I. Key Concepts for Managing Enterprise-Wide Projects
What do the acronyms stand for and what do they mean? Learn the latest views from leading industry experts. We'll show you the enterprise solution becomes a project and see how it aligns to business strategy.
- Terms and jargon
- Industry best practices
- Research groups
- Business strategy alignment
II. Overview of Critical Success Factors
We'll distinguish between strategy, initiative, program and project. You'll learn to leverage industry best practices and the phases of service delivery to maintain control of your project. We'll discuss how to define the scope by creating a context diagram that uncovers the business, technical and project stakeholders. We'll also look at major milestones and deliverable and begin to sort out responsibilities.
- Business strategy meets project management office
- Defining the scope of the initiative
- Breaking down the work and maintaining integration
- Defining clear responsibilities (cross functional, internal and external)
- Leveraging existing processes
III. Qualifying the Need and Opportunity
Let's look at the rationale from a business standpoint. Why does the business think deploying software will solve the problem? How will we measure success? We'll differentiate between features; advantages and benefits to better define needs. We'll also define measures of success and facilitate setting priorities.
- Understand the business
- Linking problems/opportunities to initiatives
- High level measures of success
- Setting priorities
- Demonstrating unique business value
- Understanding sources of differentiation
IV. Financial Measures of Success
While carrying out an enterprise-wide project, attention needs to be paid to both the project and current business operations. We'll discuss speaking in terms of bottom line results and show how to determine the expected return on investment and alignment to business strategy. You'll learn how to set clear and measurable goals that leadership can support across functional boundaries.
- Learning to speak your client's financial language
- Using metrics to create value
- Defining the problem - root cause
- Using an Eight Step Model
V. Value Proposition Creation and Delivery
The need has been qualified and the financial expectations set. Now we'll create a value proposition to present to management. Key questions will be answered, such as: Why will a software solution be of value to the business? What information is needed to determine the total cost of ownership? What are the expectations of the decision makers? What other initiative are competing for resources? Who will be impacted by the project, and what is their stake?
- Characteristics of value propositions
- Sources of input
- Writing a value proposition
- Quantifying the value from the customer's perspective
VI. Building Commitment
Learn when to use different types of questions and how to handle questions from executive, managers, vendors and peers. Practice using a questioning model to uncover hidden assumptions and gather requirements. Learn to use stakeholder analysis as input to drafting a targeted communications plan and how to present your ideas to various audiences.
- Communications plan
- Targeting the audience with the right content
- Working with the audience to build commitment
- Delivering and handling questions
VII. Selecting the Solution Provider
Using the business needs, measures of success and stakeholder expectations, product and vendor requirements will be documented. The evaluation criteria will be produced from an evaluation template and the vendor agreement will be explored. Current thinking on products and vendors will be discussed.
- Business requirements
- Technical requirements
- Selection criteria
- Evaluating and selecting the solution provider
- The vendor agreement
VIII. Agreements
We'll discuss the pros and cons of different types of contracts and the associated risks. We'll consider both the buyer and seller perspectives and you'll practice applying a negotiation model while dealing with vendors, customer and cross functionally.
- Contracts overview
- Buyer and seller perspectives
- Mitigating risks through agreement
- Negotiating the agreement
IX. Manage and Deliver
Learn what the experts say about project failures and success. We'll discuss key management terms and typical deployment life cycles are covered along with project, technology and process deliverables. It is difficult to manage every detail of a project so it is important to build in control mechanisms. The link between project scope and deliverables is emphasized and responsibilities are assigned. An integrated expectations management strategy uses the risk mitigation plan, communications and project work plan to know when to focus on what and who.
- Key concepts for managing projects
- Project deliverables (project, technology, process)
- Project responsibilities
- Project controls
- Organizational change
- Managing ongoing vendor relations
X. Transition and Support
Change is the reason the software is being deployed. The business need or opportunity that drove the decision to implement a new system is sometimes forgotten. The people who make the deployment a success need to be managed in terms of process, technology, capability and mindset. This is the stage when project control is formally transitioned back to the business. We will look back on the project to see how to improve organizational readiness by managing acceptance early in the plan. We will examine our vendor maintenance agreement to see if our assumptions still hold true.
- Managing acceptance during project delivery
- Transitioning control back to the business
- Changes to the business organization structure
- Handling resistance to change
XI. Post Implementation Optimization
Measuring the success of the software deployment is about the collection of operational metrics. By asking questions regarding best practices and software functionality we uncovered assumptions being made by project stakeholders and end users. Now it's time to see if the new software solution brought on the expected result. It is important to revisit the original objectives and example lessons to be learned as a continuous improvement initiative is launched.
- Revisit the need and opportunity
- Communicate cross-functional accomplishments
- Monitor operational metric goals and defect thresholds
- Launch a service level agreement and continuous improvement process
