2009-07-09 Project Management (A PMO Approach) - Michelle Colodzin

Presentation:

The Five Secrets of Project SchedulingA PMO Approach

Presenter

Michelle Colodzin, PMP, PMI-SP, MCTS, has worked as a project manager on many projects for the State of California and private sector clients, including one of the largest State IT projects on which she was responsible for managing a schedule of over 3000 lines as well as 16 sub-plans. She has been a project manager for nearly 20 years and has learned project scheduling best-practices through the school of hard-knocks. She brings real-world perspective and insight into why certain scheduling practices work and why other commonly used practices often fall short of their goal.

Michelle has earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) and Project Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP) as well as a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) credential in MS Project 2007. She has twice acted as a subject-matter expert for PMI, contributing and reviewing questions for the PMI-SP exam, served as the Vice President of the MPA Chapter in Sacramento for two years and recently presented a paper she authored at the PMI College of Scheduling Annual Conference.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Michelle Colodzin, PMP, PMI-SP
Sr. Project Consultant
MetaVista Consulting Group

+1 530-798-1656 Direct
+1 916-932-7186 Main Office
+1 916-932-7187 Fax

mcolodzin@metavista.com

(see attached powerpoint document)

Misc meeting notes
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Programs (program management) - a group of related projects vs. portfolio management which can be a group of unrelated project.

Project exists to produce deliverables

Project Scheduling should not be assigned to an administrative assistant staff (rather it should be assigned to an experience project manager)

The deliverables should be declared within the Project Charter, Project Scope Statement, etc. These documents should be published and available to all project stakeholders.

Determine the appropriate level of detail (check lists should not be in the schedule)

The project manager (and or PMO) should implement a regular status update and reporting process (using standardized forms (data items))

The Project Manager should review & adjust the schedule bi-weekly and/or bi-monthly reporting).

Project stakeholders along with the Project Mnaager should establish a project change control and review process.

The PMO should create and follow project scheduling standards
(processes, templates,etc)

Communication planning - what info do you need so that your stakeholders feel comfortable.

Every deliverable should address an identified requirement.

Deliverable should be the "end product", not the process of producing the deliverable

The Project Manager should determine the level of detail for each given project.

Team members need to understand what to expected with respect to time entry within project server. Project status reports should be viewed as "status reporting" rather than time entry.

Project server time tracking should not be used to track vacation and/or to automatically update the schedule.

A project schedule can't be static, it must reflect actual changes occurring on the project.

Always consider what impact a change will be to the schedule (consider if the change will impact the project's critical path).

How to report the schedule change on a status report. - Run a variance report (using earned value, SPI, CPI) in MS Project. You can then report variances on status reports.
The project manager, pmo and/or the organization should pre-determine what metrics (consistent measurements) should be used to to create the schedule and the variance reports.

Scheduling Standards (are guide lines based on best practices, but need to be defined to meet each individual organizations needs).

Ensure that the PMO (has the authority and influence) is used consistently. The PMO should establish a frame work.

Scheduling standards contribute to the development of realistic and manageable project time lines.