cordin8 release 4

Transform the Management of Knowledge Work Series

Enterprise Portfolio / Program Management

Office Solution: Idea Lifecycle
Introduction
Businesses make money by creating products and services that address a problem or need, such as a
pharmaceutical company researching drugs to effectively treat diseases. In order to identify problems
or needs and then respond to them, organizations leverage knowledge specialties, such as engineering,
marketing, IT, finance, legal, strategy, and more. While one part of the equation that must be
addressed in order to have successful products is the appropriate talent, that is to say, ‘the right people
in the right job’, an equally critical component is having the right set of processes, specifically, strategic,
portfolio and project management, to govern the work and performing them efficiently. Information
technology has long been used to make processes more efficient. Most companies, however, are using
the same infrastructure from the 1980s which was designed for individual productivity, not
organizational productivity. That infrastructure – email, file servers, and personal productivity
software, while useful for individual purposes, works against managers who have the task of managing
knowledge work. Today’s manager wades through email messages with file attachments that he has to
then combine into summary reports for higher level managers.

cordin8 is a collaborative business platform that transforms how knowledge work is managed. It
centralizes the data, but using distributed management techniques, so that business units can organize
and manage their work independently with the ability to link into enterprise-wide work. It provides
managers with visibility into the work process that is far superior to managing through email and file
attachments.

There are three cornerstone solutions that comprise our Management of Knowledge Work Framework:

1. Enterprise Portfolio / Program Management Office (P/PMO)

2. Strategic Management (Balanced Scorecard)
3. Talent Management

These three solutions will be described in our Transform the Management of Knowledge Work Series.
This paper details how the Enterprise P/PMO Solution supports the idea lifecycle from idea generation,
selection, execution to archival. The solutions depicted within this paper are based upon project and
portfolio management methodologies from TenStep, Inc. (www.tenstep.com). As with all of our
solutions, they may be customized to meet your business requirements.

Idea Workflow
The major stages for managing an idea from cradle to grave are shown in Figure 1: Idea; Business Case;
Project; Post-Project Review; and Archive.

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 Figure 1 - Idea workflow

1. Anyone can submit ideas to the portfolio team

2. Portfolio team sends ideas to Subject Matter Experts for evaluation
3. Portfolio Review Meeting to decide ideas that proceed to Business Case stage
4. Create team to develop business case and ratings against portfolio criteria
5. Portfolio team assesses “What if” scenarios to determine optimal group of projects
6. Portfolio Review Meeting to decide which ideas proceed to Project Stage
7. Create a Program (or Project) Team and Program (or Project) Notebook to plan and execute
program/project.
8. If Program, Initiate requests to Request-based Portfolios (Service units, e.g., IT, Engineering)
9. Portfolio team manages project phase gates including moving to Post-Project Review Stage at
end of Closing project phase gate
10. Portfolio Review Meeting provides status of active programs (or projects)
11. Document “Lessons Learned, project risks, and project artifacts in the Project Knowledge Base
12. Move to Archive

© 2009 cordin8 technologies, llc. All Rights Reserved. 2

Stage: Idea
In cordin8, each user has a personalized my cordin8s page to organize and manage their workand to
easily access relevant information. In order to submit an idea for consideration, the user selects the
“Idea” form (see Figure 2) from a list in the registered forms frame on his my cordin8s. At this stage,
basic
information
needed to
describe the
idea and the
benefits is input.
Users may also
attach files, such
as designs or
other
documentation.
Once the idea is
submitted, the
portfolio team is
notified and
they can assign
one or more
subject matter
experts (SMEs)
to provide an
evaluation of
the idea. Figure 2 - Idea Form

When the
user submits the idea form, a new entry is created in the portfolio that contains the user submitted
data. The portfolio page (see Figure 3) contains fields that will be used to manage the idea through
all of the stages of the idea lifecycle. At the top of the portfolio page, there are a set of six tabs:

1. Main – has two components:

a. Core Fields - a set of fields used by the portfolio team to manage the idea workflow,
such as assign the SMEs, document comments on the progression of the idea, as
well as the idea form submitted by the user.
b. Idea Lifecycle form – the “Idea” stage is populated with the data that the user
submitted in the idea form. If the idea progresses, there are fields in the other
stages to collect data that is associated with that specific stage.
2. Files – List of files (e.g., conceptual design documents) associated with this idea

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 3. Project Gate Reviews – used to manage project phase gates
4. Replies – threaded discussion area for this idea
5. Voting – area for subject matter experts to provide their feedback and a rating which will be
averaged and can be used to make decisions regarding if the idea progresses to the next
stage
6. Change log – information regarding changes to fields within the form, who made the change
and when

Figure 3 – Portfolio Form

Users who are assigned as SMEs access the portfolio item through their my cordin8s. They can
review all of the information related to the idea—description, documents (files) – as well as post
questions and comments in the Replies, a threaded-discussion style section. Then, they use the

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 ‘voting’ tab (see Figure 4) and provide their assessment. An average rating is calculated for each
idea.

Figure 4 - Voting Tab

Before the portfolio review meeting, portfolio team members review each idea that has been
assessed by reading through the comments and ratings. At the monthly portfolio review meetings,
they review the list of evaluated ideas to determine the fate of each idea. At this stage, the
portfolio team is deciding whether the idea is worth further investigation. If it is, then a team will be
formed to develop a business case, which will be used to decide whether or not it becomes a
project. The decision for each idea, whether approved to move forward or rejected, is documented
with the idea (see Figure 5). The team also documents the discussion and decisions in the Portfolio
Review Meeting minutes form (see Figure 6).

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Figure 5 – Documenting Decisions on Ideas

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Figure 6 - Portfolio Review Meeting

Stage: Business Case

The next stage in the idea lifecycle is the business case stage. In this stage, a team is created to
investigate the idea in-depth to build a business case and provide ratings against a set of portfolio
criteria, such as financials, risk, technical complexity, and strategic alignment. The portfolio team
creates a business case notebook that the team will use to manage its work and create the business case
deliverables.

The Business Case Notebook (see Figures 7-10) consists of sections to manage the team’s work, such as
schedule, meetings, action items, issues, as well as forms to use to create the deliverables for the
business case stage, including the business case document, SWOT analysis, risks, and overall evaluation.

Before the Portfolio Review meeting, the portfolio team can use the portfolio analyzer (see Figure 11) to
perform ‘what if’ scenarios with the set of ideas that have business case data. At the meeting, the team
documents the outcomes for each idea that has business case data. Ideas that are approved to proceed
move to the Project stage.

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Figure 7 - Business Case Notebook

Figure 8 - Business Case Section

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Figure 9 - Business Case SWOT Analysis

Figure 10 - Idea Evaluation

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Figure 11 - Portfolio Analyzer

Stage: Project
The portfolio team determines whether the effort will be organized as a project or a program, a
collection of multiple projects. If different disciplines or functions or departments will be involved, it will
likely be setup as a program with each discipline or function assigning a project manager to their portion
of the work. Requests are made to the appropriate departments or functions, e.g., IT, Engineering,
where they will setup a project that will be visible in individual department’s portfolio, e.g., IT’s
portfolio, as well as visible to the program (See Figure 12). An example program notebook is shown in
Figure 13.

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 Figure 12 - Inter-connected Projects, Programs, and Portfolios

The project notebooks are used to manage and organize the work of the project, such as creating and
approving the project charter, assessing and managing project risks, issues, and scope changes and so
forth. Team members use the notebooks to receive work assignments (e.g., tasks, issues, action items).
Requirements, designs, test cases and so forth are also maintained within the notebook. (See Figure 14)

© 2009 cordin8 technologies, llc. All Rights Reserved. 11

Figure 13 - Program Notebook

Figure 14 - Project Notebook

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The portfolio team manages the project phase gates. When the project is first established, a portfolio
team member establishes the gates for the specific project by selecting the appropriate methodology
milestones and expected deliverables. Once the gates are established, cordin8 will send reminders
regarding the gate review meetings. (See Figure 16)

At the Gate Review meeting, the portfolio team will review the deliverables for the current phase and
approve or suggest changes that need to be made in order to be accepted. (See Figure 17)

Figure 15 - Gate Review Meeting Schedule

Figure 16 - Gate Review Meeting Agenda

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Figure 17 - Gate Review Meeting Results

While the status of the portfolio can be reviewed at anytime through the PPMO Portal, the portfolio
team can also run reports for monthly review meetings with the leadership team (See Figures 18-22 for
sample reports).

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Figure 18 - PPMO Portal Overview

Figure 19 - Project Report

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Figure 20 - Project Report - Open/Closed Issues by Month Section

Figure 21 - Project Report - Project Performance Section

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Figure 22 - Project Report - Deliverables Status Section

Stage: Post-Project Review

When the project reaches the Closing phase, it moves to the “Post-Project Review” stage in the
portfolio. The portfolio team facilitates a Post-Project Review session where the team identifies and
documents “Lessons Learned” and other relevant project information, such as project risks and project
artifacts that may serve future projects. All of these are stored in the Project Knowledge Base.

The Project Knowledge Base is a community-based portal for project managers within a business unit as
well as across the enterprise. Within each item of the Portal is a voting tab, so project managers can
provide feedback (comments and a rating) of how well a particular piece of information in the
knowledge base helped them (See Figure 23). So, the organization is capturing not only what the
original team learned in the executing the project, but how other teams used what they learned within
their own projects.

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Figure 23 - Project Knowledge Base - Lessons Learned Form

Stage: Archive
Since the portfolio form has been used throughout the life of the idea, it can be searched in the archive.
Detailed information can be accessed via that program and project notebooks.

Figure 24 - PPMO Portal - Archive Tab

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Centralized Data, Distributed Management
The major problem with how companies manage their knowledge work today is that the data is
scattered about documents on individual PCs, email messages, and file servers. That contributes to both
significant time wasted collecting information as well as inconsistent data. cordin8 centralizes the data,
but distributes the management of it to business units, portfolio and project managers. The project
notebook templates, which contain the forms and workflow that represent how projects are to be
managed within the business unit and enterprise, ensure consistent data. The account management
capability within the administrative features of cordin8 allows each business unit to manage its own
account. Projects can also be made available across the accounts to support cross-business unit, or
enterprise-wide, projects (See Figure 25).

Figure 25 - Multi-dimensional Reporting

Conclusion
The Enterprise P/PMO Solution is one of three solutions from cordin8 to transform how companies
manage the knowledge work portion of their business. It facilitates the Idea Lifecycle, which is the
fundamental business process of creating new products and services. By embedding best practice
portfolio and project management methodologies as well as employing a central data store with
distributed management capabilities, the organization can achieve both consistent practices and data
which lead to increased maturity and improved performance.

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