Analysis, Improvement, and Staffing of Virtual Data Center PMO
Goal
Improve PMO processes and governance and provide staff for project management and business analyst roles to reduce program risks, satisfy the client, and improve the success of this FSA program.
Challenges
- Federal Student Aid PMO for the VDC project had core process gaps in areas of scope planning and management, resource planning, insufficient schedule development, management and analysis procedures and tools
- Project lacked core PMO governance processes and procedures necessary to support accurate and timely reporting of key milestone delivery activities
- Government client calling for corrective action when Cognitive Technologies was brought in.
Solution
Cognitive's approach was to bring in a team of project management experts to augment the Perot PMO, quickly perform a comprehensive analysis of program schedules in use and within four weeks implement a corrective action plan that resulted in the dynamic integrated master schedule that has been used for all internal and client program reporting henceforth. Cognitive team members instituted direct interaction with the Federal Student Aid PMO and management staff to outline the project schedule corrective action areas to be addressed, as well as a timeline for implementing the corrective action with each of the active program schedules. The result was a complete re-development of all four DCM project schedules as well as all eight tower schedules. Upon Federal Student Aid approval of the redeveloped schedules, Cognitive Technologies created a dynamic integrated master schedule to be used for all consolidated program reporting. Cognitive specialists:
- Identified core process gaps in the areas of scope planning and management, resource planning, as well as insufficient schedule development, management and analysis procedures and tools
- Conducted a series of existing program management materials reviews, as well as detailed analysis of process implementation within VDC migration reporting activities
- Worked directly with senior Perot and FSA Transition management to design the core PMO governance processes and procedures necessary to support accurate and timely reporting of key milestone delivery activities
Cognitive Value Added
Cognitive Technologies provided a team of experienced project managers, business analysts, and PMO directors to support the FSA's VDC PMO to:
- Create and implement a corrective action plan for this critical FSA project
- Create and implement a set of processes, procedures and tools that could support both detailed and executive reporting on all facets of VDC migration activities with nominal recurring PMO resource level-of-effort required. These processes are now mandated by FSA Transition management for all levels of project reporting on the VDC migration effort.
- Facilitate overview meetings with FSA and Perot contract team members, project managers, and peer-to-peer reviews within the PMO to drive the facets of the organizational changes necessary within both Perot and FSA Transition teams.
- Successfully roll out and implement the new processes and procedures