Greetings All I have a strong technical PM background and have a real passion for PM. I have recently shifted gears in my career and am currently a manager within a project office that is "supposidly" overseeing a multi million dollar gov initiative. I've been here for a short time and have already noticed that the various project areas (referred to as clients from here on in) are constantly being bombarded for data, info, and status reports from a wide variety of sources. Thus, when I request either status reports (to calculate my earned value, CPI, SPI etc) and or documentation for my doc repository, it is sometimes ignored. Bottom line, I feel that by creating a web portal to consolidate and streamline the amount of information coming and going it would increase efficiency and productivity all around. I know the key in gaining senior management approval is to show how I would be providing value back to the clients and thus would be gaining some momentum, but this is tricky. Has anyone had any experience in developing a "virtual project office"? Some of the features I am putting forth for consideration as an example are: 1) Document repository 2) Data Input (data, status reports etc) Providing each client with their own executive dashboard (CPI and SPI etc) 3)Template archive 4) Collaborative Workspace etc... Any thoughts on implementing or things I should watch out for would be greatly appreciated! Thanks F Saving Changes...
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Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Hi Fraser, great idea! You can build from scratch or implement one of the many off the shelf, ready to use packages for this. I would be delighted to show you our product, Processes On Demand. In fairness to others, you may wish to also look at PM Solutions, Tenstep, as well as some of the PM framework solutions put together by consultants on more of a billable consulting services basis, rather than product offering. If you would like additional information, I would be delighted to send some to you. Good luck. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
You're right Fraser, this is tricky business. In a company I was at with over 500 PMs, we ended up building the case to implement an IT-wide web based reporting tool that would pull basic project information from a portfolio reporting tool. We decided which information needed to be seen at the project level, Sponsor level, and senior management level by pulling together forums and setting a standard for each, and then implemented a tool that could support those needs. It worked great, and allowed interested parties to get information "on-demand" that was current, and allowed PMs to spend more time managing, rather than responding to requests. It also set an expection about what information should be looked at. Bear in mind, every peice of information to make available can and will drive a behavior so be careful how you do this. As for the document repository, I would suggest finding one that can be flexible enough to work for all of IT so that other teams like your software testing team can also utilize it and share documents with the entire project team while minimizing security issues to get members access. Good luck! ~Lyndsay Letellier, Senior Consultant, Mindavation Inc. Saving Changes...
John SchlichterFounder| OPM Experts LLC http://opmexperts.comAtlanta, Ga, United States
Fraser, we have designed two virtual PMO's: one for a $350MM start-up, and one for an established Fortune 100 company. A web portal can be indispensable, but as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out." This is one reason why we like the web portal designed by BOT International in their Processes-on-Demand product: ease-of-use. Regards, John Schlichter [email protected] Saving Changes...
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