The following outlines the roles and responsibilities of Department staff, Technical Support and the IT Project Management Office (PMO) as they relate to the project request, prioritization and implementation processes. Any of these roles can be assigned as a project resource:
Project Team:
Sponsor:
The project Sponsor is the Vice President or Associate Vice President with overall accountability for the project, who is primarily concerned with ensuring that the project delivers the agreed business benefits and who will provide informed support at the Cabinet level when a project is reviewed. Sponsor approves and signs off on the IT Project Scope document that defines the project and expected deliverables.
- Planning
- Assures required resources are available for the project
- Implementation
- Reviews and approves any changes to the Scope of the project
- Acts as an escalation point for critical decisions or to resolve issues
- Closing
- Signs off on Completed Project
- Assures Department Post Operational Support is in place
Requestor or Subject Matter Expert:
The Requestor may be the project Sponsor or an appointed person who submits the request on behalf of the Sponsor. Often times the Requestor is also the Subject Matter Expert (SME) who has expertise in a technical topic and is knowledgeable about the programmatic area being represented (but often not knowledgeable about the programming technology used to represent in the system.)
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Planning
- Using the Project Request Form, the Requestor will:
- Reach out to the PMO if assistance is needed with the Project Request Form
- Have a good understanding of the business problem to solve and its priority
- Articulate department needs and the future state or desired outcome
- Obtain Department Sponsor approval
- If applicable:
- Confirm funding
- Complete the IT Contract Review and Approval process
- Implementation
- Responds to assigned Tasks and completes them by due dates
- Provides project updates regarding their assigned tasks.
- Participates in regular project status meetings, as needed
- Escalates issues to Project Resource Manager or the PMO, as needed
- Closing
- Signs off on tasks (if assigned as a resource in the project)
Project Resource Managers:
Project teams are formed by members from various departments with various managers who must approve team resources and availability
- Planning
- Evaluates Project Requests to assess if department resources are required and available within the requested timeline
- Reviews request to confirm an understanding of the technical request or solution to assure the right resources are available and in place.
- Implementation
- Assures availability of resources
- Acts as an escalation point to resolve any applicable project issues or if tasks are not completed on time
- Participates in Project Meetings, as needed
- Closing
- Signs off on completed work
Programmers:
- Planning
- Reviews project request to confirm the code, architecture and design required
- Implementation
- Responds to assigned Tasks and completes them by due dates
- Participates in regular project status meetings and technical calls with vendors, as needed
- Escalates issues to Supervisor and/or the PMO, as needed
- Closing
- Signs off on completed work.
Project Management Office:
It may be a Director, Project Manager and/or Business Analyst who oversees the planning, implementation and closing of each project.
- Planning
- Holds meetings with Department staff prior to submission of IT Project Request, if needed
- Supports and Manages the Project Intake Process:
- Holds a project request review meeting with the requestor and stakeholders
- Confirms Scope and technical approach
- Identifies stakeholders and resources needed
- Implementation
- Coordinates implementation of all approved IT Projects
- Schedules projects with appropriate project team members
- Adds Project Plan and updates tasks, time and resources
- Schedules project kick-off meetings
- Manages communications for all projects
- Manages issues and changes
- Updates PMO project status reports
- Ensures projects are completed on schedule and within budget
- Closing
- Assures any operational documentation that is required (including Google Docs, TeamDynamix Knowledge Base Articles, etc.) is in place and available to end users
- Closes project, informs project team and all stakeholders that the project is complete and assures any necessary documentation is archived
Stakeholders:
- Usually include those who are responsible or accountable for the project work and can include those who need to be consulted and/or informed.
- Planning
- Informed at a high level of the project being requested and its status
- Implementation
- Informed of project status
- Closing
- Informed of project being closed
- Key Stakeholders are an individual, group, or organization who are directly affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of the project. Examples include:
- Students
- Faculty
- Staff
- Alumni
- Specific Departments or Colleges
- Surrounding Community
- Project Team Members
- Additional Stakeholders are an individual, group, or organization who are indirectly affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of the project. Examples include:
- Support Staff who need to be aware of, or support a new change (e.g., Campus Service Center, IT-Help Desk, Department Support Staff)
- Cross Functional Departments (e.g., a new Orientation System would impact multiple departments)
- Data Custodians (e.g., Housing systems that use Admissions and Records data)
- Data Reporters and/or Researchers (e.g., Institutional Assessment Research and Data Warehouse)
- Project Team Member Managers (Project teams are formed by members from various departments with various managers who must approve team resources and availability.)
- Executive Management (Campus leadership will want to understand any impacts to data, end user experience and cost.)