PMO Setup T3 - Tips, Tools, and Techniques

Top 10 Tips for Evaluating Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Tip 1: Consider time to value. Of the many areas of benefit that SaaS provide to an organization, one of the most significant is time to value. Unlike traditional software that often requires complex installation, configuration, administration, and training, SaaS solutions only require a browser. This enables the organization to quickly go live resulting in faster realization of benefits.

Tip 2: Try and buy. Most SaaS providers offer a 30-day free trial. Typically, this is not a practical option for traditional software that requires onsite installation, configuration, and administrator training. But with Saas, such trial periods can be a vital and valuable way to assess, prototype, and gain consensus on the best solution to select and implementation approach to take.

Tip 3: Consider the low cost of entry. As an attractive alternative to outlaying large amounts of budgetary funds, customers can roll out SaaS solutions to those needing the functionality with minimal involvement of the busy IT staff. The cost of entry is very low compared to installing complex solutions across the entire company.

Tip 4: The vendor serves the customer. In the SaaS business, vendors work for the customer. Customers don't have to rely upon their IT department to install, configure, administer, and support the solution. Everything is already up and running, securely, at the vendor's place of business.

Tip 5: It may be a less risky investment. Arguably, SaaS offers a less risky solution than traditional software installed on the IT infrastructure of the customer. And, instead of spending a considerable amount of money up front, customers pay for the software as they consume it and, typically, with no long term obligation or financial commitment. The monetary risk is considerably less and much easier to mitigate.

Tip 6: Best in class data security. Most SaaS vendors understand all too well that application data must be backed up religiously and that security is a top priority. Customer IT departments are typically pulled in many directions and often can't be as focused on one solution. Hence, customers can rest assured their data security is probably better with a hosted solution, not worse.

Tip 7: Influencing product quality. Most customers of traditional installed software have very little ability to influence the development of new product features or to bring about changes and enhancements to quality of service. Your SaaS provider understands all too how that it is just as easy to switch relationships with SaaS providers as it is to enter into one. As a customer of a SaaS solution, you will have a much greater opportunity to influence product and service quality via your ongoing relationship with your provider.

Tip 8: Reducing capital expense. In addition to technology and operational benefits, SaaS offers many companies the financial benefit of eliminating the capital expense associated with new application deployments. This not only is attractive to the CFO, but can also result in an acceleration of the project approval process because SaaS solutions are typically treated as operating expenses and simplify the corporate review process.

Tip 9: Meeting short term solution needs. Often times, business units within a company have interim solution needs such as product launches, new office openings, organizational transitions, and business development initiatives. Typically, the application solution needs of such short term endeavors cannot be easily met by the IT department or even focused on due to other priorities. SaaS provides an easy and flexible alternative to meeting short term solution needs as SaaS offerings can be easily acquired, used, and terminated when no longer needed.

Tip 10: Consider the low cost of exit. SaaS solutions are just as easy to terminate as they are to start. Often times, a key issue that internal information technology organizations have to deal with and manage to is how best to replace a solution or technology. And, in addition to the technical and application transition considerations are the people considerations such as no longer needing or being able use resources that were dedicated to supporting the solution. With SaaS, these resources work for the vendor, not customer, making it much easier for the customer make solution decisions without having to worry able staffing consequences.

Top 10 Tips for Justifying an EPM Tool

Tip 1: Alignment with strategic objectives. Reaching long-term business goals often requires investing in the right business activities now. With an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) tool, you can identify, prioritize, and select projects that best support your strategic objectives as well as align your resources accordingly. And, by routinely evaluating and adjusting the project portfolio, you can ensure continuous alignment with your business objectives.

Tip 2: Faster, more informed business decisions. An EPM solution can provide visibility into your project portfolio for monitoring performance, visualizing trends, and identifying business gaps. With these capabilities, you can make informed decisions on how to proceed with existing projects, make tradeoffs, and pursue new opportunities. Making accurate decisions quickly can be of tremendous business value and is a key consideration in justifying an EPM tool for the organization.

Tip 3: Continuous process improvement. Project organizations are increasingly standardizing their processes to improve operational efficiencies, increase cross functional teamwork, and more effectively manage projects of different types and sizes. With an EPM solution, you can implement a common framework for project portfolio management guided by proven best practices, resulting in better management and control of projects as well as identification and implementation of process improvement opportunities.

Tip 4: Increased customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction often is more than finishing projects on time, within budget, and within scope. The delivery process must also engage the customer, involve the customer, and meet the customer's expectations. An EPM solution enables you to ensure a high level of integrity to the project delivery process. The end results are project plans that reflect realistic schedules, resource requirements, and budgets. Hence, so you can set, communicate, and meet achievable milestones for more consistent project delivery and higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Tip 5: Better collaboration and coordination. As businesses become more complex and geographically diverse, structured communication is vital to ensure teams share common goals and work together effectively. An EPM solution provides access to timely business-critical project information, so teams can share knowledge, better collaborate to complete tasks, and communicate progress effectively to manage risks and accommodate project changes.

Tip 6: Empowered project teams. Project team members make high-impact decisions as part of their daily routines. Businesses are increasingly relying upon project managers and are seeking ways to equip them with the tools they need to perform even better. With an EPM Solution, project managers, project team members, and the leadership team can access the latest project information resulting in more efficient time management, better communication and decision making, and increased accountability.

Tip 7: Effective resource deployment. Many organizations struggle to deploy resources effectively. This can lead to higher costs, project delays, and missed opportunities. An EPM Solution can help you more accurately assess resource commitments, deployment alternatives, and to deploy resources effectively across your organization. The end results is having the right people on the right projects at the right time for optimized delivery.

Tip 8: Ability to strategically hire. Without understanding long-term workloads and resource capacity, companies can experience hiring-firing cycles. Such cycles are inefficient and often result in higher overhead, lost knowledge, and very poor employee morale. By providing visibility into the overall work commitments and resourcing capabilities, an EPM solution helps a company achieve a balance of strategic recruiting, outside contracting, and potentially outsourcing to achieve the long-term business objectives of the company

Tip 9: Fully leveraging existing technologies. An EPM solution fully leverages the existing technologies that most organizations already have in place, such as your enabling technologies, database, collaboration platforms, and desktop tools. Hence, you can get the most out of your existing investments in infrastructure, applications, and user skills, rather than incurring a duplication of investment and redundancy in capabilities. By customizing and integrating an EPM solution with your line-of-business systems, you can get a comprehensive view of your organization's activities for better management and control.

Top 10 Tips for a PPM Software Selection Project

Tip 1: Treat PPM software selection as a project. When selecting a PPM solution, manage the selection process just as you would a project. Applying good project management techniques in the effort will ensure that the solution you select best meets the requirements for which the solution is intended and justified. A rich in function solution that provides features that are not needed may not be better than a simpler solution or approach that meets the core needs of the organization. Likewise, a simple solution might not provide long term viability as the organization matures. Use project management techniques to ensure focus is placed on needs and requirements as opposed to vendor bells and whistles.

Tip 2: State the business problem. State the business problem driving the selection of the PPM solution. Does the current system or tool fail to provide the needed functionality for managing projects and resources? Do specific needs exceed the abilities of the current system? Is project performance below management expectations? The first two problems are more easily addressed from a tool perspective, whereas the third is more problematic. If processes are flawed or non-existent, implementation of complex software will not resolve them problem; rather it will add to it.

Tip 3: Set improvement objectives. In order to define and prioritize requirements, set improvement objectives early on in the PPM tool selection process. The project manager for the PPM software selection project should document and gain agreement for both the current state as well as the desired state. And to achieve the goals of the desired state, set measurable objectives to be achieved. This will keep the software evaluation and selection process on track and aligned to business needs, rather than vendor software bells and whistles.

Tip 4: Document the proposed project management process. Before continuing with software selection, document the proposed project management process. If the current project management process is not working effectively, correct the process. If specific project management goals are not being met, perform root cause analysis to determine the required improvements in the current process. Until such time as the project management process has been thoroughly documented, hold off on further PPM software selection activities.

Tip 5: Integrate the appropriate software tools into the project management process. Use your project management processes to contextual show how the various software tools and applications are used throughout the entire project life cycle. Document the inputs, outputs, tool usage best practices, tips and techniques. Do not limit tool integration to just the project portfolio management application.

Tip 6: Generate requirements from process mapping. Process mapping will identify requirements critical to the success of the PPM software application. Use process mapping to arrive at a full view of requirements including both the requirements to be addressed by the PPM application and the requirements to be addressed outside of the PPM application.

Tip 7: Select a short list of three vendors. A small number of vendors is desired for the short list. The detailed set of requirements will result in identification of needs that can best be met by two to three vendors. Too many vendors making the short list is an indication that requirements definition has not produced differentiating features and that any product can do.

Tip 8: Test the vendor products. Request that the vendors provide a testing environment for their software. Test each of the shortlisted vendor product offerings with data that best represents your business environment. Used experienced staff that understands the how the products work to evaluate the capabilities of the software and results achieved of the product tests.

Tip 9: Judge the vendors. All vendors have strengths and weaknesses. Before making a final decision, judge the vendors on their track record. Key considerations include their reputation, customer base, years in business, financial condition, and long term strategy. Seek to discuss the performance of the vendor and their offering with at least three customer references. If the vendor and their product were successfully implemented at organizations similar to your own, then you can expect a similar success.

Why is it that there is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over, and over, and over? Taking the time to do it right often means more and better planning as well as more and better monitoring and control. These activities do take time. But to avoid them or to rush through them almost always results in miscues that lead to project delays, increased project costs, and customer dissatisfaction.

Now, there are those that might say, “we are an agile shop and we do iterative development, not that antiquated stage gate waterfall approach of the past.” Well, whoever said that there is no or minimal planning in the various Agile methods? To the contrary, I beg to differ. And, there is a difference between iterative development and ad hoc development in which additional passes are needed to correct mistakes.

So, whatever process or best practice you follow, seek to allow ample and appropriate time for planning and review throughout the project effort and concentrate on getting it right the first time.