the pmo monitor volume 1 issue 1
TRANSCRIPT
Educational resource
Plan and schedule upcom-ing trainings, Suggestions for future project manage-ment educational opportu-nities and access to learning tools such as copies of the PMBOK (Project Manage-ment Book of Knowledge).
PM support
General questions on pro-ject management, guidance on what is needed for starting, maintaining and completing a project and issues that have occurred within a project that could use some assistance.
The PMO has been estab-lished to run multi-product projects, maintain project management processes, provide reporting and serve as a resource. Any-one can reach out with any project management needs and/or questions. These can include (but are not limited to):
Reporting
Assist with the review of reporting of project status-es, plans, charts, timelines, etc. and provide tem-plates, samples of existing projects and other PM related documentation.
You can also find guides, templates and samples of project plans on the E drive under:
E:\PMO Warehouse
We look forward to work-ing with all of you and your teams as we continue to grow and develop.
Introducing the PMO (Project Management Office)
Upcoming Trainings
Project Management Level I—Thursday, October 22nd from 9am-3:30pm
Enrollment is outside of the LMS. Please email your supervisor to enroll
This course provides a fundamental understanding of the project management process. It offers practical hands-on experience with Granite specific templates and tools. This course is the starting place for all who desire to build their pro-ject management knowledge and skill
Project Management Info Sessions—Tuesdays at 2:30pm in Sam Walton
Upcoming topics and dates they are offered:
Risk Management—Tuesday, October 20th
Lessons Learned and Completion—Tuesday, October 27th
Inside this Issue:
The
PMO Monitor
Q4 2015
Introducing the PMO 1
Upcoming Trainings 1
Case Study 2
Spotlight 3
Scope Statements 4
Did You Know? 4
Volume 1 Issue 1
Nations Foodservice, Inc is a hamburger restaurant chain in California that wanted high speed broadband services at each of its 31 locations for the purpose of upgrading their existing service, which was too slow for their needs. The pro-ject was assigned to Data Pro-ject Manager Shannon Burke. From the start, Shannon and
the Premier rep, Chelsie Martin, worked closely together. They defined responsibilities and Chelsie helped Shannon estab-lish a relationship with the cus-tomer.
The internal stakeholder meeting was held the day after receiving the project with all the internal stakeholders in-cluding Sales, the Premier Rep and Provisioning, where Shan-non reviewed the scope of the project and determined what needed to be verified with the customer. After meeting inter-nally, the kickoff call was sched-uled.
Prior to the call, Shannon pre-pared an agenda that included three major points. An intro-duction, which reviewed Shan-non’s contact information and the process she follows with the installs. Special instructions, where the customer could let her know any important items for the project, which included modem specifications and a priority list of restaurants. And lastly, a review, where she veri-fied the contact schedule and went over the status of the pro-ject. After the call, Shannon updated the agenda with a re-cap of the talking points and the
Page 2 The
Case Study—Nation’s Foodservice, Inc.
“We were very happy
with Shannon’s
project
management. She is
always prepared for
the phone calls. The
calls are brief
because we have a
comprehensive,
updated tracker
beforehand.”
Nation’s Foodservice
Page 2
actions and issues.
These minutes, along with the most recent tracker and the data introduction docu-ment, were sent to the cus-tomer.
For the first few weeks, things were moving along smoothly, as Shannon was using the tracker that she created which had priori-tized the hot sites. Because she had done this at the start, Shannon was able to stay focused and check on the most pressing orders daily. Then the customer changed their mind on the type of broadband service they preferred, which had been Comcast, but now they wanted it to be AT&T Fiber. Shannon reset the expecta-tion with the customer re-garding the scope and timeframe of the project due to the change, making sure to verify that for locations where AT&T Fiber was not available, Comcast could still be used. The customer agreed with the proposed changes. Shannon then re-viewed the orders that were in process and worked with Provisioning to update the carriers wherever possible. This did change some instal-lation dates for the custom-er, which she notified them of immediately.
With email updates going out 3 to 4 times a week and weekly calls, keeping con-stant communication with the customer allowed this
project to be as seamless as possible. Shannon applied many of the different skills and lessons she has learned through shadowing other PMs, attending stakeholder meetings and taking Granite University trainings to man-age this project successfully and get high praise from the other stakeholders as well as the customer.
“She was very organized,
precise, and quick to
respond to any questions
to both myself and the
customer. In fact, once
the project is over I would
like to go over everything
that was sold to the
customer and to take
some notes on project
management from her”
Chelsie Martin, Premier Rep
Patrick Foley, one of the two Granite Grid Mall Pro-ject Managers recently gave a presentation on MS Pro-ject and how it has proven to be a helpful tool. In addi-tion to his Project Manage-ment experience in the mili-tary, Pat also comes with 3 years of project manage-ment on the civilian side.
For the past year, Pat has been working closely with 2 of our mall REIT partners, Taubman and General Growth Properties (GGP) on installing Granite infrastruc-ture and circuits into their malls nationwide. As you can imagine, there were a lot of moving parts with many different groups. “GGP was very relaxed with timeframes and we pretty much dictated the timeframes throughout.” Pat explains on his relation-ships with each of the REITs. “The standard GRID Project Plan was a great fit for [GGP] properties and also met all time require-ments. As far as detail went, GGP just wanted to know the summary (big picture) tasks.”
Taubman had a very differ-ent approach. “They have an extensive team and they micromanaged down to the mall managers. While I was working on the project plan we routinely had to cut down timeframes and
would have to explain to Taubman that their timeframes were unreason-able.” It was definitely a learning experience for Pat. “Overall I think Taubman opened up my eyes about how to deal with microman-agers and how to think ahead on what was need-ed.”
These experiences taught him the value that using MS Project can bring in his eve-ryday tasks as a Project Manager. “MS Project is necessary at the start of each major project. The main problem project man-agers face is meeting time-lines. If the project manager establishes a realistic time-line with the customer then both sides of the fence will be happy.”
An important feature of MS Project is the ability to as-sign tasks to specific groups or people, which holds them accountable for the work they need to do on the pro-ject. As far as his favorite feature, Pat says “My favor-ite feature is the ability to add a column next to each summary task and subtask which would calculate what percentage of the task was done.”
For those who are interest-ed in, or just starting to use, MS Project, Pat has some advice. “Use Google and
YouTube tutorials. Just like Excel, MS Project has an endless amount of features so research how to use these features as you need them.”
As the next mall REIT part-ner is getting ready to start their relationship with Gran-ite, Pat is confident that, with the help of MS Project, his project will be a success.
If you are interested in viewing Pat’s presentation, would like more information on MS Project or have any questions, please email [email protected]
Page 3 Page 3
Spotlight
Pat Foley talks about MS Project
“Just like Excel,
MS Project has an
endless amount
of features so
research how to
use these features
as you need
them.”
Scope statements are the part of the project that defines the boundaries. It outlines the key successes, deliverables, scope work and as-sumptions.
Project objectives and goal
This part of the scope statement defines the purpose of the project. The message here be-ing, if your plan is followed, the goal will be attainable.
To truly understand the objective of the project, it is important to know what your customers do and what they stand for. Another helpful piece of information is to find out what they using the solution for.
Always remember, your goal should be SMART:
Did You Know?
Scope Statements — A vital tool in any project
In and out of scope
When creating the scope of your pro-
ject, identifying what is out of scope
is just as important as what is in
scope. Be thorough. Get input from
all your stakeholders. Once you de-
fine the scope, review it with your
customer to ensure the project ex-
pectations are set correctly. Just be-
ware of scope creep (additions/major
changes to a project)!
Assumptions
These are based on truth, but do not
always end up being true. Use your
experiences, knowledge and any in-
formation you have already to create
the assumptions. For example, you
assume that the customer is going to
let the carrier have access to their
site.
Completion activity
This will convey the message that the project will be 100% success-ful if you reach this objective/goal. Defining and publicizing the completion activity is essential because everyone’s idea of when a project has completed can vary.
We have a folder on the E drive called PMO Warehouse. It in-cludes project plan templates, stakeholder meeting templates, samples of existing project plans, timelines and presentations that have been given by various de-partments on their roles. Check it out!
If you ever need to create a plan in MS Project and do not have it, just email [email protected] for assistance. All the computers in Thomas Edison have it as well as the computer in Winston Churchill.
The PMO has a small library of project management resources, including copies of MS Project for Dummies and a few copies of the PMBOK (The Project Manage-ment Body of Knowledge), which is the standard put forward by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and what Granite aligns with. Want to borrow a copy or looking for other resources? Just email [email protected]!
Almost every other department has given a presentation to some of the Premier project managers in the past year. Their presenta-tions have been saved into the PMO Warehouse. Take a look!
In addition to Project Management Level I training, we also offer Level II. In that class, we explore leader-ship, techniques to build high per-forming teams as well as hands-on MS Project work. You must take Level I prior to this course. Please email [email protected] with any questions.