Project Teams

Clients must play an active role along with MIS in deter­mining the structure of the project team and participating in the team in order to make it a success. Champions, sponsors, change agents, and project leaders must be determined. These roles are critical to project success and if they cannot be clearly identified and filled successfully, the work should be re-evaluated and handled outside of a project team approach. Champions and sponsors may be from the client or MIS organization. A champion is the person who initiates the change, obtains a sponsor and maintains focus on the goal. A sponsor is a senior manage­ment person who provides resources, official backing and recognizes the value of the work.

Project teams must be structured to meet varying scope and complexity parameters. We will provide three models which we believe fit the needs of most system implementa­tions in the 90's. The models are defined as Plateau I, II, and III type project teams.

Plateau I

• Simultaneous involvement from two or more functions is required to achieve the deliverables.
• Data cleanup phase is typically first.
• Team size is ten to sixteen.
• Time frame to completion is six to twelve months.
• Medium scope of effort, i.e., one or two software applications being replaced.
• At least two managers and a part-time project director responsible for results.
• An established budget under two million dollars is typical.
• Monthly steering committee updates.
• PC based project management tracking software.
• Heavy testing in place of pilots and parallel runs.
• Mid-point milestone evaluation.

Plateau II

• Simultaneous involvement of four to six departments or functions.
• Reengineering phase is typically first.
• Team size of fifteen to thirty-five full-time members.
• Large scope of effort, i.e., replace all business system software for a company, plant or business unit.
• Time frame of full effort twelve months to thirty months.
• Up to four managers and a full-time project director.
• Budgets of ten million dollars to twenty-five million dollars is common.
• Steering committee updates every two to three weeks depending upon project phase.
• PC based project tracking or PERT network main­frame system.
• Full use of pilots, demo systems, and phased imple­mentations where possible.
• Milestones spread evenly in every phase from start to finish.
• Use of sophisticated software engineering tools is recommended.

Plateau III

• Simultaneous involvement of multiple business units and/or outside interfaces to suppliers, customers, dealers, etc.
• Re-strategizing, reengineering phase is typically first.
• Team size of twenty-five to fifty or more.
• Time frame of eighteen to thirty-six months.
• Complex scope of effort, i.e., multiple company struc­tures.
• At least five to seven managers and an experienced on-site project director full-time.
• Expected budgets of twenty million dollars to forty million dollars is common.
• Steering committee structured into control groups with biweekly interfaces on subprojects.
• PC or mainframe based project tracking with rollup capability to summary task levels.
• Pilots, parallel runs, phased implementations manda­tory.
• Major milestones every month or two depending upon phase.
• Sophisticated design and development tools mandatory.

To Be Continued