Use of PLAN in EN Department 1 st of April 2016 Michele Battistin

Contents PLAN numbers in EN PLAN phases: entering, validation, resources Feedbacks Proposals Conclusions EN - M. Battistin

Contributions PLAN Numbers in EN Activities Contributions Activities EN - M. Battistin

EN resources for PLAN EN estimates about 15 minutes per contribution check At CERN level (3700 contributions) -> 5.5 months EN - M. Battistin

PLAN Goal (Katy Chamonix) Agree on which activities will be performed until the end of LS2, based on priorities and resources we have to harmonize the method to give decision makers a clear picture of the different requests, and their impacts ▼ Unique repository with a simple approval process Information: what, goal, impact if not done, support, resources availability & schedule …let’s examine PLAN process in EN EN - M. Battistin

Data entering Each group was already aware of the largest part of requests: PLAN arrived “on top” and “from top” No clear guidelines: Granularity, hierarchy, information, planning discretisation Personal strategies: “it was not clear who shall enter what” “we asked external contributors to enter their activities for our projects” “we collect project data from all project leaders of our group” “we entered all known planned activities, we will search on for double- counting later” EN - M. Battistin …then we need to understand what others asked us:

Data validation Difficult to match contribution requests to already known activities Some known activities not found in PLAN (15%) Some unknown activities/contributions found in PLAN (10%) “there will be some missing activity; there will be some double counting” “users entering a contribution in PLAN should be asked to quote the corresponding JMT number if a job already exists” “double counting identification only with direct meetings” Information on contribution requests “we are forced to meet persons and search for information” “we created an excel datasheet to collect information” “we account about 15 minutes to get information for each contribution” EN - M. Battistin

Resource allocation No info -> impossible to define workload -> no resource “without these information it will be impossible to allocate resources for 30 th of April” (->15/6) A large number of small activities: how to analyse them? “the old style method of lump sum estimate (for price and personnel) is still the best of us” What is the return of this experience for the time being? EN - M. Battistin

Some positive feedback The exercise obliges to think to future activities in terms of resources, schedule and contributions “we anticipate problems” PLAN obliges to meet persons to ask clarifications “it stimulates communication between persons” The tool could be a mine of information “if PLAN would be already a consolidate tool we would get very good information -> let’s continue!” and some concerns: EN - M. Battistin

…concerns Lack of clear data quality guidelines Difficult to match contribution requests with known activities already entered “reorganise activities/contributions means re-do the work” The administrative workload of PLAN is very high “results obtained do not justify the resources required” The same data in APT and/or EVM Decisions are taken elsewhere anyway (ECR, SRR, etc.) How can the management take decisions with this information quality level? “Meyrin diesel in priority IV (instead of I); the decision was already taken, we will do it anyway” EN - M. Battistin Is there any suggestion?

Development requests Quality: invest on data entering guidelines training Upload: excel template to upload information in batch (EA) Information collection: contributor groups want to develop a “requestor requirements excel template” to be proposed automatically for each contribution request (CV, EL). Create a cross reference to the JMT job number (MME). Hierarchy: give the possibility to “transform” activities in contributions and contributions in “sub-contributions” “today I have to cancel my activity and create new sub-contributions” finally: did we get the target? EN - M. Battistin

…some questions? Do we have an harmonised tool? Have the decision makers a clear picture? Is PLAN already the unique repository of information? …to conclude: EN - M. Battistin

Conclusions We all started with the idea PLAN should be a “simple” planning tool. It is not for the time being. Some ideas to improve: we invest more resources to develop the tool Customisation for groups Quality training we reduce the expectations: lower granularity less details ….any other idea? EN - M. Battistin Thank you for your attention