Strategic Project Management Transformation

Marc Resch, who is a member of OwlPoint's consulting team, recently published a book called "Strategic Project Management Transformation: Delivering Maximum ROI and Sustainable Business Value". He has assembled a wonderful resource which helps strategic business leaders, executives, and project managers better structure and evaluate projects to provide maximum business value.

Marc summarizes the current issue with projects and project management in his opening chapter…

Take a second and think about the key success criteria of any project. What are your thoughts? Did you say, "On-time and within budget, hit the deliverables, or even obtain stakeholder sign-off"? Are you surprised when I tell you that the CEO, corporate executives, and shareholders would say that you're wrong? If you said, "Business value," you're on the right track, and if you said, "Profit," you're thinking like an executive. In today's competitive environment, every dollar spent needs to be tightly tied to the bottom line: a company's overall profitability. Every project needs to be viewed as a strategic investment that demands a return. How much money did the project make the company? If the project didn't drive profit or cost savings, then why spend valuable and finite resources on it? It's become abundantly clear that projects are strategic investments, and a project that makes money for the company or ensures value continuity is a good investment; if it doesn't make the company money or provide value continuity, it is a bad one.

With shareholders' insatiable quest for profitability and returns on their investments, corporate leaders are accountable for demonstrating these returns in all areas of the business. At any given moment within an organization, the portfolio of projects can be immense, consuming invaluable corporate resources; namely time and money. It is imperative, therefore, that the utilization of time and money is well spent and that project efforts directly contribute to the overall benefit of the company.

In the book Marc addresses how to create valuable projects including details on how to put together the business case, appropriately determine business value, define metrics, and assemble the financials surrounding a project. Marc provides good examples and specific guidance on how to transform or enhance your current project management practices.

So if you are looking for ideas on how to improve project management and more importantly improve the value you are receiving from your projects, read the "Strategic Project Management Transformation". Marc's book is available on Amazon here.

Annual Planning

It's that time again in business where you start planning for next year. Trying to figure out what projects you need to work on in the coming year and which projects get priority is probably not too difficult for most people. However, identifying what project goals to establish with limited time, budget and other resources is often the real challenge. Unfortunately, all too often we put together our annual plans and are unable to successfully complete the objectives for the year. We either fail to complete all the projects or go over budget, and, sometimes, we do both.

Annual plans fail for a multitude of reasons. One of the classes I took while completing my Master's Degree was in project management. We often had to review case studies to determine what the underlying issues were for failed projects. To this day you will still hear some of my classmates/friends yell out "Poor Planning" or "Poor Leadership" when something doesn't go well. It was "Poor Control" when one of them broke the lights in the hallway, but that is a story for another day. J In all seriousness, most project failures can be attributed to one of four factors: Planning, Leadership, Control, and Organization.

More often than not Poor Planning was the underlying cause of missed project goals when we did our cases study evaluations. In the 15 years since I completed that course, I can tell you that Poor Planning is still a significant contributor to most project failures. However, when it comes to annual planning, it's not so much the development of a single project that causes problems, but the understanding of the big picture that contributes to the issues. Many outside influences can affect the outcome of projects, such as overall corporate goals and events, reliance on external resources, and changing priorities.

You should ask yourself some questions. Are you prepared for additional requests that are going to happen during the year? Do you know what business decisions are being made that will affect you? Will you be able to get the support and resources from the business? Do you truly understand what the priorities of the business are versus what your organization would like to work on?

I'm all for working hard and accomplishing great feats, and I hate seeing stagnant organizations that seem to work hard, but don't have much to show for it. So when I say this, I am by no way preaching mediocrity. When planning for the year, don't be overzealous and try to take on too much. Be realistic about what can be accomplished, keeping in mind what situations might arise during the year and what issues might occur. Also, make sure you have properly understood what the goals of the business are and are in-line with those objectives. It is easy to fall into the trap and think everything will work out perfectly for the coming year.

Take a look at previous years and understand why projects haven't met their original goals. If you are seeing the same themes, then there is probably something you can do about it. To give you an example, a client of OwlPoint required projects and initiatives to go through an extensive set of committees for various approvals. This often caused significant delays. However, when projects were developed, there wasn't enough time and effort allocated for preparing for and participating in these various committees. Some committees only met once a month, which meant you could have a delay of over a month waiting for a decision. Although I would suggest streamlining the decision making process at this client, for project planning purposed at least the project managers and leaders could ensure their projects were prepared for the various committees and that enough time was built into the project plans to participate and wait for approval. This better sets expectations and establishes more realistic resource requirements and completion dates.

So now it is time for me to work OwlPoint's 2012 plan. If you should need help with your planning, give us a ring.

ITIL 2011

The past few weeks I have been reviewing the latest update to ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), the IT Service Management best practices. The ITIL Refresh Board and the ITIL Advisory Group have been working on an update to the current V3 version of ITIL for a while now and this summer the new version was finalized and published. It is being called ITIL 2011 and is supposedly only a minor update to the processes and best practices for implementing Service Management.

Interestingly, for what is supposed to only be a minor update, there are some major changes to ITIL 2011. The new guidance includes 4 new processes, a change in a process's name, significant modifications to the Service Strategy book, and enhancements to many of the processes. Since the 5 core books remain the same, and there wasn't anything fundamentally different in ITIL's structure as there was when ITIL progressed from version 1 to version 2 and then from V2 to V3, I guess the folks behind ITIL didn't want to name it Version 4. I gather then the name ITIL 2011 was better than calling it ITIL V3.5.

One of the updates I had been told about and noticed immediately is the consistency of the process definitions across all of the processes. In V3, the process descriptions varied from book to book. Most significantly, the processes in IT Strategy were not described in the same fashion as the other books. Also, there were a lot of inconsistencies in the process references across books, and although I haven't read everything yet and compared it word for word between the two editions, I expect that many of these discrepancies have been fixed.

Here at OwlPoint we are working on our next newsletter, usually published once a quarter. Included in the upcoming edition of the newsletter will be an article providing more information on ITIL 2011. So if you are interested in finding out more about the 4 new processes and some of the other changes, keep a lookout for our newsletter in the next couple weeks.

Steve Jobs – You will be missed!

This has been a sad week with the passing of Steve Jobs. The world has lost a great visionary and someone who has impacted most of our daily lives.

Ironically, I had been talking to a client about Steve Jobs on Tuesday evening. The topic started with a discussion about the announcement of the iPhone 4S and progressed to how someone like Steve can take a company such as Apple and lead it to such significant success. While management skills are important, it takes leadership and a special vision to build ideas and develop them into something great. Steve did just that, multiple times at Apple.

Apple had a big impact on me and my career. My first experience with a computer and a computer game was on the Apple II+ playing the game Lemonade. While a lot of my friends had Atari's, I chose to pursue the Commodore 64 (after my Timex Sinclair 1000 J) and later as I went to college I used the Commodore Amiga. However, I used Apples frequently in school and in my senior year of high-school took a co-op position working in a school-support organization that provided computer resources to area school districts. This is where I got my first experience with the Macintosh and fell in love with its simple and intuitive interface and word processing capabilities. Microsoft Word was incredible, and it would be several more years before I would see it on a Windows/Intel based computer.

When I went to college, one of my many jobs was working in a computer lab for the School of Education at Temple University. We had a lab of Macs, Apple IIs and IBMs. I felt privileged to work in this computer center versus the main one on Temple's campus because we had the Macs. I loved my Commodore Amiga, but the Apple Macintosh was much better to use for word processing and it was also great for publishing newsletters. I started free-lance consulting and helped a few businesses with their computer environments, including their Apple Macs.

Unfortunately in the early '90s the Mac's began to decline in popularity and the Windows platform within the business environment was taking off. While Mac's were popular in the education and publications areas, and Amigas and Silicon Graphics were well used in the arts and graphics industry, main stream business was almost entirely moving to Windows. With Steve Jobs no longer at Apple, it seemed like the excitement of the Apple products was gone. New versions of hardware and software were coming out, but only the faithful were following. After several years of really not using the Mac much, I lost interest and the need for Apple products.

Insert Steve Jobs back at the helm of Apple and somehow, the letter "i" becomes the secret ingredient in widespread success. The iMac brought some magic back to the consumer level PC world and the rest seems to be recent history with the iPod, iTouch, iPhone, iPad and more.

Apple and Steve jobs pursued the consumer market and made all of us want their products. The Apple products are easy to use, look sleek, and seem "cool". Now, those of us at work want to use iPhones and iPads and the popularity continues to blossom. Once again I am a fan of Apple.

Steve Jobs was a true visionary and created the means to accomplish what he envisioned. Some will say he was arrogant, relentless, or controlling, but at the end of the day he was true to his vision and created a series of technologies that continue to amaze us.

I compare Steve Jobs to Walt Disney. Both men were extreme visionaries who created products that were important to them, influenced our world, and brought some sort of magic to our lives. While the Disney Company survives today, it never seemed to quite capture the magic that was laid out by Walt. His creation of the Magic Kingdom and the early plans for EPCOT always amazes me, and every time I visit Walt Disney World, I wonder what it would be like today should Walt have lived a longer life. Ironically, it has been the recent acquisition of Pixar, another company founded by Steve Jobs that has infused new excitement and magic into Disney.

So, as I order my new iPhone 4S today I also wonder how Apple will survive without Steve and hope that someone will have the creativity, control and most importantly, the vision, to take us all to the next level of ingenuity and entertainment.

Steve Jobs – you will be missed!

OwlPoint – Attending the IT Service Management Forum’s conference

Once again I am late keeping up with my blog postings. It has been another busy period for us at OwlPoint and I am happy that we have been able to provide high-quality services to several new customers and expand our partnership during what is typically a quiet period during the late summer.

This week I attended the annual IT Service Management Forum's Fusion conference in Washington DC. For those of you who are unaware of this conference, held at a different location each year, is the official gathering for US-based Service Management practitioners, vendors and interested companies. There are great keynotes and plenty of conference sessions to choose from to learn more about an ITSM/ITIL topic that you might be interested in. It is also a great forum for meeting others who have an interest in Service Management.

I particularly look forward to meeting many of our friends and partners at Fusion, such as ITSM Academy. OwlPoint's first partnership was with ITSM Academy, who provides the best Service Management training and certification in the business. This team is extremely knowledgeable, provide the most up-to-date training, and facilitate interactive training sessions that are led by seasoned professionals who share their knowledge in a thought-provoking manner. OwlPoint offers the full catalog of training delivered by ITSM Academy.

In talking to all of our friends and partners at Fusion this week, I realized how much IT Service Management related projects we helped customers with this past year. To name just a few, we have…

• developed Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) for a major telecommunication carrier
  
• assisted a major bank with enhancing their Service Level Management process
  
• provided a governance playbook and the operation processes, including supplier management and service level management, for managing an outsourced data center for a major healthcare services provider
  
• developed and managed the Change Management process for a major hotel chain.
  

We will be working on putting formal Case Studies together for some of these projects over the coming months.

While many people may know of OwlPoint because of our Green IT services and our work on energy efficiency, IT Service Management has always been a part of our core. It is these principals in driving efficient and effective IT organizations that have allowed us to enhance the practices and drive Green IT and energy efficiency. We look forward to continuing to help IT organizations achieve their full potential with the successful implementation of IT Service Management best practices.

Ensuring Outsourcing Success

Outsourcing is a common practice in IT Organizations these days. It is not unusual for major infrastructure areas such as the network or data center to be outsourced. Application development and IT Services such as e-mail are also frequently outsourced. The reasons are plentiful, but it usually comes down to one major factor, business value or most specifically dollar savings. However, a majority of outsourcing fails to achieve the original business plan. Too often outsourcing is a major frustration and ends up costing a lot more than originally anticipated or the service quality does not meet the expectations set during the initial planning phases.

Personally, I am not for or against outsourcing in general. I believe it has its place and purpose, which is dependent on the specific situation of a company. A company may choose to outsource because they do not believe that managing that particular IT function is a core part of their business, and the service could be provided more effectively by a company who specializes in this type of service. Others may have organizations that have become too expensive and find it easiest to outsource than to address personnel issues or identify the costs savings necessary to retain the function internally. For whatever reason that is chosen the decision should be founded on a solid business reason, should not add unnecessary risk, and have realistic achievements established. Yet as I said before, most outsourcing deals fail to achieve their desired return on investment.

There are two significant contributing factors to organizations failing to achieve value and benefit from IT outsourcing. One, many organizations fail to properly evaluate the business case for outsourcing and, two, organizations tend to not account for all of the required resources and costs to properly manage the outsourcing arrangement.

I could probably write a white paper on setting up and managing outsourcing, so I will try to keep this brief. When developing the initial business case, make sure it is appropriate. Too often people try to make a business case work. Putting together a business case can require a lot of effort and the expectation is that you will figure out how to make it happen. However, one possible outcome is to prove that the business case is not supportive of outsourcing. It as if the decision was made before the business plan was put together, which may not be appropriate therefore setting you up for failure. When assembling the business case, make sure you incorporate all of the costs, not just the costs paid out to the outsourcing firm. Too often the costs for planning, migrating and then governing the contract are not properly planned. Remember, if you are transitioning a major part of IT, there are going to be challenges during the migration. This costs money. Also, once the contract is in place, you need to make sure you have the oversight required to properly manage the service. Do you have a supplier manager, service level manager, and other governance positions established to play an active role in maintaining the service to the level that is expected and contractually established? Are these costs properly accounted for?

Here are a few other things to keep in mind when outsourcing. Be leery about outsourcing areas that present a major risk to the business. What happens if something goes wrong? Would you have enough control to quickly resolve the issue and restore service to the business? Also, remember when outsourcing that you are still the owner of the overall solution and governing processes. Additionally, be cautious of long-term contracts. Is the costs savings enough to warrant getting stuck with a poor arrangement or paying a large penalty for changing your mind later.

When OwlPoint was established 3 years ago, we were in a unique position to outsource much of our IT needs without having to transition anything. We defined what IT Services we needed and found providers that met our needs. Yes we have had our issues, and for one set of services we changed providers. We have kept our costs down, have technical capabilities that we would not have if we did it ourselves, and we do not have the cost overhead of managing an IT department. Even though we have the technical capabilities to develop, implement and manage our own infrastructure, we have decided to focus our resources on our business and helping our clients.

OwlPoint has helped several different clients with outsourcing challenges. One recent project included creating the governance team and all of the operational process, procedures, and run-book for managing a major IT outsourcing contract. This company is in a great position to have a successful outsourcing arrangement. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or comments about IT outsourcing.

Great Example of a Solar Project

Many of you who know me well are aware that I am a Washington Redskins fan. Although the NFL lockout continues and there are no off-season workouts, free-agency or other off-season activities going on, the Washington Redskins made the news again last week. However, this time it was for something other than football. They announced that they will be installing 8,000 solar panels in their parking lot to created covered parking for 850 parking spaces and generate almost 2 Megawatts of power (when it is sunny).

The project is created by a partnership between the Washington Redskins, who own and operate the FedEx field stadium in Landover, Maryland, and NRG Energy, a major energy company headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. The goal is to generate enough electricity to offset all of the stadium's electricity use on non-game days and off-set some power during games days.

This project is a perfect example of how marketing, smart-business decisions, and sustainability can create a perfect solution. From what I have read it seems that NRG Energy will install the solar array, probably at their expense and provide the electricity to FedEx field as part of a power purchase agreement through Reliant Energy, an electricity supplier subsidiary of NRG Energy. The Redskins will provide NRG some marketing opportunities at the stadium and will get a significant reduction in their energy costs.

At OwlPoint we often talk about the need to make sustainability decisions based on solid business decisions. Being "Green" is much more than marketing and great intentions. It is about minimizing the use and waste of natural resources and providing a business advantage for doing so. The Washington Redskins organization will significantly reduce their demand on the national grid and will reduce their energy expenses, a win-win situation. I think this will only be the first in a series of these types of projects.

I am eager to see the solar array in place. Go 'skins!