Stonebridge has established a Project Management Office (PMO) with a simple goal: to maximize client satisfaction by achieving project success, delivering high quality services, and managing stakeholder expectations.
While every client and every project is essentially unique, the best-practice methodologies and approach we follow in solving a client’s business problem must observe a level of consistency and discipline that is designed to achieve success. This includes an expected set of document templates and checklists, but also requires a set of comprehensive procedures and checkpoints to ensure proper execution of the solution methodology and observance of project management best practices.
Over the past 15 years, a variety of industry research studies has shown that the rate of challenged or failed software technology projects ranges from 65% to 75%. Further, the rate of project failure increases proportionately with the size and complexity of project scope. While there is a staggering amount of supporting statistical data to explain why or how projects succeeded or failed, Stonebridge has focused on the top five categories for project success and project failure as the focus around which our PMO has been built:
Top Five Factors of Project Success · User Involvement · Executive Sponsorship & Support · Clearly Stated Requirements · Proper Planning · Realistic Expectations |
Top Five Factors of Project Failure · Lack of User Involvement · Incomplete Requirements Specifications · Changing Requirements Specifications · Lack of Executive Support · Technology Incompetence
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By understanding these common factors, we have designed our PMO processes and procedures to encourage the activities that promote project success and avoid the pitfalls that often precede project failure by:
- Working directly with the business users and stakeholders to understand their challenges, objectives, and requirements
- Confirming the business need and motivation with the project sponsor
- Clearly capturing requirements, confirming them with the users, and designing corresponding test plans
- Providing experienced estimates of effort based specifically on requirements to create realistic project plans
- Providing transparency to the estimation process, project schedule, and project financials on a weekly basis to manage stakeholder and sponsor expectations
- Providing highly experienced resources to perform the problem analysis, design the solution architecture, develop the solution, and drive the implementation into production