Prepare a written report from the case study exerc

9Project Charter Review Process Design—ADesign for Six Sigma Case Study

The Information System Division of a major Fortune 50 corporation develops appli- cations to support the business. The division had been reviewing and approving the projects in a cross-divisional weekly meeting with the senior executives. The project charter is developed by the application development team working with the business to understand the scope of the proposed project. The project charter includes a description of the business opportunity, identification of the custom- ers and stakeholders, the goals and objectives of the project, as well as the met- rics that assess the successful completion of the project. The project charter also includes identification of the potential risks that could prevent the project from.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

4.Team Ground Rules and Roles

Develop the project team’s ground rules and team members’ roles.

5.Project Plan and Responsibilities Matrix

Develop your team’s project plan for the DMAIC project. Develop a respon- sibilities matrix to identify the team members who will be responsible for completing each of the project activities.

6.Identify Phase Presentation

Prepare a presentation (PowerPoint) from the case study exercises that provides a short (10–15 minutes) oral presentation of the Identify phase deliverables and findings.

IDENTIFY PHASE

1. IDENTIFY REPORT

Following is a written report of the Identify phase for the project charter review process design project, including the key deliverables developed as part of the prior exercises. The main purpose of the Identify phase is to understand the opportunity and business that needs a new process to be designed, and to develop a project char- ter and appropriate scope to design the process. The main activities in the Identify phase are to: (1) develop project charter; (2) perform stakeholder analysis; and

(3) develop project plan.

2. DESIGN FOR SIX SIGMA PROJECT CHARTER

The P&M team in the Information System Division’s SVP area has been assigned the responsibility of designing a new area council review process to assess the quality of the project charter, and incorporate appropriate metrics to baseline and encourage continuous process improvement. The divisional standards should be maintained to ensure consistency and repeatability of the project chartering process. The stake- holders of the new process include: the management team, who will review and approve the projects within the information system division; the P&M team, who will assess the quality of the project charters and execute the area council review process; the PMO, who provides the divisional standards for reviewing the project charters; the project leaders, who create the project charters; and the business, for whom the project charters are developed.

Following are the sections that comprise the project charter, which defines the problem to be investigated. The project charter is shown in Figure 9.1.

The Information System Division develops applications to support the busi- ness. The division’s PMO members along with the division’s management had been reviewing and approving the projects in a cross-divisional weekly meeting with the senior executives. The project charter is developed by the application development team working with the business to understand the scope of the proposed project. The project charter includes a description of the business opportunity, identification of the customers and stakeholders, the goals and objectives of the project, as well as

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Project Name: Project Charter Review Process Design.

Problem Statement: To design a process for the area to review the project charters to determine if the project should move forward to the next phase. Project charters are the project initiation document that identifies a need in the business to perform information systems work.

Customer/Stakeholders: Management team, project leaders, Process & Metrics team, business customers, program management office.

What is important to these customers–critical to satisfaction (CTS): All necessary fields are completed; provide accurate information to make decisions; and review is timely. Obtain approval to continue with the project.

Goal of the project: To provide a process that provides a timely and complete review and decision to continue (or not) with the project.

Scope statement: This process includes the review of the project charters at an area level. Includes project review of the project charter, provides review of the format and content of the project charter, and provides approval of the project charter at appropriate management levels. Link this process to the Quality goals of the organization. This process is just for the identified area.

Financial and other benefit(s): Consistent process, visibility of projects across area to identify overlap and resource sharing.

Project deliverables: Project charter review process; scorecard and metrics with baseline and target goals, and appropriate visibility of reporting requirements.

Potential risks: Being perceived as a bureaucratic instead of value-added process; acceptance and adherence of process of area; and timeliness of review.

FIGURE 9.1 Project charter.

the metrics that assess the successful completion of the project. The project charter also includes identification of the potential risks that could prevent the project from being successfully completed, and the assumptions that are assumed to be true. An initial estimate of the resources and project costs and the hard and soft benefits for doing the project are also assessed. The hard benefits identify financial savings that impact the financial statements, whereas the soft benefits include cost avoidance and intangible benefits to the business for doing the project. The customer signatures signifying buy-in to the project are also included on the project charter. The division’s PMO provides project management standards, guidance, and training to the division. They have recently decentralized the project charter approval process to the SVP’s areas. The approval from the customer will be attained, and then the information system division SVP’s area will review the project charter to identify any cross-area conflicts or overlap and ensure resources are available to work on the project.

Project Name: Project Charter Review Process Design.

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Problem Statement: To design a process for the area to review the project charters and determine if the project should move forward to the next phase. Project charters are the project initiation document that identifies a need in the business to perform information systems work.

Customers/Stakeholders: The primary stakeholders are the management team, who will review and approve the project charters, the project leaders, who will develop the project charters, and the P&M team, who will execute the process. The secondary stakeholders are the customers, who the application development teams are developing applications for, and the PMO, who develops and ensures divisional standards are followed.

What Is Important to These Customers (CTS): The management team wants a simple and timely process that provides visibility of the status of the projects that enable the teams to meet the business’ information system needs. The project leaders want their projects approved, and want a timely and manageable process. The P&M team wants to implement a simple and measureable process that is of high quality. The business customers want the desired functionality to be delivered in a timely manner. The PMO wants the standards to be followed in a consistent and repeatable manner.

Goal of the Project: To provide a process that provides a timely and complete review and decision to continue (or not) with the project.

Scope Statement: This process includes the review of the project charters at an area level. It includes project review of the project charter, review of the format and con- tent of the project charter, and approval of the project charter at appropriate manage- ment levels. It should link this process to the quality goals of the organization. This process is just for the identified area.

Projected Financial and Other Benefits: Consistent process, visibility of projects across area to identify overlap and resource sharing.

Risk Management Matrix: The risk management matrix is shown in Figure 9.2. The main risks are: not having time to get buy-in from the major stakeholders; com- munication of the new process may not be complete and of high quality; need to consider needed training and rollout; being considered as a bureaucratic rather than a value-added process; and timeliness of the review.

Project Resources: Master Black Belt Mentor: Sandra Furterer. Project Team Members: Carrie Harris, Emily McKenzie, Bridget Corp.

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

FIGURE 9.2 Project risk matrix.

Project Deliverables: Project charter review process; scorecard and metrics with baseline and target goals; and appropriate visibility of reporting requirements.

The business case for this project is that divisional management has made a deci- sion to review information system project charters at the SVP level to provide vis- ibility at the area level. This created an immediate need to design an area council review process within the area to ensure consistency across the division and enable improvement and visibility within the area.

3. STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS

The PMO has recently decentralized the review of project charters to the areas, resulting in the need for creating a process to review the project charters to ensure they are providing value to the business, and communicating the type of information needed to identify risks and manage projects and resources at an area level. The newly formed P&M team has been assigned the task to design a new area council review process. The team has decided that they will use the Design for Six Sigma tools and IDDOV methodology to ensure a fact-basedprocess is used to design the new process, and to ensure that appropriate measures are incorporated into the process. The primary stakeholders are the management team, who will review and approve

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

the project charters, the project leaders, who will develop the project charters, and the P&M team, who will execute the process. The secondary stakeholders are the customers, who the application development teams are developing applications for, and the PMO, who develops and ensures divisional standards are followed.

Figure 9.3 shows the primary and secondary stakeholders for the process, and their major concerns. Note “+” represents a positive impact or potential improve- ment, while “–” represents a potential negative impact to the project.

Figure 9.4 shows the commitment level of each major stakeholder group at the beginning of the project.

FIGURE 9.3 Stakeholder analysis definition.

FIGURE 9.4 Stakeholder commitment scale.

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

4.Team Ground Rules and Roles

4.1Discuss how your team developed your team’s ground rules. How did you reach consensus on the team’s ground rules?

5.Project Plan and Responsibilities Matrix

5.1Discuss how your team developed their project plan and how they assigned resources to the tasks. How did the team determine estimated durations for the work activities?

6.Identify Phase Presentation

6.1How did your team decide how many slides/pages to include in your presentation?

6.2How did your team decide upon the level of detail to include in your presentation?

DEFINE PHASE EXERCISES

1.Define Report

Create a Define phase report, including your findings, results, and conclu- sions of the Define phase.

2.Data Collection Plan and Voice of Customer (VOC)

Develop a data collection plan for collecting VOC and process information to assess the CTS criteria for the project.

3.CTS Summary

Brainstorm ideas to summarize the proposed CTS criteria and prepare a CTS summary and targets.

4.QFD

Develop a QFD house of quality to identify and map the customer require- ments to the technical requirements of the process.

5.Define Phase Presentation

Prepare a presentation (PowerPoint) from the case study exercises that pro- vides a short (10–15 minutes) oral presentation of the Define phase deliver- ables and findings.

DEFINE PHASE

1. DEFINE REPORT

Following is a written report of the Define phase for the project charter review pro- cess design project, including the key deliverables developed as part of the prior exercises. The Define phase of the IDDOV process is designed to gain information on the VOC to understand the needs of the customers and begin translating those customer requirements into the processes’ technical elements. The main activities

© 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

of this phase are to: (1) Collect VOC; (2) Identify CTS measures and targets; and

(3) Translate VOC into technical requirements.

2. DATA COLLECTION PLAN AND VOC

The data collection plan is shown in Figure 9.6. It summarizes the potential metrics and how we would collect data to measure the metrics. This will include informa- tion on a proposed process and VOC information. VOC data collection consisted of