NYS Forum

Project Management Committee Initiatives and Accomplishments

2007-2008

Note Related to Projected 2007-2008 Initaitives:

Italics indicates initiatives added at the July 13, 2007 Forum Planning Session

Numbers in parenthesis indicate votes cast for the initiative at the July 13, 2007 Forum Planning Session.

The Forum's Standing Committee on Project Management was created to support government entities and government project managers as they implement project management standards and practices, Project Management Offices (PMO'S), and project portfolio management (PPM) within their organizations.

2006-2007 Accomplishments

For the Project Management Community of Practice (PM COP) (open to all):

• May 2007: A knowledge sharing event on "Project Closeout" featured speakers from the Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF) and the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC).
• January 2007: OSC presented their "Smart Start" methodology followed by a panel discussion on project start-up featuring OSC, DTF and the Office for Technology (OFT).
• September 2006: Held in conjunction with the Government Technology Conference (GTC East), with over 160 attendees, the session was dedicated to the topic of Communications. Speakers from the Workers' Compensation Board (WCB), OFT, New York State Local Government Information Technology Directors Association (NYSLGITDA) and the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) were featured.

For the Project Management Office (PMO) Roundtable (open to all agencies currently implementing a PMO or PM Practices):

• September 2006: The updated and greatly expanded PMO Resources Matrix was presented and discussed. Opportunities for sharing and leveraging the state's resources for the benefit of all agencies were discussed.
• November 2006: The topic was "PMO as Institutional Memory" with presentations from WCB and OSC, followed by a panel discussion on which DTF also participated. Approximately 23 attendees from 16 organizations
• April 2007: The meeting topic was "Integration of Business Requirement Analysis with PMLC phase processes". Following a presentation from Gartner, OSC spoke about the business analysis function in their PMO. Approximately 30 attendees.
• June 2007: Returned to the original PMO Roundtable format of discussing common concerns and soliciting advice to shared problems around the table. We discussed logging project time to create data upon which to build estimates, PMO models, and marketing the PMO. Approximately 13 attendees.

The PM Standing Committee members met monthly to plan and execute the above activities as well as completing the following Special Projects:

• Updated, expanded, and publicized the PM Resource Matrix which now includes agency PMOs willing to host "One-on-One" mentoring sessions with other agency PMOs to share best practices and lessons learned
• Promoted expanded use of the PM Repository which provides a common location to share information
• PMO Roundtable Listserv was established to enable focused and easy communications to group members.
• In October 2006 we held our third joint session with the Upstate NY chapter of PMI (Project Management Institute) with a presentation of the topic "Your Future as a Project Manager." This session drew about 125 people to the later afternoon speaker followed by a dinner. This joint event allows both groups to benefit from an expert speaker which might not be possible for either group to secure individually.
• The NYS Forum PM Committee Newsletter was published quarterly
• Worked with Forum staff to redesign the committee's web page to be easier for users to navigate and more prominently feature important information and links
• Presented at the May 2007 The New York State Local Government Information Technology Directors' Association (NYSLGITDA) meeting in Saratoga Springs on project management resources available through the Forum
• An active project checklist was created to complement the Peer Review Project checklist previously created for proposed projects.
• Aggregate Agency Project Management Training ? The committee secured a grant from GOER to fund Phase 1 (about 25% of the total effort) of a project to gather all existing PM training courses developed by various state agencies, compile and catalog the courses, perform a gap analysis of what exists compared to a comprehensive PM curriculum, determine the level of effort required to package and complete a total NYS PM curriculum, available in modules to all. A report resulted and the project will be picked up when additional funding can be identified and secured.

There are 78 people registered in the PMO Roundtable.

There are 130 people registered in the PM Community of Practice.

Update on PM Initiatives Identified at the 2006 NYS Forum Strategic Planning Session

At the 2006 NYS Forum Annual Strategic Planning Session several key PM initiatives were identified. Status of those is as follows:

• Initiative #1: Develop and offer an executive level, transition session on Project Management topics. The PM Steering Committee has developed a Fact Sheet describing the purpose and activities of the group and is planning to conduct an informational session with executive managers from various agencies once the new administrations are in place.
• Initiative #2: Provide Remote Access to PM-Committee Sponsored activities. The Steering Group researched the need, practicality and legal requirements of having the PM-Committee Sponsored sessions available for remote access. The results were that there was not a significant demand for remote access to the meetings and that Executive Order 3 is not applicable to Committee Sponsored sessions. The need to bring PM sessions to NYS staff outside of Albany was confirmed and it was decided that the best vehicle for this was to schedule joint sessions with other organizations around the State. The first such session is a joint session with the New York City PMI Chapter which is targeted for November of this year.
• Initiative #3: Develop a program for providing small agencies with a Project Management "quick start." A Quickstart Guide has been developed and placed in the PMO Repository. Volunteers have been identified to work with small to medium agencies at project start-up and to advise and mentor on the required PM tasks, activities, and documentation, and to get the projects off on the right foot.
• Initiative #4: Develop minimum Project Management standards. A Minimum PM Standards Checklist has been developed and placed in the PMO Repository.

2007-2008 Projected Initiatives

• Continue to conduct quarterly PM Community of Practice (COP) Education Sessions, including a Fall 2007 session in conjunction with the GTC
• Continue to conduct quarterly PMO Roundtable sessions on relevant topics (1)
• Continue marketing efforts and education efforts by publishing PM Committee Newsletters
• Continue to encourage the use of the PM Repository for sharing best practices
• Work with the Upstate NY Chapter of the PMI on joint programs to benefit both communities
• For the first time, coordinate a joint event with the NYC Chapter of PMI to benefit public sector employees in that region
• Continue to work to identify resources and complete the initiative to build modularized standard PM curricula that any agency could utilize, based upon the curricula already developed by numerous agencies.
• Develop and offer an executive level, transition session on project management topics (1)
• Respond to, and accomplish directives from the 2006 NYS Forum Planning session.
• Promote awareness of the new PM title series and the civil service exam (16)
• Undertake outreach/identification of people performing PM in NY Government to enhance the user base of PM (2)