One key area where project management software adds significant value to the overall company that may not be obvious to the project team is in brokering the interactions between project teams and operations functions. These aren’t often recognized because they are interfaces between project management and operations and neither one owns them. There are 2 key interfaces on which project management best practices suggest teams focus:
The transition of project to operations
A project, by definition, is a temporary endeavor. When the project ends, all the project-related artifacts, deliverables, knowledge and work-products must be transitioned to the functions in the organization that will support and operate them. While it is common to transfer release notes, source code and open issues lists, these “hand-off artifacts” often lack an explanation of why certain project decisions were made. Project planning, risk management, change control and testing documentation can be valuable resources to help support systems and make future changes in a safe and effective manner.
Feedback/input from operations functions
Project teams delivering multiple releases need an effective method to capture feedback from operations functions, including user feedback, performance statistics, operational defects and stability issues. Most of this information is stored in the company’s ITSM system. Problem-management workflows should be integrated with project-management processes, such as defect management and change management – providing project teams with a view of the insights gained through operations.
Integrating project management and ITSM
Project teams are tasked with delivering changes to the products, services and processes of an organization with the goal of creating some sort of value. That value is often not realized (at least not fully) until after the project has concluded and the outcomes of the project have been embedded in continuous operations. Think of this as an up-front investment for benefits realized during an extended period. This is important because project teams must be keenly aware of the long-term impacts of short-term decisions.
As project teams make decisions about scope, quality, timelines and project costs, they must consider the impacts of those decisions on the active operations of the company. The outputs of every project have an expected, useful lifespan. During that time, costs will be incurred (operations, cost of goods sold, maintenance costs, etc.) and value will be realized (staff productivity, business insights, revenue opportunities, etc.). As project teams forecast the ROI of their projects, they must consider the lifetime impacts.
Best practices suggest project management be viewed as an IT Service Management discipline, directly contributing to the active operations of the company. ITSM methodologies (such as ITIL) depict service management as a continuous cycle of change impacting operations. Project teams are important to enabling both the creation of new services and continuous service improvement.
Project deliverables should be designed and optimized to maximize operational value and minimize operational cost. When defining the minimum viable product (MVP), project teams should consider end-user experience and operational impacts, not just the stated objectives of the project charter. The project team can fulfill every project requirement, but if the product is not usable, the organization will not realize the intended value.
Project teams should be wary of defects found during testing, accepted by the project team and left unresolved at the time of project closure. These accepted defects don’t disappear when the project is delivered – they become support issues that impact operational costs and organizational value. Project delivery (go-live) isn’t the finish line, it is the starting line of a new and enhanced set of capabilities delivered to the organization.