Since the 1970s, individual government experts in New York State, USA, have accumulated knowledge and insight into the discipline of managing projects. However, this knowledge rarely crossed project boundaries, let alone agencies. Project successes depended mostly on the individual knowledge and experience of the project manager.
In 1999, the state began making changes to improve its project management capabilities. “As we approached Y2K, we knew that project managers needed training and a common set of practices,” says William Pelgrin, director for the New York State Office for Technology, which was charged with implementing a coordinated statewide project management approach. “It was clear to me from the start that a stronger project management capability would increase the success rate of our projects across the state. With so many large-scale, business and technology projects underway, we had to adopt the principles of project management in order to most effectively maximize the state's resources.”
| There is so much material out there, we decided to create a methodology that was both 'how-to' and 'what-to.'” We needed to address a broad range of topics and competencies and still make the book interesting and fun. | |
| NANCY MULHOLLAND,PROJECT MANAGER, NEW YORK STATE OFFICE FOR TECHNOLOGY, ALBANY, N . Y. , USA |
We're not talking small change, either. New York State government is an $80 billion per year industry, with 80 independent agencies. Albany, the capital city, exudes a small government feel due to the close physical proximity of most agency headquarters. In this environment, where many mid- and senior-level managers know each other by first name, Pelgrin saw an opportunity for a grassroots approach to growing project management. He hired Project Manager Nancy Mulholland to lead the initiative and devised a three-pronged plan of attack focusing on training, developing a methodology and creating a project management office (PMO).
A project management mentoring program (PMMP) was designed to go beyond classroom training and to include a structured forum to develop skills and knowledge. “The PMMP filled a need for in-depth, advanced training for project managers,” Mulholland says. “We sent a lot of people to vendor-based training that was built for the private sector and, while the training in the basics was adequate, staff frequently felt that the training wasn't always applicable in the public sector environment. This reinforced our belief that New York State needed its own project management program.”
With the help of consultants, Mulholland developed the core curriculum, ensuring consistency with A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) knowledge areas and processes while integrating state project managers' key experiences. The program couples a didactic component with real-time mentoring on live projects.
Figure 1. To illustrate New York State's approach, this diagram shows how the PMBOK® Guide risk management areas map into the New York State project management life cycle.
Mulholland sought interns for the burgeoning program and matched them with mentors based on expertise, development needs, and communication and work styles, as discerned through a competitive interview process. Interns attend 15 days of classroom training over a three-month period, interspersed with five “practicums.” Each practicum consists of guest lecturers, real-life case studies or opportunities for the interns to practice their new skills and techniques. Mentors and interns also complete 16 hours together in various settings. The mentor and the intern observe each other at their respective workplaces. At the conclusion of the program, the interns receive graduation certificates and transition to become mentors themselves.
A continuous improvement approach uses recommendations from the participants at each offering. The first set of interns and mentors described a broad vision of project management for the state, including a coordinated approach from one agency to the next. Four specific recommendations came from the initial PMMP class that formed the basis for the future project management direction:
A single approach should be used to manage projects across all agencies
A single agency should promote the principles of project management on a statewide level and support the PMMP graduates to become the “voice” of project management within their agencies
State project managers should have a network for sharing information, tips and techniques
A strong project management voice should be heard at the statewide level.
Pelgrin and Mulholland built a framework for effective project management across the state, and the recommendations from the PMMP validated their initial plan. Mulholland took two concurrent paths to provide the state with a solid backbone for statewide project management: a PMO and a state methodology.
The PMO developed a methodology and sponsored other project management training opportunities. New York has had project offices over the years, but none that looked beyond their own organization's walls. This nascent PMO maintained a statewide perspective that initially focused on enrollments for the next PMMP and development of a project management guidebook.
Guiding the Way: A “How-To” Approach
With a successful PMMP underway and a small project management staff, the next step was to create a robust methodology for the state project managers. “There is so much material out there, we decided to create a methodology that was both 'how-to' and 'what-to'” says Mulholland. “We needed to address a broad range of topics and competencies and still make the book interesting and fun.”
They contemplated adopting the PMBOK® Guide as the official guide for New York, but Mulholland envisioned a different layout. The PMO staff decided to present the knowledge areas within a project management life cycle to make it easy for a project manager to understand how to accomplish tasks (Figure 1). “We started with the life cycle concept and adopted five phases that would make up our complete project management life cycle,” says Mulholland. The five phases are Origination, Initiation, Planning, Execution and Control, and Closeout.
Next, the PMO staff constructed a table of contents based on the project life cycle and began mapping the PMBOK® Guide project management processes into the most appropriate location. “Before any real writing happened, we made sure that every process presented in the PMBOK® Guide was mapped into a life cycle phase,” says Mulholland. Mapping enabled the team to present the knowledge areas cumulatively, so each New York life cycle phase was built upon previous information.
For example, all four risk management areas were mapped into project management phases by determining the most appropriate location to discuss the topic. New York-specific examples and public-sector language create Mulholland's “what-to” and “how-to.” Preliminary risk identification occurs in the Initiation phase and discusses areas to look for risks that incorporate general PMBOK® Guide direction with a focus on the New York State environment. In the planning phase, a template provides the project manager with a format for quantifying the risk event and planning a response. The PMO staff created a Web-accessible spreadsheet that calculates the priority level of a risk event based on the probability, impact and date of the impact.
Figure 2. The New York Office for Technology's PMO focused its services on two audiences: agencies and project personnel.
The “Guidebook” includes contract management, project leadership and the information technology development life cycle. These special topics describe a broad view of the project manager's responsibilities as avenues to project success rather than simply project completion. “One key concept we wanted to keep in mind is the difference between project deliverables and project management deliverables,” says Mulholland. The Guidebook recognizes both, and discusses the importance of the specific project life cycle and how project-specific deliverables drive and are driven by project management deliverables.
The Guidebook also supports the idea of a career path for project managers who potentially can move to new opportunities within and among state agencies without needing to relearn a new project management methodology.
Since its publication in September 2001, the Guidebook has been distributed to all New York State government agencies. A second version is expected in mid-2003.
A Multifaceted PMO
The Office for Technology's PMO serves state agencies and individual project personnel. The PMO also provides training and professional development opportunities for individual project managers and project sponsors.
At the agency level, the PMO has developed services that enable state organizations to better manage projects and portfolios. The PMO offers project audits, agencywide capability assessments and on-site project management. These services are delivered on demand, with the exception of the capability assessment, which is conducted by the PMO with agency input. Mulholland established a baseline of project management competencies across the state through this capability. “We needed to build a case that project management saves dollars,” she says. “We did a capability assessment for 10 agencies of varying sizes to see where they were.”
The results supported a case for more PMO support. All 10 agencies reported some usage of project management techniques; however, few had achieved a consistent approach or language. As one agency project manager put it,“One agency's project charter is another agency's business case.”
The PMO also assists individual project personnel with training and a community of practice. Similar to a user group, the community of practice provides a forum for project managers to assemble to discuss issues and exchange ideas.
On the training front, the PMO offers one-day training to understand the Guidebook and a half-day project sponsor orientation course. “Other agencies in New York have begun offering basic project management courses,” says Mulholland, “so we decided that our focus would complement theirs by providing the moderate-to-advanced level courses.”
Return on Investment Realized
One success is illustrated by New York's Thruway Authority, which implemented the Guidebook to develop project management standards. Although Thruway did have a robust project management practice prior to the implementation of the statewide methodology, it saw “improvements in costs, schedules and resource management as a result of the statewide project management program,” says Chief Information Officer Joanne Riddett.
An example of the project management methodology is the recently completed Human Resource Management Services project, which moved legacy applications off Thruway's mainframe to a commercial software implementation for payroll and personnel. “This project came in on time and under budget using our project management capabilities,” says Riddett.
Seeing the potential for consistency and streamlining, Riddett sent the entire Thruway PMO staff through the PMMP, and many now serve as mentors. Today, the Thruway Authority is an active participant in the project management community of practice, and it works closely with the statewide PMO to refine the methodology.
The PMO has emerged as the central cog that supports the PMMP, methodology development and many of the services that are increasing New York State's project management capabilities. “Project managers face many challenges,” says Pelgrin. “The PMO provides them with a coordinated statewide direction to help facilitate the successful completion of projects undertaken in New York State.” PM
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