Project Management Activities

Form the deployment project, manage its tasks, and coordinate with other fabrication and operations projects, as needed.

Introduction Activities Roles and Responsibilities Artifacts Additional Resources

- Deployment Project Plans - Project Charter - Plateau Plan - Support Plans - Project or Product Requirements - A-TARS - Waiver Approvals - Status Manage Product and Project Requirements Define the Process Plan the Project Monitor the Project Complete the Project - Deployment    Project Plans - Waiver Requests - Project Archives - Lessons Learned - Status - IT Project Manager - IT Evolution Management Team - User Representatives - Support Organization - Other Key Stakeholders

Introduction

These activities are responsible for the life-cycle management of deployment projects. Deployment projects achieve the incremental roll out of the IT products to achieve a plateau's goals. Deployment projects may implement many approaches to roll out these products. This includes:

• Gradual release. This generally involves piloting, where the product is initially released to selected user communities during a trial period and gradually transitioned into full use. Gradual release may be used when there are significant training, resource, logistic, or operational risks to the deployment. It may be used, for example, when deploying to many dissimilar sites in a County-administered system. As the products are gradually rolled out, the HS Agency will be operating in a hybrid mode, using a combination of old and new applications, data, networking, platforms, and business and technical procedures. Interoperability between the old and new is required.
• Single release. When risk of deploying a product is low, the product may be placed into the operational environment with minimal coordination. This may occur for corrective or perfective maintenance releases or when the effect of a new technology is well understood.

The management techniques used on the deployment project should be specialized to accommodate the roll-out approach.

The lifetime of a project is assumed to be relatively short. Projects are considered complete once their products are in general use by the intended users, and responsibility for the operation and sustainment has moved to one or more operations projects.

The set of deployment projects, their products, and interproject relationships are documented in the IT Evolution Plan. Deployment project-level plans detail the project's tasks within that context. Projects may be separately managed or managed as a set.

Top

Activities

The basic fabrication management activities also apply to the deployment projects. You may refer to those activities for additional detail. Actions applicable to deployment projects are described below:

• Manage Product and Project Requirements. The IT Project Team should coordinate the deployment timetable among the affected stakeholders and note interdependencies in the IT Evolution Plan. The schedule should be synchronized with the business process and coordinated with the HS program users and management.

• Define Process. The IT Project Team should establish the processes and detailed procedures that are to be followed to deploy the IT products and data into the operational environment. Minimally, this includes key activities that are critical to ensuring that the deployed products work as intended and that individuals can effectively use them to support their work. This may require forming a pilot team to serve as a help desk on wheels, able to travel to and work directly with users during the transition.

• Plan the Project. The IT Project Team should prepare and maintain a detailed deployment plan with adequate resources for all deployment activities (travel, diagnostic tools, documentation). The plan will address the specialization of the developmental configuration for each site, such as loading site-specific data. Planned activities may include performing operational testing with site-specific scenarios, assembling and releasing the products, and installing onsite specific platforms. End-of-lifetime activities such as deactivating and removing retired applications and platforms are included. Advertising and marketing, training, pilot support, and inventory control activities should also be planned as needed.

• Monitor the Project. The IT Project Team monitors the deployment activities. They need to make and track commitments with the affected stakeholders. These items are generally noted as assumptions in the deployment plans (e.g., training users,  having adequate access to the site for installation, or defining expected networking infrastructure). These items may not be under direct control of the project. Assumptions regarding them may represent risks to the deployment project.

• Complete the Project. Once ownership has transitioned to the user community or HS program, the IT Project Team should collect, analyze, distribute, and archive the lessons learned and other project information, as appropriate.

Top

Roles and Responsibilities

The key roles and their responsibilities are as follows:

• IT Project Manager. This individual has primary responsibility for these activities, assisted by the IT Project Team and staff, which may include an Estimation Analyst or Contract Manager. An IT Project Manager may manage one or more deployment projects simultaneously.
• IT Evolution Management Team. These individuals, in particular the IT Evolution Manager, have oversight responsibility for all projects. The IT Project Team coordinates with the IT Evolution Management Team when planning and controlling the project.
• User Representatives. These individuals collaborate with the IT Project Team to provide details for planning and managing the deployment.
• Support Organization. Individuals with expertise in the QA or CM disciplines assist the management staff. They participate in the early project planning activities and provide oversight of the project practices and deployed products.
• Other Key Stakeholders. Any group or individual with a vested interest in a deployed product. This includes representatives of IT Project Teams from other interdependent projects, Pilot Team members, and HS program users and management staff. All coordination is controlled via the Deployment Project Plan.

Top

Artifacts

The following information is used or produced by these activities. Templates, examples, and checklists for identifying and documenting these items are available through the Additional Resources section at the end of this page.

• Deployment Project Plans. These work-level plans are the main product of these activities, updating the previous version, if it exists. They are used to guide the execution of all deployment activities, to coordinate actions with the stakeholders, and to report progress. They may include an Estimate of the Situation as necessary to document the conditions under which the project operates.
• Project Charter. The Project Charter sets the scope and explains the authorities of the deployment project management. It is the foundation for the management approach.
• Plateau Plan. The appropriate portion of the IT Evolution Plan identifies constraints and expectations for the project with regard to other interdependent projects. Deployment Project Plans must be consistent with the Plateau Plan.
• Support Plans. These plans are integrated into the overall project plans.
• Project or Product Requirements. This consolidates all the requirements and expectations imposed on the project from all sources: IT Evolution Plan, the HS Program staff, IT Division, the Project Charter (constraints), and others. These requirements are used as a basis of defining and planning the deployment project, such as key cutover dates. Project success is defined by how well the requirements are satisfied. Plans are updated appropriately when any of these change.
• A-TARS. The appropriate part of the A-TARS is used to guide technical management decisions for the project, such as the operational testing practices that are used.
• Waiver Requests. Projects file waivers to be relieved from mandatory A-TARS requirements.
• Waiver Approvals. Projects receive formal approval when they deviate from the A-TARS.
• Status. Task progress and issues from engineering, acquisition, or support activities are used to manage project tasks. Project status is summarized and provided to the IT Evolution Manager and other oversight authorities on a periodic and event-driven basis.
• Project Archives. Technical and management data from a project are archived for later analysis.
• Lessons Learned. These are formally captured and disseminated at project completion.

Top

Additional Resources

Resources applicable to this activity are cataloged below. Some items from the fabrication project management resources also may be used to perform the deployment project management activities. Lists of all available resources may be found in the Resources portion of the IT Planning and Management Guides.

Top