| December 5, 2000 | 03 00050 61 00120501 |
Mr. Owen R. Callahan
ORCALLAH@OutsourceIMSG.com
Information Technology Department =727 823 4000
Insurance Management Solutions Group
P.O. Box 33040
St. Petersburg, FL 33733 8040
| Subject: | Project Office for IT |
Dear Owen,
The draft submitted for a project office to support the IT department is an excellent review of ideas that have been tried over the past 50 years for large-scale project management (PM). It provides important information about PM issues to consider in launching a Project Office, however, the draft is too sweeping for an initial proposal in an IT department.
Prepare an Executive Summary linked to your larger report. Note that every paragraph in your PM report has an HTML anchor so you can link to relevant sections. Start the Executive Summary by citing a few specific problems your IT department encounters in meeting cost, time and quality objectives. Point out that project management tasks are mostly outside the expertise and interest of software engineers. as noted at Intel on May 25, 1999. The history of fast-paced IT growth in past years has resulted in relaxed attention to management. This presents an opportunity for training and support in project management (PM) to improve performance of the IT Department. Many firms accumulate PM functions under an organizational unit called a Project Office in order to improve accountability and reduce costs by ensuring consistent professional performance of specialized tasks for managing projects. In particular, engineers generally prefer to work on interesting software problems, rather than report problems early enough to avoid crisis, and they lack the expertise to estimate cost and schedule status in order to permit timely adjustments. A Project Office that allocates professional support eliminates this problem.
Propose starting the Project Office by selecting standards for managing projects that provide objective authority for allocating time and expense to manage time, cost and quality. Two recognized standards agencies for project management are ISO 10006 and the PMBOK.
Communication Metrics is an important new capability for improving management because communication is by far the biggest factor of success that impacts cost and schedule, explained in the record on February 2, 1995. Com Metrics was favorably reviewed at Intel on June 3, 1997. More recently, on October 27, 2000 Dr. Douglas Engelbart, who received the National Medal for Technology from President Clinton in a ceremony this past weekend, cited SDS, which supports Com Metrics, as the best method he has seen in his 40 year career seeking ways and means to improve competency of knowldge work.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net