Section 3: Issues Management Process

Transcription

1 Oakland County Department of Information Technology Section 3 s Management Process Section 3: s Management Process Overview The s Management Process was developed as part of the on-going effort to improve Project Management (PM) practices at Oakland County Information Technology (OCIT). Prior to the implementation of this process, Project Managers used various tools to achieve the objective of this process. Teams used word tables, databases, sticky notes or spreadsheets to log and track issues. Without a standardized s Management Process in place, communication, assessment, and status of issues was difficult to achieve. There was also no centralized area for the collection of project issues. As a result, it was difficult to avoid or resolve issues; trend issues; and create a knowledge base for lessons learned and best practices for s Management. Without a clear definition of the s Management Process much of the time resolving issues was charged to the actual work task, often causing original estimates to appear very low. Objective, Goals and Benefits The purpose of the s Management Process is to automate and centralize the information about identified issues and their resolution. s that are unresolved or that are not resolved in an appropriate timeframe typically have an adverse impact on a project s schedule, budget, or quality of work produced. Following project approval, project issues and issue resolution will be formally entered and tracked in Clarity by the Project Manager and Team Members. S Clarity will be used to document and communicate project related issues for approved projects. Goals and benefits of the s Management Process include: Standardization of the s Management Process. s attached to the project. Communication tool for issues status (Customer, IT Management and Team Members). Ability to monitor issues and determine escalation point. Proactive avoidance of issues. Knowledge base of lessons learned and best practices. Minimize impact of issues by having the ability to monitor issues. Trending of issues to identify major problem areas. Improve quality of project time estimates by tracking time spent on issues to the standard PM Phase, s Management task rather than to the actual work tasks. Improve resource utilization by decreasing time spent on issue resolution. An overview of issues impacting the project. Rev: 11/6/2013 Page 3.1

2 Section 3 s Management Process Oakland County Department of Information Technology Provide information for reporting purposes Project Storyboard indicates issues that will impact the project, the report which provides status and the Management portlet. Definition of an s are often thought of as questions or problems, but not all questions or problems are issues. s are often confused with things to do or action items that must not be forgotten, but the s Management Process is not about an elaborate to-do list. It is important to remember that issues are obstacles that provide no value to a project. The following definition helps focus on the IT context of what represents an issue. S An issue is anything that impedes the delivery of project results or deliverables. s that require tracking in Clarity may meet the following criteria: Adds no value to the project deliverables (i.e., disputes or disagreements about project work adds no value to the project). The project deliverables are the same with or without the occurrence of the issue (it is not about a better design or better system). causes an obstacle in completing a deliverable or continuing the project; thereby causing a negative impact to the timeline. Inability to get needed information may require the intervention or assistance from someone outside the project team to achieve a resolution. Status The tracking status of an issue also helps to define where it is in the process toward resolution. The tracking status is used to select or filter issues for discussion or reporting. The Project Manager maintains the status of each issue in Clarity. Deferred Escalated Open Closed Value An issue on hold that does not need to be addressed immediately. Any issue that cannot be resolved at the Project Manager authority level. s should be escalated as soon as the Project Manager recognizes this. Any issue that needs to be resolved prior to completion of the project. The issue has been resolved. Page 3.2 Rev: 11/6/2013

3 Oakland County Department of Information Technology Section 3 s Management Process Life Cycle of an The identification, monitoring, and resolution of an issue follow a formal process. Project Managers, Team Members and IT Management will participate in the life cycle of an issue. Open Identify Add Defer Escalate Resolve Close Non- Close Non- Roles and Responsibilities Team Members Project Manager Identify issue Add issue in Clarity Validate issue Assign issue Open issue Defer issue Escalate issue Update issue Monitor issue resolution Close issue Identify a non-issue PMO IT Management Reporting Quality Assurance & CPI Lessons Learned and Best Practices Rev: 11/6/2013 Page 3.3

4 Section 3 s Management Process Oakland County Department of Information Technology Quality Assurance/Continuous Process Improvement Monitoring Project Management Office (PMO) will benchmark the s Management task and the negative variance hours in the projects, expecting that less time will be spent on actual work tasks because time spent resolving issues will be tracked to the standard s Management task. Trending and categorizing issues assists with identifying department level improvement initiatives to help reduce re-occurrence of issues. PMO will also build a knowledge base of lessons learned and best practices for process improvement. This information will come from the project review process and PMO feedback. Some of the metrics that will be collected: Number of issues. Number of escalated issues. Duration of open issues. Duration between escalated status and closed status. s per Category. s per Project. Guidelines and Examples Listed below are the ways in which the s Management Process will assist the Project Manager, Team Members and Customers. Project Managers are primarily concerned with the following: How can all the project-related issues be captured (even from end-users)? How do we account for and report the resolution of issues? How can I tell how many open issues there are? How do we communicate issue status to everyone? Who is responsible for resolution of these issues? How can I tell when an issue has been resolved? How do I detect project issue trends? Team Members are primarily concerned with the following: What issues are assigned to me? How do I inform others I have resolved an issue? What are the priorities for working on these issues? Page 3.4 Rev: 11/6/2013

5 Oakland County Department of Information Technology Section 3 s Management Process Customers are primarily concerned with the following: How can I communicate the issues regarding this project? What is the status of issues? The above information will be addressed through the s Management Process. Clarity allows all Project Managers, Team Members, IT Management, and PMO to review issues, as well as analyze and prepare reports. This information will be communicated during status meetings. S Time spent on issue identification, monitoring, and resolution in Clarity must be charged to the standard s Management task in the PM phase. The definition and criteria for an issue helps Project Managers and Team Members determine what should be tracked in an s Management Process. Term Not an when: Is an when the resolution does not add value: Question Problem/ Defect You need some information in order to complete a task and this information is available from someone. (e.g., I don t know how to design this report. Joe will have to define it for me). The problem concerns a production system that a bended. (e.g., Job 754 failed to run last night.) Alternate Tracking This item should be entered and tracked via the Service Center. You need some information or a decision that no one can readily provide. Usually involves a disagreement. (e.g., How should this column be calculated on the report? The State mandates have not been defined clearly. The customer is unsure and the State has not returned my phone calls.) This example demonstrates when a question goes unanswered it can become an issue. The unanswered question provides no value to the project and as a result wastes time and may impede the delivery of the project. A defect is found for a system being tested prior to release. (e.g., I need a decision on how to proceed. The System Source Consultant is on vacation until Friday. The production system is supposed to be released on Wednesday.) This example demonstrates that you are unable to get a decision in an acceptable time frame. This issue needs to be addressed before the project can continue. Note: The Service Center will track all maintenance problems on existing production systems. If a problem occurs in a new system which has not been released to production, the problem may meet the issue criteria and be tracked in Clarity. Rev: 11/6/2013 Page 3.5

6 Section 3 s Management Process Oakland County Department of Information Technology Following are examples of issues encountered at OCIT: Description of Project: FOC Welfare Reform Current processing does not distribute monies according to new law. Ability to recalculate previously distributed money back to 10/1/05 is questionable. Project: Jury Management System Treasurer's Office wishes to utilize their PSFT application to print checks. Their current Juror Account system is not Y2K compliant and may not be replaced with another application. Project: Team Plan Customer needs browser installed in order to access a web site. Project: Non-Project Plan Training is needed for Microsoft SQL Server. Activity/Comments Reviewed in team meeting. Project Sponsor informed IT that the State decided that the recalculation is not necessary. (Escalated to the Project Sponsor and resolved.) Time between now and production is too short to allow planning/approval and create an interface to PSFT. This interface seems to be desired by Treasurer's Office and the Jury Office. It will have to be looked at as a Post Implementation project. (The issue is Will client accept this decision? If yes, this is not an issue.) The County s standard is Internet Explorer. No training class is currently offered. Note: Because all project participants can view project issues, nothing of a personal or confidential nature should be added to Clarity. Page 3.6 Rev: 11/6/2013

7 Oakland County Department of Information Technology Section 3 s Management Process Using Clarity to Manage s The Clarity application is used by OCIT to capture project-related issues. 1. From the Project Dashboard page, click the Risks/s/Changes tab. 2. Click the s link. 3. Click the New button. Below are the form fields for creating and managing issues in Clarity: General Properties Name ID Description Type Values name. Automatically generated by Clarity. Define the. This section should state the situation or problem that needs resolution. Do not describe the issue in terms of what must be done or the solution. Select one of the types below: Customer Any issue related to customer availability, skill set, or failure to meet project deliverables which the customer may be responsible for. Funding Any issue related to project overruns or unanticipated changes in funding sources. Hardware Any issue related to hardware to be delivered as part of the project (e.g., inoperable hardware, unavailability, delivery, etc.). Operational Any issue related to existing computer operations infrastructure. Resource Any issue related to availability or skill set of IT resource.. Schedule Any issue causing a scheduling conflict. Software Any issue related to application software to be delivered as part of the project. Support Any issue related to availability of support infrastructure (e.g., escalation procedure or processes). Technical Any issue related to software, hardware, or infrastructure standards. Training Any issue where training may impact quality of deliverables. Vendor Any issue related to vendor performance, Rev: 11/6/2013 Page 3.7

8 Section 3 s Management Process Oakland County Department of Information Technology Assigned To Creator Date Created Owner Updated By Date Last Updated Status Values contract non-compliance, etc. IT resource responsible for issue resolution. Defaults to the Clarity user name. Defaults to the date the issue was created. The Project Manager owns all the issues associated with the project. Defaults to the Clarity user name that last modified the issue. Defaults to the date the issue was last modified. Select one of the Status descriptions below: Closed The issue has been resolved. Deferred An issue on hold that does not need to be addressed immediately. Escalated Any issue that cannot be resolved at the Project Manager authority level. s should be escalated as soon as the Project Manager recognizes this. Open Any issue that needs to be resolved prior to completion of the project. Page 3.8 Rev: 11/6/2013

9 Oakland County Department of Information Technology Section 3 s Management Process Tracking Target Resolution Date Priority Values Enter date the issue must be resolved by to avoid impact to project, if possible. Select one of the priorities below: High Will stop project or impede delivery. Medium May stop project or impede delivery. Low Will not stop project but may impede deliverables. Impact Leave blank. Future use will be determined. Attachments Document Values Attach any documents that pertain to the. Resolution Recommendation Resolution Resolved By Resolved Date Values Suggestions or instructions for resolving the issue. A brief entry to describe what steps have been completed to resolve the issue. Browse for resource name. Enter in the date issue was resolved. Updating s Project Managers and assigned resources may update issues. s should be updated where required. The Project Manager is ultimately responsible to be sure project issues are updated and resolved in a timely manner. Escalating s s that cannot be resolved at the Project Manager s authority level need to be escalated to the appropriate authority needed for resolution. Escalated issues typically involve resource contention, vendor relationships, inter-departmental relationships or project priority. The Project Manager is responsible for identifying issues that require escalation; changing the issue status to escalated and monitoring/tracking the status until it is resolved. Rev: 11/6/2013 Page 3.9

10 Section 3 s Management Process Oakland County Department of Information Technology Closing s Only Project Managers should close issues. The Project Manager should review issues that have been resolved, update the issue status, ensure that the resolution description provides accurate description of the steps completed to resolve the issue and browse for the resolved by name. An example of a resolution may include the date the vendor was called and the information received from that call, follow-up plans, or results from discussions. Non-s Any issue entered into Clarity becomes part of the project s history. The Project Manager will determine if an issue is actually a non-issue. The Project Manager will enter the reason the issue was considered a non-issue in the resolution and close the issue, refer to Closing s. Reporting Clarity provides an s Report and an s Management Portlet to review and report issue status; refer to Section 10: Reporting and Portlets. Update the Project Plan The Project Manager may add a specific issue task in the project under the PM phase or may decide to add the resource directly to the s Management task. When adding an issue task to the project, the task must be flagged by entering an I in the first position of the task category field. The s Management task Estimate to Complete (ETC) should be decremented by the ETC added to the newly added task. Once the issue is resolved, the Project Manager should zero out the ETC and complete the task. Any remaining ETC should be added back to the s Management task. S S Tasks added as an issue task must be flagged by entering an I in the first position of the Task Category field. The ETC of the s Management task in the PM phase must be decremented by the total ETC of the newly added issue task. Any unused ETC in an added issue related task must be added back into the PM phase s Management task ETC once the added task is completed. Page 3.10 Rev: 11/6/2013