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INTEROFFICE MEMORAND UM

TO: FROM: SUBJECT: DATE:

IT DEPARTMENT IT DEPARTMENT MANAGER IT PROJECT PORTFOLIO 02/15/06

Introduction
This memo pertains to the recent creation of an IT Steering Committee for achieving a strategic plan on how to get the IT Projects Portfolio under control. To achieve our goals for this year, a systematic approach to prioritizing projects must be utilized to avoid the risks associated with project delays, costs and overlap.

Summary
Prioritizing Projects: a. Identify project interdependencies b. Complexity c. Financial and human capacity scarcity d. Ability for an organization to absorb change Risk Assessments: a. Design safeguards and failsafes into each project to avoid a specific risk. b. Design checkpoints in each project for monitoring. c. Identify the actions needed in the event of a risk becoming reality. Project Prioritization Matrix: a. Refer to Tables A and B

Confidential

Page 1

1/31/2014

Analysis

Prioritizing Projects
Project interdependency is the result of one project needing to be achieved in order for another to proceed. Identifying these relationships is crucial to the pertaining projects and must not be avoided. In most cases, projects can be started in parallel up to the point where they must cross paths in order to become part of the same project. Alone, both projects were independent of one another until they came to the point in time where they became inter-dependent. There are PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Technique) charts available to understand the inter-relationships between projects and there dependency on one another. Implementing projects in the correct sequence is critical to avoid having to start over or having a false start. Overly complex projects can cause failures due to one not understanding the complexities inherent in the effort of such projects. As the complexity grows in a project, so does the cost and effort, whereas in projects that are implementing new and untested tools and techniques can and will lead to delays. One must understand that underestimating the complexity in a project can have significant effects on project costs, time constraints and the talent needed to complete such projects on time and budget. Delays caused by overly complex projects can deplete resources allocated for other projects. Project Management must plan scenarios and alternative actions to implement in the worst case to better deal with a similar event. In order to support multiple and simultaneous projects it would be ideal to have sufficient financing and human capitol, but realistically this is not always the case. Again, underestimating risk can lead to loss of investment due to lack of funding, which in a worst case scenario can lead an organization to bankruptcy. When preparing timelines for projects within the portfolio, consideration must be given to the risks related to the availability of proper personnel and funding to properly source a project. Not properly planning for these shortages can affect not only the project at hand but interdependent projects that are inter-related. Overfunding one project can shortfall another causing delays or resource to be depleted by the latter. organizations arent able to absorb the changes that multiple completed projects can bring. If the rate of change is more than the organization can absorb, theres a risk of disruption from customer service to product quality. Time and consideration must be given when creating timelines of multiple projects to reduce the risk of pursuing multiple projects that will ultimately cancel one another out, so to speak.

Given that proper funding and personnel are available for multiple projects; many

Risk Assessments

Designing safeguards into a project has many challenges and the planning stage must start with estimation. Estimating how much a project is going to cost, how long it will take, what are the resources to complete the project, all depend on the project itself. The more complicated the project, the more complex and uncertain it will become and those factors are what influence how much risk will be involved ultimately. Going into a project knowing what will happen and what could happen can influence the outcome of most projects and knowing how to manage those risks is essential to delivering a project on time and within budget. How and what can happen in a project is vital information when in the planning stages of a project. A good project manager will plan for those risks and will have developed a strategy for dealing with the outcomes. Designing a method for monitoring risk could be as easy as keeping an eye on known risks and verifying against your risk response plan that those responses are effective. In the event that the risk responses are ineffective you then make the necessary changes and identify any new risks that may have come from not having the right responses and create plans to deal with those risks. Knowing that risk can happen at any point within the life-cycle of a project creates opportunities to check the effectiveness of your risk management plans, which allows for a more fluent and less risk prone project. In the likelihood of a risk becoming reality, one needs to know the value of what it will take to get back to normal. In planning for and against risk, its acceptable to have some risk as part of the plan, because it may take less energy and effort to accept it than to spend an unbalanced amount of effort trying to avoid it. Its crucial to have a risk response plan in these occasions, so as to not let the event cascade into a complete project failure. A proper damage control scenario should have been put in place during the planning stages of the project so as to help minimize loss, damage, and failure of critical components to the service.

Project Prioritization Matrix


Project Name Current Phase Hours to Complete 240 # of Staff 4 $ of resources Difficulty H/M/L M

Table A.
Risk H/M/L H Priority

CRM Application

Testing

Over $1 Million $100,00 to $500,000 $400,00 to $800,000 $50,000 to $100,000 $50,000 to $100,000 Less than $50,000 $1,000,000 Plus

Database Consolidation Web Portal

Requirement Discovery Code Design

200

1700

6.5

10

Final Phase Projects Infrastructure Upgrade 95 (Unofficial)Projects VoIP

Implementation

300

Procurement

500

10

Various

9500

10

Planning

3000

10

Table B. (dbl click on cell to activate Excel)


Week1 Week2 Week3 Week4 Week5 Week6 Week7

Portal Infrastructure upgrade Implementation Database Consolidation CRM Application Unofficial Projects VoIP

6 4 3 5 4 10

6 4 3

6 4 1.5

6 0.5

2 10 10 10 10 10 10

41 week span

In looking at the charts it appears that the completion of the projects portfolio should take approximately 42 weeks at 40 hrs. Given that all the projects will not be done at the same time, some may overlap slightly. In regards to the Web Portal, the change in design raised the total man hours to around 1700hrs. With this change in man hours and cost, it is suggested to place all 6 programmers on project for duration of 7 weeks with one programmer staying on for another week for finishing touches. The restructuring of the Web Portal should accommodate all equipment that was ordered, which will save on restocking fees. The infrastructure upgrade will use a total of 4 network designers over a period of 3 weeks with only 1 designer staying on for half of week 4 for a total of 500 hrs. On the 2 projects that are in the implementation stages, a total of 3 network designers will finish up on these projects for another 2 weeks with one staying on for a third week with the help of another designer for a week to finish up project for cutover. This should put the man hours at about 300 for the final duration. For the Database Consolidation project, the requirements discovery phase should take about a week with 3 programmers and 2 network designers going full time for a total of 200 hrs. The CRM application is in testing mode with most of the work have been outsourced, this left us with using 2 programmers and 2 network designers for a week testing all aspects of the application. For week two of the testing we left on 1 designer and 1 programmer to put a full load on the system to test capabilities before release. Unofficial projects took a back seat to say, that once all the other projects were out of the way all the techs could focus on the remaining projects. If all 10 techs went full time at the remaining portfolio projects, it would take a total of 23 weeks to complete the projects with about 7 to 8 weeks left in the year to consider the VoIP situation. The addition of a VoIP telephony system would be a problem for the available techs on hand to install and test with the amount of projects already at hand in the portfolio. If other possibilities are available for the system to be put in place by the vendor then this would make a little more sense economically. If the NPV and IRR analysis are within a reasonable amount to take on the project then this department is on board with the suggestion.

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