Jayson ReadProject ManagerEden Prairie, Mn, United States
I'm a project manager on a fairly large-scale ERP implementation in my company that is going to span the course of four years and five to six targeted deployments of functionality. The way we're implementing the solution requires several different integration points with existing legacy systems (financials, EDI, master data management, etc.) not to mention all the modifications that are going to be made to the base system.
This is definitely an opportunity for a program manager to provide that overall management from the shovel in the ground all the way thru to the first elevator ride (metaphorically speaking). And that person is likely going to be me.
So, the question I have to my gantthead community and professional colleagues is this... how do you don both the project and program manager hats successfully and still have the right level of accontability at both levels?
Thanks in advance for your responses! Saving Changes...
Michael ShirrellEnterprise Architect| SalesforceNoblesville, IN, United States
Jayson,
I've been doing the EXACT same thing for the past two years (and should be reaching the end of my "journey" this Fall/Winter): Managing a global ERP deployment from the perspective of the Program and Project. I think the key is knowing when to don either or both of the hats successfully. In my case, program-wide, I manage the major/critical path pieces of the implementation as well as the master project plan (where the major milestones are captured). That is to say, I manage the resources assigned to each of my subproject plans (breakdown of the big pieces of the master project plan - EDI, Data Conversion, Reporting, etc.) and ensure that we are meeting the major milestones. In addition to that, we have assigned "leads" to each of the subplans. I work with these subproject "leads" to plan and manage their respective project plans. While I do not do the day-to-day management of the work on these plans I am responsible/accountable for knowing how the work is proceeding and ensuring that it is doing so on the predefined timeline. So, I attend the meetings to gather the necessary sub-project-level information to actively guide the leads as well as to validate my program-level decisions.
Like I said, it's a matter of knowing when to be sufficiently detailed and when you can raise your head out of the details to see the larger pieces of the puzzle moving into place. The accountability piece is all in how your organization is structured and how can you then structure your project team (taking your org's structure into account) to meet the needs of the customer base. Setting the expectations of you and your team at the beginning of the project should help.
I hope some of what I've written helps, as I tend to ramble.
