CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Genesis Energy delivers IT projects faster with standardised processes and CA Clarity PPM.
Table of Contents Executive Summary SECTION 1: CHALLENGE 2 Supporting strategic enablement with new IT deployments Managing IT projects across disparate groups Manual and non-standardised processes impact efficiency SECTION 2: OPPORTUNITY 3 Adopting a new maturity model to govern IT projects A central platform for project management Improved governance and business alignment Consistent and standardised reporting SECTION 3: BENEFITS 5 Achieving business goals with efficient IT project delivery SECTION 4: CONCLUSIONS 7 ABOUT CA Back Cover Copyright 2008 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document As Is without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised of such damages.
Executive Summary Challenge Genesis Energy is one of New Zealand s largest energy providers with almost 700,000 customers. The company s project management office (PMO) is responsible for delivering IT projects that enable Genesis Energy to achieve its business objectives. Genesis Energy s existing project management processes and tools lacked automation and integration, which was impacting project delivery. With an outsourced IT team spread across multiple vendors, the PMO also needed to facilitate collaborative project management across multiple locations and groups. Opportunity To streamline its processes and improve governance of IT projects, Genesis Energy adopted a maturity model based on industry best practice. The company deployed CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Manager (PPM) to support the new framework. The solution is used by the company s PMO team and more than 100 external vendor staff. It enables Genesis Energy to track resources, costs and projects centrally and automate core processes, such as reporting. CA Clarity PPM is used to manage projects that scale from NZ$10 million infrastructure transformations to simple application upgrades. For example, the PMO recently managed the launch of Genesis Energy s customer loyalty programme using the CA solution. Benefits Genesis Energy now has greater visibility and governance of its IT projects, which aids: Cost control Collaboration Business planning. As a result, the PMO is able to deliver IT projects in shorter timescales and maximise the company s return from NZ$30 million worth of investment in IT. By improving IT project delivery, the company is better placed to meet its strategic objectives and enable ongoing innovation. CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 1
SECTION 1: CHALLENGE The PMO plays a crucial role in taking the business forward. We provide the support required to enable the organisation to evolve its services and processes to meet the demands of our government shareholders and customers. Murray Collins IS Programme Manager, Genesis Energy Supporting strategic enablement with new IT deployments To maintain competitive advantage and cost control, companies need to constantly evolve their processes and services. To ensure the innovation cycle is as efficient as possible, organisations must establish standardised and centralised processes for project management and new product development. A unified approach to project management is particularly important for co-ordinating IT initiatives, which often involve multiple systems, sponsors and resources. Good governance and best practice can help organisations cope with such complexity and maximise investment in IT through faster deployment times. Managing IT projects across disparate groups With an outsourced IT model, Genesis Energy must be able to manage a high level of complexity when it comes to IT projects. Genesis Energy is one of New Zealand s largest energy providers, with almost 700,000 customers and 500 employees. The state-owned organisation owns and operates 2,000 megawatts of electricity generation, including a thermal power station, a combined cycle gas turbine, two hydro-electric schemes and co-generation facilities. The organisation s information systems (IS) and strategy is key to helping Genesis Energy achieve its business goals, which include reducing carbon emissions and increasing efficiency while maintaining the quality of customer services. Although the majority of its systems and services are managed by external providers, Genesis Energy has retained an internal project management office (PMO). This team is responsible for managing all the organisation s IS projects and co-ordinating the 100-plus external vendor staff involved in these activities. The PMO works with every business unit at Genesis Energy to help deliver technology solutions that support their strategic objectives. Murray Collins, IS Programme Manager at Genesis Energy, comments, The PMO plays a crucial role in taking the business forward. We provide the support required to enable the organisation to evolve its services and processes to meet the demands of our government shareholders and customers. Manual and non-standardised processes impact efficiency To ensure it could deliver maximum value to these stakeholders, the company needed to improve the way it managed not only IT projects but also resources and capacity. This meant improving both visibility and core processes. For example, the PMO currently lacked: A unified view of current projects A centralised risk and issue repository Automated workflows Cross-project analysis Cost comparisons and budget tracking. 2 CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
We were reliant on manual and non-standardised processes, which was impacting efficiency and project delivery, adds Collins. We needed a clearly defined project management framework, increased automation and better governance of our project portfolio to maximise the company s investment in new technology. With the PMO and external service providers using a combination of Microsoft Excel, Word and Project as well as an online tool to manage its disparate IS resources and activities, project information and progress was captured in a range of formats. As a result, reporting was particularly time-consuming for the company. Various reports were submitted on a weekly basis to an administrator, who then reformatted and consolidated the documents before distributing to the relevant personnel. To streamline such processes and improve IT governance, the PMO wanted to implement a centralised solution that could be used both internally and externally to capture project activities across seven sites. We wanted to make a paradigm shift in project management and adopt a more strategic approach, adds Collins. SECTION 2: OPPORTUNITY Adopting a new maturity model to govern IT projects To achieve its goals for improved project management, Genesis Energy implemented a new maturity model founded on industry best practices. The organisation needed a tool that could support this new framework and standardised project management processes. As a state-owned organisation, Genesis Energy ran a rigorous Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Five vendors responded to the RFP, which resulted in CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) being selected in September 2007. The key deciding factors for Genesis Energy were the solution s ability to integrate with Microsoft Project and modular structure. Collins comments, We liked the fact that we could start with a basic offering and build on this as our maturity model develops. CA Clarity PPM provides the backbone for our best-practice processes and enforces good governance. Murray Collins IS Programme Manager, Genesis Energy Genesis Energy has signed up to the following modules, which when integrated provide a seamless platform managing all elements related to IT projects: CA Clarity Demand Manager CA Clarity Process Manager CA Clarity Project Manager CA Clarity Resource Manager CA Clarity Schedule Connect CA Clarity Studio Genesis Energy enlisted help from CA Services for the initial deployment of the solution, which included five modules. By working with CA Services we were able to deploy the solution quickly and reduce any risk associated with the implementation, adds Collins. CA Education also supported the deployment and knowledge transfer by providing a special CA Clarity course for three members of the PMO team at Genesis Energy. This training helped CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3
Genesis Energy determine the configurations for the back-end systems supporting the CA solution, which include five servers running Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. A central platform for project management CA Clarity PPM is used by all internal members of the IT team, plus around 100 external users from multiple different vendors. Internal members of staff access the solution via a single sign-on link from the company s Active Directory environment, while external users utilise a secure Web link. This remote access is underpinned by Citrix Metaframe using RSA SecurID tokens for two-factor user authentication. Around 32 concurrent major projects are tracked via the solution, plus any number of smaller initiatives. Even the smallest of Genesis Energy s IT initiatives can be extremely complex and involve multiple vendors especially if integration with production systems is required. CA Clarity PPM is used by all internal members of the IT team, plus around 100 external users from multiple different vendors. The solution manages projects that scale from NZ$10 million IT infrastructure transformations to simple application upgrades. For example, the PMO recently managed the launch of Genesis Energy s customer loyalty programme using CA Clarity PPM. This project involved six separate vendor organisations plus a redemption partner based in Australia and impacted the company s billing system and data warehousing operation. The loyalty programme project was highly complex, but using CA Clarity PPM as a central repository for all project information vastly simplified delivery, comments Collins. CA Clarity PPM is also being used by the PMO to manage a virtualisation project, which will contribute to Genesis Energy s goals for reducing carbon footprint, and a major Web project that will enable the company to deliver more online services to its customers. Improved governance and business alignment These projects were all successfully delivered in accordance with Genesis Energy s project management delivery framework. CA Clarity PPM provides the backbone for our best-practice processes and enforces good governance, comments Collins. For example, it ensures that project documentation is created early on in the project lifecycle, and establishes the tasks and deadlines involved. This gives the PMO much greater control over project delivery and helps to manage the expectations of the business. All Genesis Energy s business units have a dedicated programme of projects captured in CA Clarity PPM, which are aligned to their goals. As well as improving IT and business alignment from an internal perspective, CA Clarity PPM also supports collaboration between onsite and offsite project teams as all those involved can now view the same project data in real time. This transparency gives Genesis Energy greater control over project costs and resources. Consistent and standardised reporting As well as providing greater transparency, CA Clarity PPM has automated previously time-consuming processes. For example, the solution automatically produces weekly reports, which are distributed to both project teams and senior management. 4 CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
CA Clarity PPM also enables the PPM to create ad hoc reports for Genesis Energy s outsourcing partners. As well as being automated, the reports are much more accurate. This quality improvement in reporting helps Genesis Energy identify risks and potential issues faster, and avoid bottlenecks that could delay projects. The company will be using CA Clarity PPM to take a similar approach for the portfolio management of IT projects in 2009. Genesis Energy is also investigating integrating CA solution with its Oracle systems to achieve better financial management. CA Clarity PPM is already integrated with Microsoft Project to provide Genesis Energy s project teams with seamless management capabilities. SECTION 3: BENEFITS CA Clarity PPM enables us to effectively manage the IT projects that will take the business forward. Murray Collins IS Programme Manager, Genesis Energy Achieving business goals with efficient IT project delivery CA Clarity PPM provides greater visibility of Genesis Energy s IT projects, which means the business can plan for the future much more effectively. IT is not a constraint, comments Collins. CA Clarity PPM enables us to accurately forecast resource requirements, which helps us to deliver projects that benefit the business in a timely and efficient manner. The combination of CA Clarity PPM and Genesis Energy s new maturity model has enabled the company to: Improve collaboration with outsourcers Ensure a consistent approach to project management Align projects and resources to business goals Enhance cost control Reduce business risk Free up staff from routine administration tasks. As a result, Genesis Energy is able to deploy new IT systems more quickly, which supports business improvement and innovation. For example, the new Web infrastructure being deployed will enable the energy company to increase its online customer services, thereby reducing call centre running costs. CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 5
SUPPORTING STRATEGIC ENABLEMENT CA Clarity PPM helps Genesis Energy deliver the IT projects that will drive its business forward. FIGURE A With a solid and standardised platform underpinning its strategic projects, Genesis Energy will be able to continue to evolve its business. This will ultimately help the company meet its environmental, exploration and customer service objectives. CA Clarity PPM enables us to effectively manage the IT projects that will take the business forward. This will help Genesis Energy be more productive and deliver higher quality services to its customers, comments Collins. 6 CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
SECTION 4: CONCLUSIONS The ability to deliver efficient and high-quality IT projects aligned with business goals is crucial to an organisation s success and ongoing evolution. To maximise the return on investment from IT projects, organisations must ensure good governance and visibility of every activity as well as the resources and costs involved. By adopting best-practice methodologies and implementing a centralised project management solution, organisations can not only streamline core processes, but also improve collaboration, resource allocation and reduce risk. This will ultimately lead to the delivery of higher quality IT projects that add business value and support future innovation. To learn more about the CA Project & Portfolio Management architecture and technical approach, visit ca.com/us/project-portfolio-management.aspx. CUSTOMER TECHNICAL BRIEF: CREATING A CENTRALISED MATURITY MODEL FOR PROJECT AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 7
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