Im looking for ways and if possible examples of how you solved the following problems. if possible any tools you may have used.
1. improve collaboration amongst your team
2.Improve collaboration between the different components or projects in the Program
3.Prevent charms ( ie the team has ideas on products and the customer whats the product but we seem to do the in between badly
4. managing a program with multiple projects (each project with its own team )
5. we have development partnerships with vendors how did you track and correlate the information vendors ( ie SW/HW roadmaps ) gave you and help you deliver better products/solutions
6.Best way to measure and track projects ( ie once KPIs or metrics have been defined) and tools you may have used.
7.keep program and projects in sync and the individuals working on these things together in terms of overall objectives / deliverables.
Essentially its a new Program level team thus the organisation has many projects going at the same time, links with vendors already but no real project management experience or program management experience. things are not being tracked, people dont know what other people/teams are doing, essentially they have the resources in place but they are not leveraging them.
So what I am asking is if you were approach to be program manager what kind of things would you implement and how.
so thinking along the lines of roadmap 3 months, 6 months, 12 months and what you would suggest actionwise over that 3,6,12 month roadmap.
You are asking for solutions to a lot of problems -- not ones that I could handle in just a few paragraphs. I will give you a few key ideas, and recommend that you start breaking these problems down or get continuing help, mentoring, or coaching to work through all of these challenges.
For improving collaboration, the #1 issue to me is trust. People need to trust each other, and that starts with your trust of everyone involved.
A lot of your issues seems to revolve around program, project portfolio, and multi-project management. There is so much written on these topics, and I am not sure where to send you first. Gary Heerkins and Terry Cooke-Davies are two of my favorite authors. Perhaps with more background about your industry and challenges coordinating products, then I could be more specific. Many books have been written on these subjects, and I do not think any single book is the ultimate authority.
For tracking and measuring, I recommend looking up red-yellow-green reports and benchmarking. My own web site will give you a place to start (www.alexsbrown.com), but there are many other good sources for these ideas.
It sounds like you are getting started with project management. My #1 recommendation is to get a project chartering process in place. If you go to www.alexsbrown.com, you will find many articles on charters, plus courses and mentoring services to help get you started.
Let me know if I can help. Saving Changes...
Jeff DahlProject Leader| Edward JonesMaryland Heights, Mo, United States
That seems like a real load of issues but a couple of them I am currently working through so maybe what I have implemented may be of some help.
1 & 2). Improve Collaboration: Not knowing the backgrounds of the teams you would like to have interact, is there any common foundation for both teams to build on?
I have found that when two teams are not truly working together is usually stems from a lack of understanding of the other teams tasks and requirements in relation to the over all project. Looking at the WBS that each team is working on see if there is any commonality. If there is then get them together and have them discuss that single, or several, areas where they have common interests.
I have gone as far as asking for members of the two teams to work together as a sub team for those tasks with mostly good results as it does expose each team to the inner working of the other. Good luck in this.
4). Managing a program with several associated projects:
As stated already there are several very good books on this subject alone, as well as its own certification program through PMI. Now with that said how I am handling the single program, with 6 sub projects, under them is through project coordinators for each. In the company I currently work for the sub projects don't have certified PM's running them but the project leads are very competent in thier roles.
I have set up several bi-weekly meetings with each sub project team leaders and a once a month update from all sub project leaders. I try to attend at least one meeting of the sub project team per month to keep up to date on the details.
I have left the majority of the detail work to the sub project leads and I track all of the major milestones, which in turn I report on to the project sponsor team. We have developed an in house excel form that works well for us.
So far the work is getting done and it is a little slow but the work is very well done and the sponsors are pleased with the over all results. My over all role is to make sure the projects associated with the program stay on track to the over all objectives and coach / mentor the other project leaders as needed.
Good luck
Jeff Dahl Saving Changes...
Gabrielle MaherPMO Consultant| IndependentLondon, London, United Kingdom
Hi Mikeal - sounds to me like you need to set up a PMO (Programme Management Office) asap. PMOs will provide you with the oversight you need - at project and programme level - they will issue scorecards, develop templates (PIDs, highlight reports etc), develop programme plans, set standards (ie each project should have a plan, a risk and issue log, a PID and a cost template at a min), help you manage your vendor, and resource pool and if skilled enough they can mentor your team. They will also help you choose an appropriate PPM toolset. I have set up a PMO from scratch - within a month. You can have oversight of all your projects and vendors within 2 months easily - the status of each project etc ..
PMOs will provide guideance on project methodologies, standards and best practice. They can also help you select a suitable PPM tool - there is an array of project, programme and portfolio management tools available - this can be an expensive route - it tends to take a bit of time (a few month approx) to find a good system at a low cost. There are lots of PPM systems out there that you can start looking at - at the high end of the market (cost) is CA Clarity - its a very impressive system - have a look on their website - you will be amazed - they also have several webcasts / demos that you can see online to see the power of this application. Others are Planview, Primevera - do a google - there are a lot of cheaper web based PPM systems about now. Most PPM systems enable online status reporting / scorecarding - risks and issue management, resource management - others have online planning etc. etc. etc .
Also have a look at EMSP - Microsofts. I don't think its too expensive.
The one thing to be careful of - is that you don't take on more than you can chew - it takes time to implement these systems - and if you have PM capability problems it will be a step too much too soon. You need to address your capability issue first - A good PMO will help you to assess the skills of your team - they will mentor your team - and advise on the best time to implement a PPM system if you go that route.
You should also have a look at some document management sytems that will allow you to save all the documents required by your programme in one place (Livelink, Sharepoint are well know but again cheaper onces are out there ). But you can start sharing documents now by setting up a shared storage area on the network. I would suggest you set up a folder for each project and ask your team to post their PIDs, Project Plans and Risks and Issue on the shared drive into the appropriate folder. That will improve communication and promote a better understanding of the various projects once people start to use the shared area.
You should set up a weekly team meeting - at first get everyone to do a 5 min. overview of their projects to improve the overall understanding of everyones project. If you are managing a programme it is imperative that each project within the programme is aware of their dependencies on each other - therefore a regular programme meeting is required weekly to review project plans, risk and issue review (including dependencies and scope change) and project status review - this should be a priority. I would put together a template / highlight report - and get each PM to fill this in weekly - outlining the status of their project, risks and issues, costs and major milestones. Once you are happy your project plans are in good shape - then you need to consolidate them into one programme plan.
With your vendors I would start by reading the contracts - you should have a note included that requires them to report status to you.
I would equally meet these vendors once a week - ask them to fill in a scorecard too and highlight report for each project too.
Finally do a resource plan. its very wasteful to have lots of resources sitting around not being used. Ask each PM to do a resource forecast for the rest of the year by skillset (ie. desktop engineer, server engineer, business analyst, technical architect) - by month - by man days for each month . Then plot these into a resource forecast plan. You will soon see why you have resources sitting around not being used.
Finally, go to the pub!!! - or lunch - or dinner - its the best way to get everyone to know each other.
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