Project Management

AIS Project Management Approach, Methodology, and Structure

2 minute read

Project Management Methodology


The AIS Project Management Processes have evolved for 3 key reasons. First, through listening to customer and internal stakeholders to address a series of pain points, with similar roots, our organizational structure and responsibilities, based on many conversations over the last year and patterns identified among them. Second, to facilitate significant company growth, by increasing top-line capacity, increasing the bottom-line through efficiency, with the ability to scale head count internally. Third, to encourage personal growth and employee retention through additional roles and paths to leadership at AIS.


graph LR
  Onboarding --> Scoping
  Scoping --> Discovery
  Discovery --> SolutionDesign[Solution Design]
  SolutionDesign --> Review[Stakeholder Review]
  Review --> Planning
  Planning --> Implementation
  Implementation --> Governance

PMO Structure

  1. creates accountability for different roles in the PMO
  2. facilitates the best use of each PMO Member’s time.
  3. creates an effective escalation for all PMO staff.
  4. creates personal growth opportunities for PMO members and techs looking to grow into management roles.

Reporting and Documentation

  1. With PMO standardization, reporting, notifications, etc, became more consistent.
  2. Audits on documentation for reports, notification triggers, and SOW Templates are implemented to ensure a positive customer experience and keep internal documentation up to date.

Definition

Project / Integration Work is defined as any service designed to add or increase functionality or capacity; in other words, any work that is not related to the support of existing systems or persons. Projects are outside the scope of this proposal and as such will be quoted and proposed separately. Project / Integration work will be identified during strategic planning sessions.



Project Communication

Kickoff Call PM Schedule Kickoff (Salesperson gives warm intro if needed) - Kickoff to include: Lead AIS Project Engineer, Salesperson, AIS AM, CDW AM, Client Team - Status update cadence discussed PM sends recap email Discovery/Solution Design/Implementation All Project emails with updates - To include: PM, AIS Project Engineers, Salesperson, CDW AM, AM, Client Technical emails back and forth while working on tasks - To include: AIS Engineer, Client, PM All Project meetings - Required: PM, AIS Project Engineers, Client - Optional: Salesperson, CDW AM, AM Weekly Internal Project updates sent out by PMO - To include: Salesperson, AM, Lead Project Engineer - Questions can be directed to PM any time throughout the week.

Onboarding Project

Standard Transition Timeline We target a 30 day transition. In many cases we can complete a transition sooner than that, assuming no roadblocks. Our team meets internally to tailor the implementation order based on the specifics in your environment. After an initial kickoff call with you, our team begins gaining access to the environment and deploying our endpoint management agents. The other tasks are ordered and initiated based on efficiency and availability of the Client environment to conduct the work.

Change Management/Change Control

Change Management/Change Control: Ensures standardized methods are used for all changes. A change is an event that results in a new status of one or more configuration items (CIs), and which is approved by management, is cost-effective, enhances business process changes (fixes) – all with a minimum risk to IT infrastructure. Change Management Goals: Minimal disruption of services Reduction in back-out activities Economic use of resources involved in the change Service Asset and Configuration Management Maintaining information about configuration items required to deliver an IT service.

IT Inventory Management/IT Portfolio Management and Renewals

IT Inventory Management/IT Portfolio Management and Renewals: ensures IT Portfolio enables strategic goals and objectives to be achieved, tracks the cost of investment (COI) and return of investment (ROI) of a service throughout its lifecycle to ensure that it produces its desired returns. The purpose of Service Portfolio Management is ensuring the service offerings are defined and meet the requirements of the customers. Covered Processes 1.Design coordination 2.

ITIL - Continual Service Improvement

Continual Service Improvement: aims to align and realign IT services to changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to the IT services that support the business processes. Should clearly define what should be controlled and measured. needs upfront planning, training and awareness, ongoing scheduling, roles created, ownership assigned, and activities identified to be successful. must be planned and scheduled as process with defined activities, inputs, outputs, roles and reporting.

ITIL - Transition

Service Transition: delivery of services required by a business into live/operational use, and often encompasses the project side of IT rather than business as usual (BAU). Service Transition Processes

  1. Transition planning and support Coordinate the resources to deploy a major Release within the predicted cost, time and quality estimates
  2. Change management Ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient handling of all changes. Aims of Change Management: Minimal disruption of services Reduction in back-out activities Economic use of resources involved in the change Types of Change Management: Standard Change Normal Change Urgent/Emergency Change 3.

RFP / 3rd-Party Vendor Selection

RFP (Request for Proposal): company outlines business objectives and technical requirements, then requests responses from vendors that will outline their ability to meet these needs along with the associated costs. RFP includes the following: Submission Detail Introduction and Executive Summary Business Overview and Background Assumptions and Constraint Timeline Selection Criteria When selecting a 3rd Party Vendor, consider the following: Assemble an internal team that will be responsible for the overall vendor selection process.

Last modified April 9, 2020