Project: PMI3

Situation

The company was growing at a fast rate. Within the Implementation department, new Project Managers (PMs) were coming onboard. The department approximately doubled in size in one year. New clients signing and the number of projects increased by about 50% within a year’s time. There was a large and immediate need for documentation, organization, process improvements, and scalability to be able to keep up. Hopefully, even get ahead.

I gathered some tenured and newer PMs to brainstorm improvement ideas over a few days. Within a room, we utilized the Affinity Diagram tool and placed sticky note ideas into the proper section of the wall. From there, the ideas were documented, with possible solutions, and with the impact (extensive, significant, moderate, minor), urgency (critical, high, medium, low), and the level of effort (immense, high, medium, low, slight) addressed.

Task

Based on the information brainstormed and the goal we were wanting to accomplish, I put together a proposal for the Project Management Implementation Improvement Initiative (PMI3). This was presented to Project Management leadership. It included a statement of need, objectives, activities, cost, and deliverables. I also discussed some examples that would have either the biggest impact or quickest results to show the possibilities that could occur. Leadership was impressed and saw the need to support this and move forward.

Action

After being placed as the lead for this effort, I worked to create a prioritization matrix of 64 items that were initially identified. Utilizing ITIL, I calculated the priority based on each idea’s impact and urgency. I created a PMI3 space within Atlassian Confluence, a collaboration software program similar to Microsoft SharePoint. Within the space, there were instructions on how to submit new ideas and current ideas with their respective status. I worked with the necessary subject matter experts and utilized PM lessons learned to make headway with this initiative.

Results

The team and amount of projects continued to grow. Due to client facing obligations, the internal project was a lower priority and was worked on during “free time”. Even though it has not progressed as originally discussed, major improvements have been implemented to save time, introduce consistency, and add efficiency with how Project Managers work through a project.

• The Project Management specific Confluence space was re-organized to match more with the PMI Waterfall methodology. Over 100 pages of data were added making it easier for PMs to find answers and know the typical flow of a project. This included a major need in regards to third-party integration settings. In some instances, it could take up to 5 hours for a PM to find out what settings were needed to be gathered. That doesn’t include gathering the values, configuring, and testing.
• The Atlassian JIRA Client Project Master Template spreadsheet was re-organized with more complete information added. There is a set amount of tickets (~175) that need to be created for every project. This took over 40 hours to accomplish even with version 1 of the template. With version 2 of the template, it now takes less than four (4) hours, decreasing wasted time by 164%.
• Decreased the Testing Guidelines spreadsheet by 181% (1,573 tabs to 77) and decreased the average 10 rows per test to 1. This was accomplished by removing redundancy and unnecessary information utilizing concise communication. Also, reporting metrics were added to visually display percentage complete. On a personal note, it was always exciting seeing the green part of the pie grow.
• Created and documented JIRA bug ticket standards that would accommodate all departments within Alkami. A single ticket could end up in around 9 different queues depending on the issue and project phase. This saved on both internal time and external time reducing the need to go back and forth gathering more information.
• Templates were created to save time and have consistency with the projects. The goal was for the PM to be able to fill in the blanks based on scope and client discussions. Plan templates included conversions, testing, training, and launch. Another template that had a revision was the client specific confluence page.

Much more was in-flight to ensure that we can make things easier and consistent.