A lot depends on the size of the organization number of Projects that need to be migrated, the number of Project Managers, Programs, Portfolios, and so on. While the schedule and timeline are critical for the Assignment or Change Management Project, the cost of migration is usually ignored citing reasons like internal resource deployment, Knowledge Management, Capability Building and Resource Enablement.
None of this, in my experience, fits the bill because the Project Managers are dedicated to Project delivery and the cost of distraction has to be accounted for separately either for the shared Managers sparing time for the PMO tool deployment or the dedicated Project Manager and their team working exclusively on the migration to the PMO tool.
Even with a dedicated team, based on the function and number of projects to be migrated the production teams sparing and sharing their productive time has to be assessed for a cost-benefit analysis.
In our case of migrating from a disconnected manual SPI and CPI reporting to a Project Management tool, at the organizational level of about 5 products, 25 projects and about 50 Project Managers (indicative numbers please, for contextual purposes) a timeline of over 12 months was not sufficient.
The learnings from our Migration Project can be categorised as follows:
Planning and Suitability Check
Keep the customisation requirements very low and restrict them to reports. If the product required additional features for a fitment, then either the product is not suitable for deployment for your organization or the organizational processes need restructuring before you go for the PMO tool deployment decision. The PMO has a critical job to support the organization with this as is the study or the readiness study for the organization. Strictly no customization of functionality or new features or modules should be approved, at any stage of the migration timeline. This should take about a month's time.
Process Mapping and modifications within the organization
A dedicated team of change management professionals shall be deployed for mapping the Project Management processes to the product features. The changes for switching to the PMO tool should be identified. Based on the size and complexity 1 -2 months is a good time for this exercise.
Pilot or Go live? Decision, Accommodating the exceptions
Being an internal project a pilot project would be ad-hoc and questioned for resources, time and effort. So the go-live date has to arrive at a consensus and the consensus could itself take a few week time. Consideration would be requested from project categories like, legacy projects (cannot migrate as the entire data is on a different server/tool, data cleansing needs to be done before migration, no approval for tampering with the legacy systems, etc), Hot pursuit / critical projects, ( we need more time, as we cannot spare resources right now for the next few months/ until this project/ phase is complete, etc.), Our Projects are on client-server and the tasks cannot be reported on this PMO tool/ client prefers manual reports/ Client approval is required/ Cannot ask for client approval/ need approval for client access to the PMO tool, etc. Subject to a fairly complex organization with all these exceptions, this could take about 2 months to pursue and get the buy-in for the much sought-after organizational change.
Rule setting, Skills Building and Training
The Project teams would go through a few meetings with the PMO deployment team to gain an understanding of the product, its mapping, and the procedure to access and start reporting tasks, requirements, CRs, Approvals, time and effort, backfills, absentism, dummies, exceptions, tasks, external consultants, internal consultants, client access and other criteria for deployment. This could take about 4-6 weeks time for a fairly complex organization with about 20 Project Managers/ representatives in the pursuit of their respective projects.
Time to Dance
Now the ground is ready and it's time for the first project to claim an award for the first task reported on the PMO tool. Under the pressure of production and CRs from the client assignment, a blended and balanced migration onto the PMO tool would be carried out by all projects. By the time the deployment team or Change Management team is ready with the migration project completion report it would be about 3 months time without causing any ripples in the production projects. We are again referring to the same "fairly complex" environment here.
The timeline for the End to End
As such it is fair to plan a 6-7 months journey for a decent migration onto a PMO tool. Even if the organization is small and can afford a faster deployment, blending with production activities and billable tasks take higher priority to focus on the migration tool.
Dos and Don'ts, Failure modes
1. The Project being a support activity, should be planned carefully to keep the PMO tool migration cost low.
2. Make changes to the organizational processes before the deployment.
3. Strictly no functional modifications in the tool to meet the organizational needs.
4. Estimate the cost for all the resources involved, from the client assignments PMO team and bench, into the PMO tool deployment assignment. Set a limit to the total project cost as a percentage of the product cost. Roll up to the organizational infrastructure cost.
5. If the resources assigned to this project are released within a month of the initiation for want of Production/billable requirement, then the project timeline gets extended accordingly. If the resource reallocation continues, the project timeline could go up to 2-3 times the estimate. Time to decide whether the organization may actually not be ready for, or not need the PMO tool.
The timeline for implementing a PMO tool will vary depending on the specific tool being used, the size and complexity of the organization, and the resources available. However, in general, it is typically recommended that organizations allow for a few months to fully implement a PMO tool. This timeline can be broken down into a few key phases, including:
1. Planning and Preparation: In this phase, the organization will assess its needs and objectives, select the PMO tool that best fits those needs, and develop a plan for implementation.
2. Implementation: This is the actual implementation phase, where the PMO tool is installed and configured.
3. Testing and Evaluation: Once the PMO tool is up and running, it is important to test it out and make sure it is working properly. This may involve piloting the tool with a small group of users before rolling it out to the entire organization.
4. Training and Support: Once the PMO tool is fully implemented, it is important to provide training and support to users to ensure they are able to effectively use the tool.
Chief Marketing Officer at nancy chou marketing consultants
User
2022-07-28T19:48:06Z
Jul 28, 2022
It depends on the tool. Some tools like Planview are complex and can take time for managers and team members to adopt. Other tools that are more visual, such as Pie from PieMatrix, are easier to adopt and therefore the timeline of implementing such tools for PMO is a lot faster.
Having in mind that it depends on the various parameters such as the maturity level of the organization, the readiness of the processes, the scope, the tool scale and capabilities, etc) very roughly speaking the timeline varies between 3-6 months (turnkey + training + go-live support).
R&D Project Management Coach at Johnsonville Sausage
Oct 15, 2019
We have three different teams on Enterprise One right now. We currently have research and development, MIS, and sourcing continuous improvement. The main business cases are new product introduction, MIS projects, and also continuous improvement of productivity projects. We are on the cloud.
Hi dear community members,
In this edition of PeerSpot's Community Spotlight, you can find out what your peers are discussing and join in the conversation. Ask and answer questions on the topics that interest you most! Read and respond to articles or contribute your own!
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Aug 17, 2022
Thank you to all the community members who share their knowledge with other peers!
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System, Value, and Decision failures bring the grinding wheel to a halt
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Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
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@Chris Childerhose, @PraveenKambhampati, @Deena Nouril, @Shibu Babuchandran and @reviewer1925439,
Thank you for contributing your articles and sharing your professional knowledge with 618K PeerSpot community members around the globe as well as with a much bigger readers audience!
A lot depends on the size of the organization number of Projects that need to be migrated, the number of Project Managers, Programs, Portfolios, and so on. While the schedule and timeline are critical for the Assignment or Change Management Project, the cost of migration is usually ignored citing reasons like internal resource deployment, Knowledge Management, Capability Building and Resource E...
Have you ever wondered how effective project management can really help you with your Cyber security projects?
In recent times, cybersecurity has become an increasingly important issue worldwide. Every year, businesses spend more time and effort protecting their data. Gartner forecasted that global security investments will exceed $172 billion in 2022.
Nobody can underestimate the necessity o...
Sr.Dir/Managing Principal Technology Consulting at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Apr 13, 2022
Cybersecurity had been recognized as a Fifth War Domain a while back: Land, Sea, Air, Space, Cyber.
As such, planning for war is important since it provokes managers to THINK.
While the plans that these managers develop are mostly useless since these plans become mostly irrelevant when the Cyber Battle ensues. Preparedness, counterintelligence, logistics, skills, adaptability, and distributed decision-making become more important as compared to PMI principles and best practices ( 'the disciplined agile' should be included and focused on as part of the adaptability;-)).
A lot depends on the size of the organization number of Projects that need to be migrated, the number of Project Managers, Programs, Portfolios, and so on. While the schedule and timeline are critical for the Assignment or Change Management Project, the cost of migration is usually ignored citing reasons like internal resource deployment, Knowledge Management, Capability Building and Resource Enablement.
None of this, in my experience, fits the bill because the Project Managers are dedicated to Project delivery and the cost of distraction has to be accounted for separately either for the shared Managers sparing time for the PMO tool deployment or the dedicated Project Manager and their team working exclusively on the migration to the PMO tool.
Even with a dedicated team, based on the function and number of projects to be migrated the production teams sparing and sharing their productive time has to be assessed for a cost-benefit analysis.
In our case of migrating from a disconnected manual SPI and CPI reporting to a Project Management tool, at the organizational level of about 5 products, 25 projects and about 50 Project Managers (indicative numbers please, for contextual purposes) a timeline of over 12 months was not sufficient.
The learnings from our Migration Project can be categorised as follows:
Planning and Suitability Check
Keep the customisation requirements very low and restrict them to reports. If the product required additional features for a fitment, then either the product is not suitable for deployment for your organization or the organizational processes need restructuring before you go for the PMO tool deployment decision. The PMO has a critical job to support the organization with this as is the study or the readiness study for the organization. Strictly no customization of functionality or new features or modules should be approved, at any stage of the migration timeline. This should take about a month's time.
Process Mapping and modifications within the organization
A dedicated team of change management professionals shall be deployed for mapping the Project Management processes to the product features. The changes for switching to the PMO tool should be identified. Based on the size and complexity 1 -2 months is a good time for this exercise.
Pilot or Go live? Decision, Accommodating the exceptions
Being an internal project a pilot project would be ad-hoc and questioned for resources, time and effort. So the go-live date has to arrive at a consensus and the consensus could itself take a few week time. Consideration would be requested from project categories like, legacy projects (cannot migrate as the entire data is on a different server/tool, data cleansing needs to be done before migration, no approval for tampering with the legacy systems, etc), Hot pursuit / critical projects, ( we need more time, as we cannot spare resources right now for the next few months/ until this project/ phase is complete, etc.), Our Projects are on client-server and the tasks cannot be reported on this PMO tool/ client prefers manual reports/ Client approval is required/ Cannot ask for client approval/ need approval for client access to the PMO tool, etc. Subject to a fairly complex organization with all these exceptions, this could take about 2 months to pursue and get the buy-in for the much sought-after organizational change.
Rule setting, Skills Building and Training
The Project teams would go through a few meetings with the PMO deployment team to gain an understanding of the product, its mapping, and the procedure to access and start reporting tasks, requirements, CRs, Approvals, time and effort, backfills, absentism, dummies, exceptions, tasks, external consultants, internal consultants, client access and other criteria for deployment. This could take about 4-6 weeks time for a fairly complex organization with about 20 Project Managers/ representatives in the pursuit of their respective projects.
Time to Dance
Now the ground is ready and it's time for the first project to claim an award for the first task reported on the PMO tool. Under the pressure of production and CRs from the client assignment, a blended and balanced migration onto the PMO tool would be carried out by all projects. By the time the deployment team or Change Management team is ready with the migration project completion report it would be about 3 months time without causing any ripples in the production projects. We are again referring to the same "fairly complex" environment here.
The timeline for the End to End
As such it is fair to plan a 6-7 months journey for a decent migration onto a PMO tool. Even if the organization is small and can afford a faster deployment, blending with production activities and billable tasks take higher priority to focus on the migration tool.
Dos and Don'ts, Failure modes
1. The Project being a support activity, should be planned carefully to keep the PMO tool migration cost low.
2. Make changes to the organizational processes before the deployment.
3. Strictly no functional modifications in the tool to meet the organizational needs.
4. Estimate the cost for all the resources involved, from the client assignments PMO team and bench, into the PMO tool deployment assignment. Set a limit to the total project cost as a percentage of the product cost. Roll up to the organizational infrastructure cost.
5. If the resources assigned to this project are released within a month of the initiation for want of Production/billable requirement, then the project timeline gets extended accordingly. If the resource reallocation continues, the project timeline could go up to 2-3 times the estimate. Time to decide whether the organization may actually not be ready for, or not need the PMO tool.
@PraveenKambhampati thanks a lot for the quick turnaround!
I'm sure it will be useful for our community.
Our recent migration from Project 2013 on-prem to Project Online was 4 months in planning and 3 months in execution...
The timeline for implementing a PMO tool will vary depending on the specific tool being used, the size and complexity of the organization, and the resources available. However, in general, it is typically recommended that organizations allow for a few months to fully implement a PMO tool. This timeline can be broken down into a few key phases, including:
1. Planning and Preparation: In this phase, the organization will assess its needs and objectives, select the PMO tool that best fits those needs, and develop a plan for implementation.
2. Implementation: This is the actual implementation phase, where the PMO tool is installed and configured.
3. Testing and Evaluation: Once the PMO tool is up and running, it is important to test it out and make sure it is working properly. This may involve piloting the tool with a small group of users before rolling it out to the entire organization.
4. Training and Support: Once the PMO tool is fully implemented, it is important to provide training and support to users to ensure they are able to effectively use the tool.
It depends on the tool. Some tools like Planview are complex and can take time for managers and team members to adopt. Other tools that are more visual, such as Pie from PieMatrix, are easier to adopt and therefore the timeline of implementing such tools for PMO is a lot faster.
Hi @Jennifer Kelly,
Having in mind that it depends on the various parameters such as the maturity level of the organization, the readiness of the processes, the scope, the tool scale and capabilities, etc) very roughly speaking the timeline varies between 3-6 months (turnkey + training + go-live support).
Please, check Micro Focus PPM and Aangine case studies.
Kind regards,
Hello @Allan Shafer, @Kelly Brummond, @Ray Veenema, @Roderic Person, @Keith Kennedy and @ProjectMan83637,
Can you please help @Jennifer Kelly by sharing your personal experience with Planview?
Thanks.