Submitted by Jamal Moustafaev on Wed, 05/07/2014 - 23:19

Introduction

Our company was commissioned to take over a large portfolio including several regulatory projects ($50,000 to $250,000) and a flagship infrastructure overhaul project ($15,000,000). Also Thinktank Consulting was requested to provide its expertise and assistance in the rollout of the mew project management methodology and the establishment of the Project Management Office (PMO).

Problems

There were several problems associated with the above-mentioned goals. Firstly, the company culture and organizational structure (functional) provided the newly-hired project managers with a very complex environment. Furthermore the new PM methodology developed in the European headquarters needed fine-tuning for the local conditions.

Constraints

Most of the bank's IT portfolio consisted of the regulatory projects mandated by the various North American, European and international governing bodies. One of the main aspects of such projects is that the scope and deadline is fixed by the government leaving little room to â€œmanipulateâ€ the project management triangle. In addition the number and the size of the IT portfolio has grown by approximately 50% compared to the previous year while the technical team has grown by only 10-20%. This factor has obviously increased the pressure on the management team with respect to project resource allocation.

Solution

Thinktank Consulting determined that the only way to deliver the regulatory project on time and with the limited resources was to concentrate on quality Requirements Engineering, Project Prioritization and Project Management. Special attention was dedicated to the involvement of our business counterparts in the requirements gathering and management processes.

Our company has also participated in the deployment and fine-tuning of the new project management methodology. The work, among other things, included enhancing the standard Requirements Document, adding several sections to the Project Plan and collaborative development of the Project Roadmap document.

We have also provided several training sessions in the areas of Negotiations, Estimation and Requirements Engineering.

Outcome

Most of the projects in the regulatory portfolio were delivered on time and on budget. In certain cases the proper analysis of regulatory requirements allowed for successful negotiations with various government agencies to either reduce the scope of the projects or move the imposed deadlines.

Furthermore, because of the new collaborative Requirements Engineering technique deployed at the bank and the success on several regulatory projects the customer satisfaction rating given to IT department by the Business team has improved dramatically.

Also, the rollout and the fine-tuning of the new project management methodology was a great success with an improvement in project performance by 50%.

About the Author

Jamal Moustafaev, MBA, PMP – president and founder of Thinktank Consulting is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker in the areas of project/portfolio management, scope definition, process improvement and corporate training. Jamal Moustafaev has done work for private-sector companies and government organizations in Canada, US, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Read Jamal’s Blog @ www.thinktankconsulting.ca