive program plan used by the entire team.
- With these tools came the ability to provide transparency, visibility, openness and accountability. With Skype and the videophone we could have a standup meeting every day and make sure everyone including our team in Argentina was focused on the right work and we would know when we spoke with them each day if there were any blockers. Accountability was often found when in a standup meetings someone says, I heard you say weren’t done with your task last Friday but now it is Tuesday and it is still not complete.
- This all started when a consultant asked me to think about presenting my lessons learned. I immediately thought, “What would others say is important?” I wanted to research but he thought it would be best to share what I learned. So I did both. I just shared what I learned but last year I created a survey and asked other project managers what do they feel is important to focus on.
- Here is the make up of the respondents I surveyed. 128 people responded. You can see the majority of them were PMP certified. Just a very few programme management certified.
- You can see here that also the majority were very experienced having managed projects for 6 years or more, many had worked as a PM for more than 16 years.
- In terms of the number of projects they managed the majority had managed many many projects from dozens to hundreds.
- From what I found to be important here is how survey respondents agreed with what I found. 26 percent suggested something relating to identifying the scope and/or vision. 26% of the 64 noted that relationships with stakeholders were important. 25% had something related to setting up the structure, organisation, and/or governance for the program. 23% agreed communications were key to focus on such as developing a communication plan. Only 3% suggested something related to setting up tools or processes.
- These were other themes from the remaining items suggested to focus on. 20% noted making sure you have resources or had them on-boarded was key. 14% said make sure you know what funding you had available and if necessary get that funding if has not been acquired already.
- I also asked what challenges they found early on in setting up large programmes. The number one area was with communications. Then defining what is success and what are the goals for that effort. Finding resources and validating the vision was also a frequent theme along with governance and funding. You can see other challenges as well.
- Now to conclude I just want to re-emphasize the 5 main focus areas key to having a successful programme.
- First of all getting the “what” well understood. What is the vision and scope of the programme. Next building those relationships with your key stakeholders. You need their trust and transparency. Next really consider the way you are organized and how decisions will be made. Communications we all know is key so early on determine how you will communicate within and outside of the programme. Finally, don’t forget the tools and processes. Establish them at the outset and ensure they are utilized.
- Thank you so very much [Muchas muchas gracias!]