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Thinking Outside the Intranet

Finding New Ways of Meeting Enterprise Project and Program Portfolio Management Requirements

Authored By: Greg Tilley, VCS Online

Co-Authored By: Doug Horsley - CIO, St. John of God Health Care Group, Dan Hare, Randy Schuessler - Director, IT Project Management Office for Harcourt Assessment

Although many companies are seeing noticeable, yet gradual increase in project, program, and portfolio management spending, they are being far more cautious in their spending and demanding business cases with lower risk, which often translates into less spending and a quick ROI.  Fortunately, there are companies that have quickly adapted to the prevailing economic climate by finding new ways to deliver enterprise-level solutions, which reduce risk without compromising functionality.

In order to address this, some companies have reengineered their solutions to be sold as software as a service (SaaS) solutions.  Unlike a traditional enterprise solution with local implementation and customization, a SaaS solution transfers many of the costs and risks onto the service provider rather than the client.  This adaptation gives companies the flexibility to deliver solutions as both traditional in-house enterprise license solutions and as SaaS solutions.

The success of this model has been proven many times over, however there are two companies in particular that stand out as excellent case studies on when and why a SaaS solution can be the perfect fit.

Harcourt Assessment

Based in San Antonio, Texas, Harcourt Assessment, Inc. (Harcourt) is a leading provider of high-quality assessment instruments and testing programs used by educators, psychologists, and other clinicians, and businesses.

With a recent consolidation of technology groups as a new business unit, Harcourt began implementing IT Governance practices to enable “alignment & transparency” with more than a dozen other business units it supports. To that end, IT needed a project portfolio management (PPM) system to manage hundreds of requests for new systems development to ensure all work was “projectized”, prioritized by the other business units, and centralized for visibility into project commitments and status.

In order to accomplish these goals, Harcourt needed a solution that included:

• Low Start-Up Costs — A small operating budget (with no capital investment) for acquisition and implementation of a solution (software and hardware).
• Simple Stakeholder Valuation/Prioritization System — A 5-minute business value scorecard with an ability to track competing prioritizations from multiple stakeholders (vs. advanced IT risk/return analysis which is the basis of most PPM systems).
• Basic Project Management Process — Standard processes for managing metrics, status, milestones/deliverables, issues, risks, and change requests across different project types and portfolios.
• Configuration & Customization — An off-the-shelf solution with foundational processes, with an ability to tailor to the unique needs of Harcourt’s business.
• Web-Based Solution — A zero-deployment solution readily available to all.

The benefits that Harcourt had set out to achieve with the introduction of a project/portfolio management solution included alignment of IT priorities with the business, improved ability to manage and meet commitments, and real-time visibility into projects throughout their lifecycle.  In addition, Harcourt needed to be able to measure IT performance in systems development and standardize controls and processes in support of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.  In short, Harcourt had enterprise-level requirements that demanded no less than a true project, program, and portfolio management solution.

Through the selection of a SaaS solution, Harcourt was able to accomplish all of the needs above as well as achieve additional benefits, which were not initially identified as keys to success.  These benefits included:

• No initial investment to procure hardware, software, or internal technical support training for the new application.
• Immediate ability to pilot an off-the-shelf solution to determine a clear strategy and plan for specific configurations & customizations needed.
• Working directly with solution provider to collaborate on product roadmap enhancements (vs. internal customization of own source code base).
• Immediate customer and technical support without competing against other internal IT interests.

Harcourt was able to take a SaaS solution and through creative hosting options, implement key customizations to more closely align the solution with its own existing processes.  By doing so, Harcourt was able to meet specific needs of end users and increase their buy-in without the expense of acquiring an enterprise license and local implementation.

St. John of Gold Healthcare

On the other side of the planet, a major hospital group in Australia has adopted a SaaS solution as an integral part of its overall Activity Resource Planning initiative with it’s IS organization.  St. John of God Health Care (SJGHC) is headquartered in Perth, Australia.  In 2004, a major initiative was undertaken within the IS organization to bring visibility, process, and discipline to the management of all activities within the organization. 

SJGHC IS was searching for an activity and resource management tool and associated processes that would be easy to implement, easy to use and provide benefits towards resource forecasting, while recording actual effort against project schedules, in addition to setting the foundation for a standard approach to future project planning.

The prime focus of SJGHC IS was the implementation of an Activity and Resource Planning/Management system including;

• Improved planning for both business projects and internal activities
• Improved resource forecasting and allocation through a visible pool of resources
• Improved management of project costs
• The provision of consistent and accurate reporting
• Managed programs of work
• The provision of portfolio management

The benefits targeted to achieve with the introduction of the processes included the visibility of portfolios of projects, programs of work, on-line reporting, IS spending, resource usage, resource leveling, and business results.  In addition, SJGHC IS was looking for predictability in projected spend on projects and accountability through secure management of complex project schedules and key project management tools such as issue, risk, and change management.  In short, SJGHC IS also had a set of complex enterprise level requirements that needed to be met in order to satisfy their objectives of automating their activity and resource planning initiative.

Complicating their search for a solution was the fact that the SJGHC IS Project Sponsor mandated that the recommended solution should be straight “off the shelf”, while providing the flexibility for potential growth for changes to processes if this became a future requirement.  Another key factor for the project team was the firm budget.

The original project scope had intended to research Activity and Resource Planning software providers with the intention of potential purchase of the software license.  However, after exhaustive research it became clear that an enterprise SaaS solution was a better fit in light of the firm budget.  SJGHC IS Group realized that a SaaS solution would:

1. Keep costs down by only assessing a small monthly fee on those users actively using the system.
2. Eliminate the need to purchase hardware to support a local implementation.

For SJGHC, a SaaS solution met all the project criteria while at the same time providing standard functionality that was outside the original project scope.  The additional functionality and processes provided the SJGHC IS group with the foundation to achieve even greater improvement to existing project management processes than first envisaged.  These additional processes were implemented in a staged approach and ongoing internal process improvements will ensure even further growth in the use of the system in the future.

Realizing Goals Through SaaS Solutions

The choice of moving down the path of a SaaS solution not only provided ease of implementation (little technical set up) but enabled both Harcourt and SJGHC to commence using the system almost immediately. This smooth transition began after implementation training and minor modifications to existing internal processes thus demonstrating value to both end users and management via meaningful reports.

Historically, organizations have generated greater efficiency from their workforces through improving their project and program management processes and tracking. However, the vast majority of solutions on the market have a very high total cost of ownership.  This makes it difficult to build a strong business case for purchasing these systems as the ROI is extended, which introduces risk to ultimately achieving the return upon which the organization built its business case.  This is especially true in small to medium-sized businesses where the investment is seen as a major purchase vis-à-vis the organization’s annual capital budget.

Today, there are companies that are offering creative ideas to help organizations derive greater efficiency and a more collaborative work environment; ideas where the benefits extend beyond IT to all business units.  These ideas are enabling businesses of all sizes to reassess project portfolio management and the benefits it provides.

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