pcubed mpug 5/19/04 presentation 1 the challenges of a large erp implementation microsoft project...

MPUG 5/19/04 Presentation 1Pcubed

The challenges of a large ERP implementation

Microsoft Project User Group Quarterly Meeting

May 19th 2004

Celine Gullace


The Project

• The client is a large university, with over 40,000 students.

• The project is a PeopleSoft Financials integration/implementation for the University, the Medical Center, and the Research Foundation (2,000 end users). The project will cost about $30M, and will span about 2.5 years.

• The Project Team has 270 team members (about 200 at one time).


The Project (cont.)

1-Apr-02 3-Sep-04

6/02 9/02 12/02 3/03 6/03 9/03 12/03 3/04 6/04 9/04

Apr-02 - Aug-02Planning

Jan-03 - Apr-03Pre-Design

Apr-02 - Jan-03Fit-Gap

May-03 - Aug-03Detailed Design

Jan-04 - Jul-04System Test / EUT

Aug-04 - Sep-04MTP

Post Prod.

2003 2004

PeopleSoft Implementation Today

Sep-03 - Dec-03Development


What kind of Project Office (POF)?

• Clerical or strategic? – Directors struggled with the POF mandate.– PM goals, tool (MS Project 2000/Project Central),

some basic methodology. – Immediate needs for assistance with technical

support, planning, and plan maintenance.

• Pre-conceptions & different skills.


What kind of POF? (cont.)

• POF Staff duties:– Pair up with a manager (e.g. GL/Budgets) and assist with

planning in MS Project– Maintain the plan when the phase is underway (track actuals,

push/delete un-used work, re-level weekly)– Issues analysis: anticipate delays, over-allocations, propose

solutions– Reporting on late tasks, actual vs. baseline work, budget

tracking– Keep the technical architecture and the methodology sound and

consistent– Write users manuals, train new users


Technical Architecture for the Plans

• Plan shells for every team:– For each team, one plan per phase– Standard sub-phases: Plan, Execute, Control, Close– Track tasks and “buckets” (e.g. meetings)

• Sharing data using a database

Resource

Project Plans MS Project

Project Office

Web Access


Technical Architecture (cont.)

• Consistency across plans:– To report on the same type of data across all plans– Each task has to be “tagged” with codes.

ID ProgramPhase

ProjectCode

Lif e Cycle Give/Get GGPairing

STExecBudget KeyMilestone

Name

109 TST GR EX Sy stem Test-VolumePerformance Test

No Record and test Scripts (perf ormance test)

159 TST GR EX MTPs-Apps ProdReadiness Support

No MTP3 Clean-up and Data Validation

161 TST GR EX MTPs-Apps ProdReadiness Support

No Support Dress Rehearsal

182 TST GR EX Get G859 Yes Get f rom Ops: Security in FS8MTP

197 TST GR EX Get G869 Yes Get f rom AI: Batch QA testing complete (FS8SQA)


Technical Architecture (cont.)• Weekly EAC variance by work category

• Phase statusTask Name % Wk Cp Baseline Wk Work (EAC) Actual Work Rem. Wk (ETC)

5-SysTestMTP 41% 115,879.72 h 137,293.32 h 56,680.6 h 80,612.72 h

01-General Ledger/Budgets 36% 15,228.87 h 19,391.92 h 7,076.15 h 12,315.77 h

02-Grants 46% 21,349.92 h 24,716.52 h 11,441 h 13,275.52 h

03-Procurement 36% 20,048.87 h 23,489.02 h 8,511 h 14,978.02 h

04-Application Infrastructure 41% 5,404.27 h 8,798.12 h 3,639.05 h 5,159.07 h

06-Conversion 50% 3,368.02 h 3,942.65 h 1,974.25 h 1,968.4 h

08-Operations 38% 16,515.98 h 20,117.48 h 7,785.85 h 12,331.63 h

09-Partnership Management 46% 15,390.4 h 16,873.88 h 7,787.5 h 9,086.38 h

10-Management 43% 15,223.4 h 15,281.45 h 6,605.8 h 8,675.65 h

11-HR 39% 3,350 h 4,682.28 h 1,860 h 2,822.28 h

Q1


Technical Architecture (cont.)

Plan maintenancecycle

Resource submits timesheet

Plan Owner accepts work actuals into plan

Plan owner re-schedules or deletes un-used work,

re-levels plan

Plan owner refreshes

timesheets


Challenge 1: new team, new skills

• Minimal MS Project training• No formal Project Management training (e.g.

PMI) except for a few directors• Relies exclusively on Excel• Distrust of MS Project• Very little time for sound planning and

scheduling• Hired for their technical expertise, asked to

make room for sound project management


Challenge 2: learning from experience • Planning for the next phase

– To be completed under pressure while trying to close the current phase on time – a real challenge.

– The managers learned to start earlier with the planning, and the POF helped by setting clear, consistent planning deliverables

ID Task Name

9 Development

13 System Test Planning

14 Phase Skeleton planning

15 Participate in Give/Get Discussions

16 Give to POF - Sys Test Phase skeleton

17 Get from POF: Skeleton in MS Project

18 Sys Test Phase task planning

19 Give to POF: final draft of SysTest plans in MSP

20 All team work plan comparision

21 Get from POF: SysTest plans published in MS Project


Challenge 2: learning from experience

• Level of detail– In the beginning, very detailed + low tool maturity

= discontent (back to Excel? Buckets?)– Eventually reached a balance

• Interdependencies– Eventually a balance was reached: critical links

remained, the rest of the tasks were Start-constrained

• Fixed work– Fixed units at first– Work eventually drives everything


Challenge 2: learning from experience• Give/Gets between teams/plans

– Give/Get sessions– No links between plans– On a weekly basis, the Give/Gets are filtered out of

the Master Plan, sorted by date, and discrepancies are resolved

ID Due Plan Pair Name Status Finish B Finish Key MilestoneVar

190 GR G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/13/04 1/13/04 Yes 0 d

171 PR G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/6/04 1/6/04 Yes 0 d

237 GB G854 Get f rom Ops: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/13/04 1/6/04 Yes 5 d

42 OP G854 Give to Apps: Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8QA 1/15/04 1/15/04 Yes 0 d

10 CPG G854 Finish application of f ix bundles to FS8SQA 1/13/04 1/6/04 Yes 5 d

191 GR G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 2/27/04 Yes 0 d

172 PR G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 1/22/04 Yes 25 d

238 GB G857 Get f rom Ops: Finish ref resh FS8TST (from FS8QA) = FS8MTPST av ailable2/27/04 1/22/04 Yes 26 d

106 OP G857 Give to Applications: FS8TST Env ironment f or Integration Testing 2/23/04 3/11/04 Yes -13 d


Challenge 2: learning from experience• Meta plan: a more high-level view, focused on critical

interdependencies. • “Critical Gantt”: Work is not tracked, only critical dates,

interdependencies and critical deliverables • Reviewed weekly by the managers and directors, and

drives strategic decisions. ID Team GG PairingTwoCritPathsTask Name Start Finish

1 System Test Through Move To Production 9/29/03 11/12/04

29 Integration Test 3/8/04 6/11/04

30 3 Apps G901 Go/No Go: RF Conversion Data ready f or 3/29 3/22/04 3/22/04

31 3 Apps Regression Test LQA (w/out RF data) (ex "Cycle 6") 3/8/04 4/2/04

32 3 Apps G905 Apps: LQA Ready to Copy 4/2/04 4/2/04

33 3 Apps Regression Test LTST (ex "Cycle 6") 4/19/04 4/21/04

41 3 Apps G868 Finish integration test (Cycle 6 - 9) 6/11/04 6/11/04

42 3 Apps G150 Sponsor sign of f : Parallel / Report Rec. Testing approach 4/23/04 4/23/04

57 Performance Testing and Tuning 2/16/04 7/2/04

58 Ops Volume / Perf ormance Testing (FS8VT) {Cycle 4} 2/16/04 6/18/04

59 Ops G872 Volume / Perf ormance Testing complete (FS8VT) {Cycle 4} 6/18/04 6/18/04

97 Training & Readiness 9/29/03 11/12/04

105 PM Develop ASSIST/Job Aids/Central Documentation 1/5/04 4/16/04

106 3 Apps Apps Team & Sponsor Rev iew PM Materials (assist/job aids) 10/10/03 4/22/04

108 3 Apps Apps Rev iew of Transit ion Materials 5/3/04 5/11/04

109 PM Deliver Transition Workshop Materials 5/10/04 5/14/04

3/22 Go/No Go: RF Conversion Data ready for 3/29

4/2 Regression Test LQA (w/out RF data) (ex "Cycle 6")

4/2 Apps: LQA Ready to Copy

4/21 Regression Test LTST (ex "Cycle 6")

6/11 Finish integration test (Cycle 6 - 9)

4/23 Sponsor sign off: Parallel / Report Rec. Testing approach

6/18 Volume / Performance Testing (FS8VT) {Cycle 4}

6/18 Volume / Performance Testing complete (FS8VT) {Cycle 4}

4/16 Develop ASSIST/Job Aids/Central Documentation

4/22 Apps Team & Sponsor Review PM Materials (assist/job aids)

5/11 Apps Review of Transition Materials

5/14 Deliver Transition Workshop Materials

April May June2004


Challenge 2: learning from experience

• “The tool broke my plan”• “My Excel spreadsheet tells me I’m OK”• Reporting: too much or too little?• QA of data: too much or too little?


Challenge 3: Anticipating issues

• Using the task usage view:– The work is planned for the next couple weeks only

– After re-planning, there is too much work

Details

W orkA ct. W ork

2/15 2/22 2/29 3/7 3/14 3/21 3/28 4/4 4/11 4/18 4/25 5/2 5/9 5/16 5/23 5/30February 2004 March 2004 A pril 2004 May 2004

1,007h 941.5h 938.25h 827.75h 950.92h 810.42h 849.2h 769.02h 769.82h 717.63h 721.83h 640.57h 477.7h 446.68h 429.4h1,007h 941.5h 938.25h 817.5h

Details

WorkAct. Work

3/21 3/28 4/4 4/11 4/18 4/25 5/2 5/9 5/16 5/23March 2004 April 2004 May 2004

773.75h 918.75h 845.92h 1,249.83h 1,155.72h 1,180.67h 885.37h 764.17h 976.17h773.75h 914.75h 764h 0h

HighLow

HighLow


Critical for success: Plan maintenance• No plan maintenance means no accurate knowledge of

what lies ahead.• Several teams had to be “rescued” throughout the

project


Critical for success: Sponsorship & consistency

• “Doing it ourselves this time”• Support of the Project Management tools, while asking

all parties to reach common ground.• While less time is spent on proper planning, the planning

is more accurate because of the Managers’ technical expertise.

• Strong push for Vanilla: even if end users get new reports, and business processes have to be re-evaluated. Saved the project work and money.

• Celebrations after each phase and each critical milestones, for the entire team. Keep the team cohesive and motivated.


Critical for success: Managing Readiness, Managing Change

• The new system will have 1,800 active end users • Introduce the end users to the new system early and

keep them engaged throughout the project.• During Fit Gap, “Status Pages” on the web and online

newsletter kept track of discussions between workgroups, advisory, sponsors (includes FAQs, minutes, key decisions).

• During Design, “Kick-Off Sessions” provided more than 300 end users and senior fiscal officers with a look at the new system.

• During Development were held 10 “Conceptual Design Awareness Sessions” (CDAS) to 260 end users, to walk through the business processes, modifications and impacts.


Critical for success: Managing Readiness, Managing Change

• Readiness activities:– Benchmarking– Transition Workshops– End User Testing & Training– Playground– Go-Live Kits

• Partnership Management is a key team:– Constant staff of 10 people, 6 consultants for this project (1 PM

staff for 125 users).– Create courses and workbooks, conduct Conference Room

Pilots, Help Desk training, Train-The-Trainer sessions, conduct some Training & Pilots, and manage communications with End Users.


Lessons Learned

• Ability to anticipate staffing issues, bottlenecks and critical dependencies

• The team acquires Project Management skills for a lifetime

• Strong sponsorship & flexibility are critical• Include maintenance/tracking of the plans when

estimating the Project Management effort• Set clear expectations in the beginning and strive for

quality• This implementation is far more successful than the

previous one, which was managed by a third party vendor and done using Excel.


Questions?

Thank you

pcubed mpug 5/19/04 presentation 1 the challenges of a large erp implementation microsoft project...

Documents