Don’t Wait For Your Projects

To Fall Behind Schedule …

Visibility, Control and Early Detection @ CAI
Today We Will Investigate
 CAI – Past & Present
– Competitive Advantage

 Our Defining Moment

– The Next Steps


 Product Demonstration
 Wrap-Up
CAI – The Past and Present
 CAI started as a Time & Materials
placement company

 Since 1986 CAI grew from 100 to 2000+

associates

 Over 40 offices world-wide

 Charted “Competitive Advantage”
Course
– New Applications Development
– Application Maintenance Support
Competitive Advantage Path
Forward
 The evaluation, implementation and
utilization of tools and methodologies
(Project and Process Management)

 Implementation of New Development

and Maintenance Methodologies (CAI
Centric)

 Wrote and implemented CAI’s Process

Manager (Tracer) and started to run
projects by the numbers
CAI the Past 10 Years
 Completed Over 350 New Application
Development Projects

 Deployed Over 50 Managed

Maintenance Teams

 Completed Over 2m Billable Hours of

Supplemental Support Provided

 Achieved the Complete Annihilation of

Project Risk @ CAI
CAI’s Defining Risk Moment
 Awarded a large applications
development project
– Assigned our best Project Manager
– Implemented our methodology
– Implement our tools
– Great Oversight: CAI and Customer

 Bad “All of a Sudden” – Project, CAI,

and the Customer @ Risk
What Did We Do Next ?
 After we identified our team of and
increased our budget and made
corrections
– We performed an extensive Post-mortem on the
project to determine how the project unraveled
• Inherent schedule flaws
• Filtered Communications (In Team)
• Limited Communication (Cross Team)
• Requirements Inflation
• Employee Turnover
• Specification Breakdown
• Poor Productivity
– Rate of Change Not Type of Change
Core Cause of the Risks ….

More Importantly …
How People Feel !!
How People Think !!
So What Next ?
 Looked into establishing a company-wide
PMO … wouldn’t solve the problem we had

 Investigated Portfolio Management Tools …

not a portfolio problem

 Only possible solution “Build Our Own” …

Nothing in the market fit
– Did not follow traditional risk analysis
– Learning tool: Changes over time and supplies insight
– Best answers for questions we have or questions we
will come up with based on trends and improving
practices
The Solution
 Authoring Tool  Analysis Engine
– Assessments – Provides Insight
– Project Types – Identifies Potential
– Project Information Risks
– Key Performance – Scores the
Indicators Assessments
– Rules – Proposes Corrective
Action

 Project Diary  Visibility

– Collect Data – Executive Dashboard
– Knowledge by Phase – KPI Alerts
– Reminders – Summary and
– Issues Management Detailed Reporting
by Project
Without additional overhead or programming support …
 Schedule
GQM
Assessments
Act Review
Plan
Study Assessmentsand

Do
PMProcessLoop KPI’s

Assessment

Questions
KeyPerformance EstablishProject

Info Project Learning

Indicators

andAdjustments

AssignProject
Management
DefineProject Manager
ProcessLoop
Types
Insight
Post Project

Adjustments& Review-Team Oversight Process

KnowledgeShare
Post Project
NeverAgain’sand
Review-Peers
Must Do’s
 Lets See
Insight in
Action
"Thepower todiscernthetruenatureof thesituation."
The Industry
Overall
– Poor stakeholder satisfaction
Time & Cost
– 19% Failed: Never completed
– 46% Challenged: Over-budget / past deadline
Only 35% Succeeded: On-time/on-budget
Function
– Projects delivered with an average of 67% desired
functionality

CAI compared to the industry …

Better than the industry but not as good as we
want to be.
At CAI Risk Analysis is not optional !!!
The Deployment Schedule
Deployed Since Release 2.1
 25 Project Teams – 100 Assessors
Phase 2 of Deployment (March 2008)
 1200 Associates (Staff Augmentation)
Phase 3 of Deployment
 12 MM Teams
Phase 4 of Deployment
 Help Desk
– Internal Support
– Customer Support
What is AI Doing for CAI …
 Every project
– no matter what size is clearly visible
– has a minimum level of best practices
evaluation compliance

High
Impact
– is compared to defined “norms”

Low
– must respond to a “Risk Assessment” profile
system and be reviewed
Difficult Easy
– has SME “contact”, “advice”, and Implementation
“involvement”

 The profile and history of every project is stored

and categorized for comparative learning
 Lessons learned and updated best practices
enable a mentoring capability
"Thepower todiscernthetruenatureof thesituation."