Presenting how we took our IT organization, at a small liberal arts college, into the realm of project management.

1. Right-Sized
Project
Management
How Much Planning Is Enough

2. Who The Heck Are You?
Jean Tagliamonte, CAPM
Interim Project Manager
Vassar College
Computing
& Information Services

3. What Qualifies You To
Tell Us About The Right
Amount of Project
Management?
Absolutely Nothing.
Only YOU can figure out the right
level of project management for
your department or institution.

4. How Did We Get Started?

5. How Did We Get Started?
Hired a Pro!
Identified others with interest
or innate skills for Project
Management

6. How Did We Get Started?
Assembled a Project Management
Governance Team

7. The Team
Studied basics of Project Management
Decided to create guidelines for
Life-cycle
of a project
Individual
project management

8. Idea to Service
Before PM Governance Recommendations
Something was requested.
Who was asking?
Was there money?
Implemented request.

10. What’s the need?
Does it fit in with our other priorities?
For other departments, does the senior leadership know about
and/or support the request?
Do we have the financial and human resources?
How does this fit into our existing service offering?
Does this project support our IT strategy
and the strategy of the college?
If we decide to do it, do we need to do it now?

11. Project Life-Cycle
With this in mind, the PM Governance team
created a project life-cycle.

12. IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!
IT’S ME!

14. Presentations, regular update posts, educational
videos
Understanding and Communication

15. Not quite.
Success?

16. Team Development

17. We want to be better a project management and
here’s how we are going to begin.
Direction

18. Tricky concept for a small word.
Trust

19. You won’t get it right
the first time.
Process
Worst.
Hulk.
Ever.

20. The prize at the
bottom of the box of
cereal!
Results

21. Requirements for
Individual Project Management
a.k.a. The instruction manual
Project Planning Guidelines

22. Project Planning Guidelines
Small
Medium
Large

23. Project Planning Guidelines

24. If it’s optional, it’s probably not necessary.
Simplify. Simplify. Then simplify again.
Project Planning Guidelines

26. Small projects start
at 10 hours. What
about projects
smaller than 10
hours?
What about large?
Important Things To Note

27. Document Templates
Lightweight PM Scheduling
Central Location
Training
Tools

29. SmartSheet
Lightweight Tool

30. Shared Google Drive
We created a shared
Google Drive to house
and be the repository
for all these
documents.

31. We provided hands on training during which
everyone created a sample project.
Training

32. So...
Right about now you are probably thinking...

33. Stuck with it for 6 months.
What did we do?

34. Share the plan
Collect feedback
Make sure
everyone feels heard
But Collect Feedback

35. What Did We Do Differently?
Let’s Play A Game
I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!! I have prizes!!!

36. What did we change?
Life-Cycle

37. Idea Stage went from 6 steps to 3
Proposed Stage stayed the same
Planning Stage went from 5 steps to 3
Project Stage stayed the same
Removed complexity of different rules
for under 10 hours
Simplified Life-Cycle

38. What did we change?
Requirements

39. What did we change?
Requirements

40. What did we change?
Templates

41. Kept most of the templates
Built a Proposal / Charter form in
our Service Management Tool
Changed the Communications
Plan to a set of guidelines
Templates

42. What did we change?
Lightweight Tool

43. Nothing!
Lightweight Tool

44. What did we change?
Training

45. First time, full hands on training
This time, 15-minute presentation
Training

46. Other Things We Changed
IT’S ME AGAIN!
Encouraged Lessons Learned
Met individually with groups
who had trouble with or
avoided the process before
Created a PMO
One PMP, One CAPM

47. More Lessons Learned
What Else Did We
Learn Along The Way?

48. Don’t use words like “enforcing” or “policing”
Be realistic
Strive for “encouraging” and “assisting”
Be Positive

49. Lightweight is good but make sure you aren’t
just going through the motions
Have people who can focus on the big picture
Be Careful

50. Communicate early and often
Be open to the notion that you maybe weren’t
as clear as you thought you were
Be open-minded
Be Clear

51. The End… almost

52. You See...
I Have A Secret
What’s Project Management
Really About?

53. I’ll Give You a Hint
It’s Not About Projects

54. People
Culture
Communications
Situational Management
Customer Satisfaction
It’s Not About Projects

55. Don’t be this guy!
People

56. Communication
Be truthful, be honest, speak up and listen!

57. Is this everyone on your team?
Culture

58. Be flexible.
Situational Management

59. What we all are striving for.
Customer Satisfaction

60. DiSC Profile
Avengers Style

61. Driving Director:
Tony Stark / Ironman
Objective: Get it done
Traits: Efficiency, self-motivation, independence
Strengths: Command, leadership
Decision-Making: Quick with little information
Motivators: Achievement, challenge
Comfortable: Structured, formal environments
Uncomfortable: Dependence on others,
Unable to directly resolve a problem
Negotiation: Suggestions (power strategy)
Interacting Communicator:
Steve Rogers / Captain America
Objective: Get together
Traits: Friendliness, enthusiasm,
self-confidence
Strengths: Drive home a point of view
with the ability to understand other
perspectives and adapt
Decision-Making: After soliciting input
Motivators: Communication, relationships
Comfortable: Social environments
Uncomfortable: Independent situations
Negotiation: Benefits to others (people strategy)
PeopleOriented
Conscientious Thinker:
Bruce Banner / Hulk
Objective: Get it right
Traits: Logic, structure, accuracy
Strengths: Self-reliant, organizing facts,
working with precise details or complex systems
Decision-Making: After research
Motivators: Facts, certainty
Comfortable: Sure of their position,
clear expectations
Uncomfortable: Risk
Negotiation: Evidence (proof strategy)
TaskOriented
Steady Relater:
Agent Coulson
Objective: Get along
Traits: Patience, thoughtfulness, persistence
Strengths: Dependable, loyal, listening,
counseling, and able to work steadily at a
task until it is achieved
Decision-Making: After planning
Motivators: Time, support
Comfortable: Status quo
Uncomfortable: Change, distractions,
interruptions
Negotiation: Time to reach decisions
(promise strategy)
Faster Paced, Direct, Extrovert
Slower Paced, Indirect, Introvert

62. I hope we’ve established 3 things:
A good foundation for a Project Management
Process
Your personality type
And that, if nothing else, I’m good at finding
Avengers Memes on the internet
The Real End

63. Have a Happy Thorsday!

64. All files you might want:
goo.gl/lMALkh
Thank You