Trends In Project Management

www.quayconsulting.com.au

Chapters

CHAPTER 1 – TO THE CLOUD

How are Cloud projects different?

What are the benefits of the cloud?

What should you migrate into the cloud?

Cloud models: Not a ‘one-size-fits-all’

Cloud data security: Managing business risk

The value proposition of ERP in the cloud

Cloud Projects: Infrastructure Projects in Disguise?

CHAPTER 2 – AGILE, WATERFALL OR HYBRID

When is Agile the right approach?

Can you fix the price on Agile projects?

How to select Agile over other methodologies

CHAPTER 3 – DEVELOPING BETTER PROJECT MANAGERS

Selecting the right project manager

Distinguishing the roles of Project and Program Managers

Successfully mentoring new project managers within your organisation

Building the right project team: A critical enabler for success.

CHAPTER 4 – DEVELOPING BETTER PROJECT SPONSORS

Managing success with a first time sponsor

Developing better project sponsors

The Good Sponsor Guide: Setting Up IT Projects for Success

CHAPTER 5 – HOW TO TRANSFORM

The value of a Transformation Office in achieving stakeholder alignment

Balancing transformation demands with a day job

Ensuring On-Going success for Transformation Programs

Managing project fatigue during transition programs

Delivering Technology Transformation

CHAPTER 6 – PMOS: THE HOWS AND THE WHYS

Converting program PMOs into enterprise PMOs

Creating a transformational PMO

EPMO – Friend or Foe?

The role of PMO in Project Manager Capability Uplift

Enterprise & Technology PMOs: The Visible Differences

CHAPTER 7 – MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Why is change the first casualty of war?

Developing the right change strategy

Embedding organisational change management for success

A project team wide approach to delivering change

Do PMs also need to be Change Managers to be successful?

Successfully blending business change with technical delivery

Assessing the success of change management

CHAPTER 8 – THE RISE OF BIG DATA & DIGITAL

Key insights for successfully implementing digital strategies

Structuring a digital program for success

The digital economy: the fundamentals of digital transformation

Big Data and the digital footprint

Big Data, Data Ponds and Data Lakes: A Quick Reference Guide

Big Data: A game changer we need to get right

The Rise of Data Analytics: Where to in 2016?

CHAPTER 9 – WHY GOVERNANCE IS ALWAYS THE KEY

The Key Considerations for Successful Project Governance

Setting up for success: The true value of reviews in project management

What is the right amount of Project Governance?

Six steps to aligning portfolios of work to business strategy

When is it time to call in the project recovery team?

CHAPTER 10 – PROJECT MANAGEMENT: THE THINGS THEY DON’T TEACH YOU AT SCHOOL

How is a project defined?

Putting business back into business case

The pros and cons of outsourcing project delivery

Resetting a failing project for successful delivery

Large-scale ERP: A thing of the past?

Skeleton Teams: Making the Impossible Possible

The Case for the Honest Project Delivery Broker

Vendor-led projects: A fox in the hen house?

Government v Private Projects: Are they more challenging?

CHAPTER 11 – WHEN IN DOUBT, PLAN

How do you know you are really on time?

When art meets science: planning and scheduling

Assessing performance from the baseline

Better, quicker, cheaper projects – it is possible

CHAPTER 12 – STRATEGY & ARCHITECTURE: KEY ENABLERS TO SUCCESS

Pilot v Production – Architecture red flags?

Driving business value into the technology roadmap

The 5 benefits of a Capability Model

The role of architecture in successful project outcomes

The case for a DAM strategy

How to Make Technology Enable Business Strategy in Ever Changing Times

About Quay Consulting

End Notes

CHAPTER 1

TO THE CLOUD!

How are Cloud projects different?

Without doubt Cloud technology is the latest trend being embraced by organisations to manage their infrastructure (IaaS), applications (SaaS), and development platform (PaaS).

It is a trend that will only gather pace over the coming years as increasing pressure is brought upon IT budgets across all industries and Cloud delivery and costs models mature. An argument in favour of cloud assets is the ability to shrink the IT footprint and transfer commodity services to others whilst keeping your specialist skills in-house.

For example, your development and deployment environments may be delivered via PaaS, but the development expertise stays within your internal teams. As a result, organisations are increasingly looking for project managers who have experience in delivering Cloud projects.

But do Cloud projects require new techniques or specific expertise or can the tried and tested approaches to project delivery be readily translated to Cloud projects?

Transfer of technology, retention of knowledge

The industry-accepted definition of Cloud Computing is the delivery of infrastructure, application and data services to organisations using the Internet as the network.

The management and security of the IT platform and services is essentially outsourced to 3rd parties with the physical sites being remote or ‘in the cloud’. A Cloud solution can therefore be a series of moving parts across infrastructure, networks, applications, data and outsourcing.

From a project delivery perspective, the key components of a Cloud project are well known and would be nothing new to an experienced project manager.

It is however the blend of the solution and heightened importance of some of these elements that set a Cloud project apart from a traditional Infrastructure or Application project.

These include:

1. A greater focus is required on change and stakeholder management around security of data

Whether fact or fiction business will become nervous with the thought that their data will now be stored off site and managed by a third party and is therefore at greater risk of compromise.

Project managers delivering Cloud projects need to take this into account and ensure their testing cycles are fit for purpose and the management of stakeholder expectations is given priority to adequately address heightened concerns around data security.

2. By using the Internet, the network access takes on greater importance

Project managers need to ensure the internal and external gateways are reliable, secure and well supported and can cope with the expected increases in data heading in both directions.

3. Service Delivery Models

SLAs and the service delivery model need to be both very well understood and steps taken to test and ensure that they are fit for purpose.

With the support being largely outsourced for the cloud component it is imperative that stakeholders are comfortable the SLAs will meet the needs of the business in terms of business continuity and support and the IT organisation knows who is on point for addressing an issue no matter where it occurs in the end to end business process.

4. Understanding total cost of project takes on added importance during the business case phase

Cloud solutions can be cost effective to set up but may become very expensive once operational due to the common use of transactional costs models. It is important these BAU operational costs are accurately modeled and clearly understood and communicated to stakeholders for approval.

Cloud projects are set to become more prevalent over the next decade if current industry trends continue.

By following some of the above steps project managers should be better equipped to understand what makes a Cloud project unique and therefore take suitable actions to ensure their projects are set up for success.

What are the benefits of the cloud?

Organisations should seek to justify the project investment before embarking on a cloud project by identifying and quantifying the benefits.

There is without doubt a growing trend for organisations to leverage cloud-based solutions, with three options to choose from when deciding which model to adopt – public, private or a hybrid cloud combining elements of both public and private.

Despite the growing trend, organisations should still seek to justify the project investment before embarking on a cloud project by identifying and quantifying the benefits.

Like most change initiatives, the benefits for cloud are a combination of the tangible and intangible. Below is a list of the most compelling benefits that are emerging for organisations that are driving the rapid adoption of cloud solutions.

Ease of use

By pooling resources and better configuration, cloud service providers can deliver a greatly enhanced user experience by increasing the ease of use of applications and services.

The reasons for the increase in ease of use can include more remote access options with enhanced reliability and support, increased self-service opportunities and increases in speed of delivery.

Pay as you go models

Cloud solutions can remove the need for large investment in infrastructure up front. This enables cloud providers to offer pay as you go transactional models to organisations. These models can deliver real savings to organisations as they are only billed for what they use.

Virtual infrastructure that is highly scalable

When adopting cloud solutions organisations can essentially outsource both their infrastructure and applications layers.

By moving these things into the cloud organisations can not only reduce replacement, maintenance and support costs but also take advantage of highly scalable, non static IT environments.

Reduced complexity of IT environments

It would be incorrect to say cloud environments are not complex; they are however a large portion of this complexity is outsourced to the Cloud provider.

But by leveraging cloud solutions, particularly public cloud solutions, the need to manage these complex environments is transferred from the organisation’s IT department to the cloud service providers.

Reduce the cost of customisation

Whilst cloud platforms often allow a customised development opportunity for the user, the core of the cloud service is standardised and quarantined from this customised layer.

This separation enables upgrades to the core service without impacting the customisations. Unlike in-house IT managed platforms where heavily intertwined layers mean upgrades can be costly and time consuming.

Data storage

The cloud can be leveraged to store an organisation’s data by replacing existing on-site data storage facilities like data centres. This can enable organisations to decommission costly storage facilities and only pay for the data they actually need to store.

Ultimately the benefits of any new solution must be weighed against the risks, costs and other relevant factors in play for the organisation.

It is important for organisations to resist simply following the latest trends for the sake of it. This is no different when considering the use of the cloud.

Organisations should continue to deploy good project disciplines by ensuring the benefits are fully researched and understood up front before embarking upon any change.

What should you migrate into the cloud?

Migrating into the cloud is the subject du jour. But what systems should you take online?

A quick scan of many business and IT conversations in the digital world often focus on moving traditionally server-based or in-house systems out-of-house and into the cloud.

Many of the arguments for – and against – cloud services are challenged by the reality that every business has its own unique operating model that must factor its ability to leverage staff and IT environments to take advantage of its unique competitive advantage.

What is increasingly becoming a clear and valid argument is that the cloud offers a viable choice to migrate or shift to cloud-based technology, environments and applications to support business capabilities.

So how do we determine what makes sense to be in the cloud?

The obvious contenders

There are many views as to the ‘obvious’ targets for moving into a cloud environment: email, servers and CRM as well as development environments which provide simplicity and speed-to-scale on demand without the upfront investment of owning assets in-house.

It’s the information and unique value proposition of a business that wins revenue and in most instances, the above applications do not provide any real competitive advantage which makes them good candidates to move to the cloud.

The complex contenders

Where bespoke (normally developed in-house) applications are in use the decision to migrate to the cloud creates an additional layer of complexity.

In this instance careful consideration should be given to whether or not the application could be migrated to the cloud (in effect hosted), replaced with a SaaS application providing similar functionality or left in house.

The costs to migrate are not insignificant and extend beyond the application to include other costs such as change management (where an application is replaced this normally includes business process re-engineering as well).

Risk + ROI + implementation + business case

As security and network infrastructure has matured there are fewer barriers to migrating into the cloud. It is Quay’s view, shared by a number of our clients, that each technology, application or environment has provision by way of the cloud as an option.

From a strategy perspective a cloud-based solution should always be an option considered against others looking at risk, return on investment, ease of implementation and time to implement.

The decision of whether or not to migrate to the cloud should be done in the context of a business case with all solutions and options coming under consideration.

Sometimes the cloud will be the best outcome, others not – this is very situational and each case should be assessed on it’s own merits.

The cloud is a mechanism, not a process

Whatever the outcome remember the cloud is just a mechanism to provide tools for the business. The end-to-end business processes will need to still work which may involve multiple cloud assets working with in house assets.

Careful investigation should be given as to the extent to which the technologies and processes can seamlessly integrated and the SLAs around that and furthermore how customisations can occur independently of the cloud asset.

A final thought. When you migrate to the cloud ensure you have the vendor management skills in-house to manage your cloud vendors. They will now become key partners to your business and need to be managed accordingly.

So the answer to what makes sense to migrate to the cloud will be found by applying some guiding principles and looking at each opportunity on its merits. The cloud is certainly becoming an increasingly trusted method to provide applications, infrastructure and platforms and should be considered for your business.

Cloud models: Not a ‘one-size-fits-all’

What are the pros and cons of public, private and hybrid cloud solutions and which one is right for your organisation?

Moving into the Cloud is increasingly being seen as an important consideration when reviewing how IT supports and delivers services within the business, but like many things, it is not a one-size-fits-all equation.

There is a lot of confusion about which Cloud options