Completion Report

Project Summary:

Consider the extent of the Windows infrastructure in respect of the scale of an upgrade to Windows 2016. Important to highlight the scale due to server sprawl brought about by virtualisation. In light of how long it took to migrate off Windows 2003, the next upgrade is of several magnitudes greater.

Document issues and explain the extent of the task. Prepare a high level overview of the extent of the servers involved by service and tie in with ongoing work to assign those services with team members who ultimately will be responsible for those upgrades. This work has been carried out without a ship date for the product. It was originally hoped it would have shipped in first quarter of 2016, but it is increasingly looking now towards end of year.

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 1 days

Staff Usage Actual: 1 days

Staff Usage Variance: 0%

Other Resource Estimate: 1 days

Other Resource Actual: 1 days

Other Resource Variance: 0%

Explanation for variance:

.

Key Learning Points:

Benefits of this work are

1. The extent and scale of the upgrade is known

2. Engagement with IS Applications confirmed their support to schedule their upgrades via their project rounds

3. The Windows team is aligned by services and the upgrades will be handled as part of the ongoing support for those services. This provides ownership and responsibility for seeing the work through to completion.

4. As part of this a number of Windows servers were identified and subsequently decommissioned resulting in a lowering of numbers to upgrade.

5. The necessity of the need to upgrade has been accepted by stakeholders and we have the necessary buy-in when the product finally ships.

Key lessons learnt are

i was the only one working on this and felt it would have been better for me to have someone oversee as project manager. 

As the ship date for the product moved on into the future, there was a sense of lessening of urgency. Again having a pm to bounce concerns off may have helped with better focus and lessened the tendency to put aside project work for other demands on my time. In effect this all took longer than it should. With hindsight time recording on this project would help to assist how I tackle such work in future.

Clearer focus up front on milestones and deliverables. Again this is something I knew, but learnt in practice throughout this year as the methodology beds in. Key thing is forward planning and better documentation.

Outstanding issues:

Nothing that prevents closure.