NYS Forum PM Steering Committee

Meeting Minutes

Held: February 22, 2010, 8:30 - 9:30 AM, at Keane offices
Next Meeting: March 29, 2010, 8:30 - 9:30 AM, at Keane offices (note change!)

Attendees (members attending in person highlighted in bold, attending via phone in bold italic)

PM Committee Members
Brenda Breslin, State Co-Chair (DOH),
Vivian Conboy, State Co-Chair (NYS Tax),
Chris Foster, CRT Co-chair, (CGI) (1),
Jon Haverly, CRT Co-chair, PM COP Lead, (Keane),
Connie Benton (NYS OSC) (1),
Jonathan Blake (Keane) (2),
Girk Cakmak (Bowne),
Natalie Cole (NY State Police) (7),
Susan Mardon (NYS DOT),
Melissa Morgan, Newsletter Lead, (TEK Systems),
Ellen Peil (NYS DEC),
Bob Pennacchia (NYS DOH) (1),
Diana Pinto (NYS Thruway),
Drew Prescott (NYS OFT),
Kelly Smith-Lawless (NYS DMV) (1),

Additional Topics and Action Items

NYS PM Guidebook updates: Drew sent an Email today to PM Community of Practice listserv requesting interest assisting OFT with an update to the PM Guidebook. Mark Mitchell, OFT, is managing the project to revise the guidebook. Drew and Mark attended the February 11th PM Roundtable meeting and briefed that group on the project.

2009 Initiatives

The following initiatives were generated from the Forum strategic planning session on Friday, July 10, 2009. They will serve as the initiatives for this program year.

Updates to the SDLC - Girk Cakmak:

Background: Several work groups (Security, Business Continuity, and Web Group) would like to work with the PM work group to update the PM Guidebook. There is also a desire to add the agile process as well as best practices from the work groups into the guidebook.

Girk attended the 2/4 meeting. The groups welcome participation from the PM community. Deb and Mark are creating a presentation depicting the checkpoints for security and business continuity concerns within the SDLC lifecycle. They are hoping to do a webinar on 4/15 to solicit input. The current goal is a 6/15 release. The PM COP meeting at GTC might be a good opportunity to present this addendum to the PM community. We will plan to spend 10-20 minutes at the next steering committee meeting to discuss the presentation which Girk will distribute as soon as he receives it. We may send an Email soliciting volunteers to the PM COP listserv.

GOER Training - Natalie Cole:

Background: There is an interest to assist GOER with the PM training (PM Fundamentals as well as more advanced PM training) they provide.

Ellen provided notes from the last PMO Roundtable meeting (2/11/10), which Alan Ross attended. "Train the Trainer" will be in September, following a course pilot in April. GOER has requested our assistance in identifying the trainers. We need a clear communications, with an explanation of "WIIFM" and a clarification of the audience for the April pilot from GOER to solicit volunteers. Ellen with reach out to Alan for this, cc'ing Drew and Diana, who have been involved with the curriculum revision.

There was also some discussion of a course for middle managers and executives. Vivian mentioned that OFT had developed a 6-hour overview of Management's Guide to Project Success, the companion to The Guidebook. Drew will look for that curriculum. We agreed to keep this "on the radar".

BA Coordination with IT Skills Development Work Group (ITSWG) - Connie Benton:

Background: The ITSWG would like to continue the BA sessions that were kicked off with the PM COP on May 12th and another joint session held on December 15th. Chris has held discussions with the ITSWG to see where the BA subject matter would fit into the current Forum work groups. Chris does not see how the PM work group could take on another initiative and the attendees agreed. Chris and James Nicol spoke with Greg Benson to see how best to proceed. It was agreed to put out a survey of the latest attendees to gauge their interest in leading a work group dedicated to BAs. Depending on the responses we may assist with a transition to a new work group or continue to co-lead with the ITSWG.
2/22: Jon reported this is still up in the air.

Repository/Social Networking - Jon Haverly:

Background: Based on feedback from the strategic planning session there looks to be a larger initiative to create an online repository for Forum work groups. Tied into this will be an initiative to create an acceptable networking option for the work group. Discussion at the strategic planning session included the possibility of leveraging something like LinkedIn.

Jason DiGianni has officially left the PM Workgroup. His job duties have changed and he is now active in a different workgroup. Jon Haverly has agreed to be listed as lead on this initiative. Jon has been involved with the Emerging Technologies workgroup and is now helping them develop a Business Case for use of Web 2.0. Greg Benson has requested some revisions to the first draft.

Drew also reported that CIO/OFT is developing a SharePoint solution protected by NYS Directory Services that might provide a platform if FORUM chooses to pursue that.

PMO Roundtable Meeting (PMO RT)
Attendance at the 2/11 meeting was again low - 10 people representing 7 agencies, but the discussions were very good and useful to all who were able to attend. Discussed how to increase attendance. It is difficult to pull away when people are very busy. We will continue to demonstrate value and publicize that value. Revisions are nearly complete for the PMO RT listserv. Once the list is revised Ellen will send it out to the PMO RT list serve to seek additional feedback.
 
Q2 2010 PMO Repository of Lessons Learned
Scheduled for Thursday, May 13th from 2:30 to 4:00 in Conference Room A at DOT
Owner(s): Ellen Peil
Action Plan: (Action - Assigned to - Status):
  • Send out a save the date reminder to attendees - Ellen - Open
  • Send reminder emails to attendees on May ? - Ellen - Open
 
Consider the following topics for future meetings:
  • How to communicate PM/PMO value to Agency Executives (strategies, briefing books...)
  • Working session on Knowledge Repository requirements
  • How to maintain the PM momentum/Marketing strategies for a PMO
  • PMO strategic planning and outreach
  • Portfolio Management and how to leverage software tools
 
PM Community of Practice Meeting (PM COP)
Vivian will speak at the next session scheduled for March 18th in meeting room 5 at ESP on "After the Project Charter - Setting up the Proper Environment to Control the Project During Execution".
Registration is available on the Forum website. A reminder will be sent this week. Jon?
 
Consider the following topics for future meetings:
  • Look into OSC Retirement System Phase 2 Project
  • Statewide Financial Management System. POCs are Chris Gorka from OSC, Susan from DOB, and Melodie from OFT. Connie will reach out to Chris to see if he would be willing to speak in the late June timeframe. Brenda will follow up with Connie.
  • Training sessions such as MS Project or SharePoint.
Joint Events
Event - Responsible - Status
  • Joint PMI Session - Brenda and Chris - Working with the PMI chapter on a speaker and date.

Brenda reported that the local PMI chapter is considering Sandra Harris who was instrumental in developing the PMO for American Airlines and was the project manager for Single Sign-On for American Airline employees, worldwide, encompassing a large number of differing systems. She was also a grief counselors following 9/11 to the Pentagon site. All agreed this would be a good speaker for a joint meeting.

PM Committee Newsletter
1st Quarter Newsletter
Distribution Date: Tentatively set for April 9.
Articles Due: March 26
Some discussion was held regarding PMO Director Articles. These will not be limited to PMO Directors. Former PMO directors, CIOs, IT directors, retired PMO and IT directors and others may be solicited. This would be an "opinion" piece.
Also, discussed making the Newsletter shorter, and possibly releasing more often.
Owner(s): Melissa Morgan & Diana Pinto
Actions (Section - Assigned to - Status):
  • PMO Roundtable Recap - Ellen - Pending
  • PM COP Recap - Jon - Pending
  • SDLC Initiative Update - Girk - Pending
  • Interview Vivian Conboy - Diana - Pending
  • TBD PMO Director Article? - TBD - Pending
  • Repository/Social Networking Update - Jon - Pending

NOTE CHANGE: The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 29th, 2009 at 8:30 am. The local PMI Chapter's professional development day is the 3rd Monday in March, so our meeting will be held on the 4th Monday next month.