Successful Projects; Video Learning for Sponsors and Project Control Boards

Lessons Learned Series 1

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Frank held the role of Chair of the Project Control Board.

The project was designed to achieve 3 things:  consolidate three IT departments from three separate businesses, relocate two of those departments to one site in Melbourne and, redeploy team members with options (relocate to Melbourne in IT if people chose to and stay with their existing business, or move to another role outside of IT with training but within the existing businesses, or people could search for work externally).

Budget was $2.5M and the project took 18 months.  The new organisation’s user base totalled approx. 700.  There was a Project Manager appointed and the PRINCE2® methodology was used to manage the project.

Frank explained there was high complexity on the IT side of the project.  Some systems needed to be integrated and others decommissioned.  There was also risk around stakeholder management as there were competing agendas across IT departments.  “Although we needed to physically relocate, the separate brands were to be retained and each IT department wanted to keep their systems and equipment.”

In measuring the success of the project, it was part of Frank’s brief to ensure users and stakeholders were comfortable about the final solution.  Therefore effective management of stakeholders and transparency was critical.

The strategy was to ensure a high degree of transparency about what was planned so that staff across the businesses knew what was occurring.  There was early engagement with all stakeholders and users, and scope, cost and timeframes were published in addition to the minutes of PCB meetings.  The project team was transparent about its decisions and progress.

As an example of a decision the Board needed to make which had a positive impact on the project but required some negotiation/give and take between Board members, Frank said  “As you’d expect, the Board wanted to save money, but you can’t just close down systems, the customer base had to be migrated across to other systems.  Everyone wanted to retain their own equipment.  The PCB made a recommendation with a focus on managing the impact to users.”

Can you give an example of really visible sponsorship?  “Our sponsor and senior representatives from the business were integral to the success of the project.  PCB meetings were held fortnightly. As there were three different businesses in three different locations, Adelaide and two sites in Melbourne, we decided to alternate PCB meetings between the locations so that all of the businesses had visibility of the meetings.  In addition, the CEO, CIO and CFOs all travelled & came to PCB meetings to answer questions. There was a 15 minute time slot set up after PCB meetings where all personnel could attend and ask questions of the PCB member representing their organisation.

End users were invited to participate in testing.  “We wanted to convert those who were not supportive of the project to become our advocates and we were able to do that.”

There were a total of 90 IT personnel across the 3 businesses and the teams had to be integrated.

Planning needed to be developed within resourcing constraints, and that was managed by co-opting from Head Office to the other 2 businesses and moving people from Melbourne into other Branches to help cover the additional workload.

There was also a scope constraint and unfortunately, scope was not well defined early enough.  The PCB then agreed to changes and although that did require time, the new scope was then communicated and widely published so that it was clearly understood.  The document was issued to every Department.

There were also dependencies. Equipment in Melbourne needed to be upgraded in time to handle extra load and there were 3 different platforms being used.

“The project delivered on its outcomes, implementation was smooth and no one left unemployed, which was great.  The PCB was proactive and engaged and the project would not have been able to deliver the positive result it did otherwise.”

Can you narrow down to 3 points your experience of the most important characteristics or tasks a PCB needs to do to ensure a successful project?  “Yes, have a clear scope, carefully define how you measure success and ensure that roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders are understood.”

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