PMI is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute Knowledge Exchange Forum October 28, 2003 Getting to Yes with Unreasonable Requirements Clark Sheakley, PMP

FUD Company Case Study. This is a true story, only the names have been changed. In this case study, you can be a PM for the ABC Co., an independent consultant, or a contractor. You set up a meeting with Mr. Heartbreaker to learn about the “opportunity”. In your first meeting and after a number of pleasantries, he hands you a requirements document he wrote and says he wants it done in 3 months.

Case Study Analysis What are Mr. Heartbreaker’s problems? What are the parameters of his requirement? What will be your challenges to implement the project? What do you think your competition is telling him? How do you say “Yes” without getting yourself into trouble down the road?

Appendix: In “As-is” form FUD Company Project Resource Management Infrastructure Requirements Document Version “B” Purpose: to capture requirements for the Project Resource Management Infrastructure.

Background One of the critical success factors for timely and successful customer solution delivery is comprehensive project, resource and risk management. The FUD project portfolio at present (and historically) contains somewhere between 120 to 150 simultaneous active projects. These projects are of different levels of priority, complexity and duration. Planning for and assigning the correct technical and business resources at the correct time to each project is critical for the success of the projects and has become too complex to be continued manually. Currently, the only tool available, which provides traditional project management support, is the Time Tracker module of the Primavera product. In order to move the Project Management group to the next level of management control, additional functionality provided by the Primavera suite needs to be utilized. This will require design work, process changes and training.

Impact on Current Processes Project plans will have to be generated such that resources (by role) are attached to planned tasks. The position of Resource Manager will need to be established and/or strengthened. The Resource Manager will assign people to the Project Managers, based on the listed need of roles. The Dynamic resource model will be invoked to fill gaps. Project Managers will need to update the project plans weekly. Progress against planned tasks will be listed. Adjustments will be made to the Project Plans so that the Resource Managers can plan resources appropriately. Resources will be required to manage their time at the task level as opposed to the project level. This means a higher level of time commitment will be required from the Project Mangers, Resource Managers and Technical Staff.

Requirements The capacity to generate Project Plans using Work Breakdown Structure methodology The capacity to view the resources available, phased over time, by name and role. The capacity to view resource commitments, phased over time, by name and role. The capacity to track progress against project milestones. The capacity to capture and mange project issues. The capacity to capture and manage project risks. The capacity to forecast aggregate work load, by group, over time. The capacity to view historical work load, by group, over time. The capacity to capture project estimated costs, including cost of FUD labor, costs of consultants, cost of Equipment. The capacity to capture actual costs, including cost of FUD labor, costs of consultants, cost of equipment. The capacity to capture costs of different resource skill levels. The capacity to allow Resource Mangers to approve time submittals, before they are submitted to the Project Manger for final approval.

Management Reports Standard Reports: The ability to generate reports which show the phasing of resource commitments over time The ability to generate reports which show the phasing of resource availability over time The ability to generate reports which show the difference between resource commitments and resource availability. Ad-Hoc Reports:

Other Project Plan Check-in/ Check-out capability: The ability for the responsible Project Manger to check-out/check-in their project plan Infrastructure Requirements: The capability for Disaster Recovery Intranet based availability Training Requirements: Approximately twenty-five Project Managers will need to receive training oProject Plan using WBS oUsing Primavera to manage project time (i.e. how to request resources, etc) Approximately forty Resource Managers will need to receive training