Project Management Methodology Improvement Plan

Desired Outcomes:
 Improved ability to anticipate and plan work (cited in Smart Grid Technology Plan, Page 79 – Roadmap and
Recommendations)
 More projects completed – meet level of budgeted work (currently underperforming)
 Increased employee accountability
 Optimized amount of work assigned to each employee/section
 Improved professional skills
 Establish processes and build skillsets that will be required for projects of more complexity and duration (e.g.
advanced metering, IT upgrades, etc….)
 Create process which will foster continuous improvement
 Project performance metrics
 Improved interdivisional communications
 Higher level of customer responsiveness
 Better understanding of current project status and estimated time to complete
 Defined process template that would take a project from inception (launch) to execution
(RFP/construction/publication/launch) within 6-8 months.
 Improved project estimating and documenting

Issues/Concerns
 Unclear or missing processes for the project management lifecycle.
 Lack of project traceability and tracking (cited in Smart Grid Technology Plan, page 87)
 Lack of formal project management skillsets
 Lack of regular project updates
 IT Systems are not integrated, useful data often has to be re-entered

Major Elements
1. Identify current processes
a. Project lifecycle
b. Divisional or departmental dependencies
c. Engineer work scheduling, creating and organizing unscheduled work, and scheduling and managing
unscheduled work
2. Review status of current projects
3. Review FY15 project portfolio
4. Identify & recommend process improvement

Project Lifecycle
1. Clear Scope
2. Project Plan (WBS, OBS, RAM)
3. Effective Communications
4. Controlled scope
 a. Change Control Plan
5. Management support
a. Defined Escalation Policy
6. Collect Lessons Learned – Don’t wait until end of project.

Engineer work scheduling

1. Employees list all of their active projects, current tasks, recurring meetings, forecasted work.
2. Provide current project status (amount completed, work remaining, level of effort required, major concerns)
3. Establish practice of employees sending weekly status reports (Very short)
a. Summary of work completed
b. Short project updates
i. Schedule or cost variances (Is project on schedule?, projected completion date)
ii. Major tasks/completions
iii. Next steps
iv. Could use BaseCamp. Create a weekly “status update” thread. At the end of the week, the PM
posts a message to the Basecamp project titled “status update.” The body is a set of bullet
points stating what was worked on that week, and they include everyone on the team in the
notifications. The other team members may respond to that comment thread with their own
bullet points. The manager can respond to team members’ specific bullet points with questions
or feedback. If a team member’s status update doesn’t change, it can indicate to the manager
that they’re stuck on something.
c. High-level to-do list for the following week
i. Should include updates from previous week. Were tasks completed? If not why not?
d. Supervisor to consolidate project status reports to single document posted to BaseCamp.
4. List all active projects plus FY2015 Projects
a. Enter any available milestones (start date, end date, etc…)
5. Prioritize projects
6. Estimate duration and effort to be able to add to FY calendar.
a. Determine quality of project estimates
b. Complete Project Initiation Document
7. Strategy for completing all identified FY15 projects
a. Contract vs. in-house
b. Put all FY15 CIP projects on 1-yr Gantt Chart to show priority & phasing
8. 4-Week Planned Work Schedule
a. Regular Manhours Available: 1,700 Manhours per regular employee, per year. 1,700 hours excludes
weekends, 15 days vacation, holidays, and 5 days of miscellaneous time off from the 2,080 unadjusted
hours available in 52 weeks @ 40 hours per week.
9. Consider use of Agile type job board (SCRUM)
10. Create Correspondence tracker? – visibility of letters sent to developers
11.
PROJECT PHASES
The project life cycle methodology is divided into five project phases:

1. Initiation - This phase defines and organizes the project. Problem or opportunity is demonstrated; business is
compelling, the project is authorized.
• Develop Business Case
• Develop initial Project Charter
• Enter Project in ProjTrak
• Participate in the Technical Review
• Obtain Project Approval
• Use Project Initiation Checklist
2. Planning - In this phase a workable project plan is developed that will accomplish the project. The project has
clearly understood and agreed upon scope, schedule, and resources.
• Develop Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Assign roles and responsibilities
• Develop a communication plan
• Update ProjTrak (Scope, Milestones, Deliverables, Status, & Other Info.)
3. Execution - Coordinating and allocating resources and people take place in this phase. Work results are
produced.
• Support project team in their work
• Update ProjTrak (Assumptions, Dependencies, Scope, & Other Information)
4. Control - Throughout all phases of the project, objectives are monitored and measurements of project progress
are computed. Respond to issues, change requests, and risks.
• Request and Provide Status
• Log issues and Discuss Changes
• Submit Project Status Reports using ProjTrak or other mechanism
5. Closeout – In this phase, project makes a smooth transition to operations and lessons learned are documented.
• Obtain Sign-Off on Acceptance
• Conduct Lessons Learned Sessions
• Use the After Action Review Form
• Use Project Closure Checklist
• Update ProjTrak (Final Documentation
Project Estimating Techniques
1. Effort Distribution Model (see CA-PMM)
a. Suitable for well defined, consistently used life-cycle projects lasting 9 months or more
b. Not suitable for emerging technology
c. Need to develop project lifecycle estimates

Contracting Process
The contracting process is detailed below. It basically consists of three phases and five cycles. The phases
are keyed to contract award. Thus, there is a pre-award phase which begins with project approval and
ends during the solicitation cycle with the beginning of negotiations. The award phase follows and ends
with the completion of negotiations. The post-award phase covers the writing and execution of the
contract and ends when the contract is retired from the active contract list.
The Contracting Process