Overview of Project Services and the PMO at the University of Edinburgh
IS Applications part of Information Services at the University. The organisational structure for IS is published at: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/about/organisation
The organisation chart for the IS Applications Division is published at: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/about/organisation/applications-division/apps-division-who The chart shows how we have largely ring-fenced project and service resources into distinct teams.
There are three (3) Colleges http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/colleges-schools and three (3) Support Groups (Information Services, Corporate Services and Student Academic Services) at the University. Each team within Project Services is focused on the needs of one (1) college and one (1) Support Group. This structure enables us to develop and maintain long term relationship with our business partners. We refer to the set of projects for a College or Support Group as a Portfolio of projects. Our Programmes of projects are typically organisaional based and are within one of the portfolios. Our current Portfolios and Programmes are published at https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/portfolios and https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/programmes respectively.
All the staff within Project Services are directly involved in project delivery as Project Manager, Delivery Manager, Business Analyst, Programme Manager, Portfolio Manager, Senior Supplier or Consultant. We directly manage around 13,000 project days delivered by IS Applications staff every year. There are currently twenty five (25) staff in the Project Services team within IS Applications. You can see us all at:
We hire an student intern from the University for 12 weeks each year. The intern typically helps us with our year-end roll over process as well as taking on project management or business analysis responsibilities on a small project. The student interns have proved to be a fantastic addition to the team bringing fresh ideas as well as developing their own skills and career.
Our PMO functions are delivered by the Project Services team with some administrative support, approximately 1.5 FTE per year, from our Directors Office. These functions include:
- Creation and maintenance of project management standards and methods
- Centralised management of project lessons learned
- Project tools and support e.g. Project Web Site, PPM software (ASTA), Mind Mapping (Mind Genius), Time Tracking (Journyx)
- Project management consultancy and mentoring
- Providing (and advising on) project management training
We described some of our PMO work in our recent poster presentation at EDUCAUSE “Mind the Gap” http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2014/mind-gap-using-flexible-toolkit-help-non-project-managers-deliver-project-success
We use Time Recording for all staff in IS Applicationd Division and track time on all our projects, services and overhead activities. We now had Time Recording in place for more than ten (10) years. This approach has given us a much better handle on what different project and service activities cost in terms of staff effort. This information is a key input to our planning process. We know what resources are needed to deliver services and what resources are available for project activities. We use our Annual Planning process to allocate available resources to projects based on project priorities. Information on our planning process for 2014/15 is published at: https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/planning/area/apps/14-15
Hopefully this provides a useful overview of how we work.
Mark Ritchie IS Applications Division