CASE STUDY helped us address those gaps and make significant improvements to our PPO implementation.
“ The PPO maturity assessment provided a very clear understanding that there were lacunae in the way that we used the PPO tool, and we needed to improve the staff’ s understanding of where it could be used more effectively in areas like finance management and for the proper collection of project management documentation.”
Key improvements and measurable impact
“ One of the maturity assessment recommendations was that we fine-tune the framework and structuring of how we report and how projects are managed, defining project roles and responsibilities to ensure clarity and consistency across projects. This was critical not only from the perspective of the detail required in reporting to senior management, but also for governance and auditing purposes.”
Furthermore, the CTS project office needed to outline the mandate process and responsibilities of forums or key stakeholders involved in accelerating projects, based on strategic importance.
Following the PPO review, the CTS project office prioritised several recommendations for implementation.
The first of these was to establish clear criteria for differentiating between projects and maintenance requests.“ In our overall Facilities Management environment, UJ also has a separate but parallel domain called‘ Campuses’, which attends to dayto-day maintenance. However, in the instances that these projects are too large for them to implement, the requests are passed on to the CTS project office,” James explained.
“ As mentioned, CTS receives Department of Higher Education funding for backlog maintenance, waterproofing and other types of maintenance projects. Where we found that a distinction needed to be made – particularly for reporting to senior colleagues – was between those types of pure maintenance projects and new capital infrastructure projects, which could include a new building or new space.”
“ Next was the standardisation of terminology and definitions for project types, categories and management approaches. In a higher education environment, while our project office is the implementing agent for the university, there are different stakeholders involved, such as academic entities, faculties and support divisions, such as the library, finances and Student Affairs.
“ So, again, when it came to providing clarity to our senior management, we found that the CTS project office’ s reports needed to provide details on the types of projects being delivered and who is responsible for them. By standardising project definitions and so on using PPO, we were able to remove any vagueness from our reporting and hone in on the correct domains.”
The following step taken by the CTS project office was to integrate its new framework into the PPO tool to enhance accessibility for the project community.
James noted that this essentially comes down to CTS’ s role in‘ keeping the university’ s lights on’, ensuring that everything is running smoothly and that UJ is continually developing its infrastructure.“ It boils down to the fact that, among many stakeholders, our PPM process within PPO supports our project delivery, which then in turn supports the university’ s greater strategic objectives.”
Continuous improvement through competency development
The final maturity assessment recommendation was to develop a project management competency framework. Nel said:“ This refers to the consistent work our project managers put in to improve their competencies, as well as the process we have in place to deliver projects. Here, PPO keeps us aligned in terms of all the steps that we need to follow to maintain our competency in the delivery of projects.”
The competency framework was put in place to create an aspirational process that will allow CTS project office staff to naturally want to enrich their abilities, he added.“ The roadmap CTS has been executing on is viewed as a continuous, rolling improvement process. We could not have done this on our own; the project office is simply too tunnel focused on achieving what we need to get done.
“ The PPO maturity assessment allowed for an honest external view, providing clarity in its findings and allowing the CTS project office to become increasingly self-aware and identify growth opportunities.”
“ Our on-going relationship as UJ with Project Portfolio Office has always been a positive one, and the support we receive is excellent. Project Portfolio Office’ s approach to stakeholder relationships and working with clients is well appreciated. In our environment, project delivery and the pressures therein are significant, but this type of partnership and support makes that so much easier,” concluded James. p
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