Organisation: Public Transport Authority
Job Title: Manager Project Management Office
Word Limit: Public Transport Authority
Location: East Perth
Having worked in the Program / Project Management Office (PMO) as a Senior Governance Analyst for the Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD) for the past four years, I have gained significant experience in a project management office environment. My experience has seen me manage a challenging and diverse portfolio of intermediate to complex level projects. These opportunities have provided me with invaluable experience, resulting in a skill set that efficiency manages projects regardless of their scope or duration. Within my current role, I am responsible for the facilitation and management of the PMO through the provision of specialist knowledge to the Program / Project Managers in order to assist them with managing various types of complex Information Communications Technology (ICT) and business process re‑engineering programs and projects ranging from thousands, to millions of dollars. An example of my achievements has involved the management of the ICT component for the Unique Student Identifier (USI) initiative for vocational education and training (VET). This was a nation-wide initiative that encompassed the update of all VET ICT systems to enable students to obtain a complete record of their VET enfoldments and achievements from a single online source. Additionally, it allows all of an individual’s training records, entered in the national VET data collection directory, to be linked. This project encompassed diverse sponsors, customers and users, and it was imperative that consideration was placed on business processes and rules, as well as the requirements of the other departments within DTWD.
All programs and projects that I manage require a solid working understanding of project management methodologies, and my success lies in my ability to clearly determine inter-related phases, activities and tasks that define the project process from the start through to completion. The complexities relating to each program and project stem from the need to collaborate with 5 different directorates, 20 branches of the Department, 11 State Training Providers (former TAFE colleges) with multiple campuses, as well as other related departments, including the Department of Education, Department of Education Services, and the Department of Regional Development. My close collaborations with key stakeholders ensure the accomplishment of wide-ranging products and business changes. Currently, the PMO is managing two ICT programs ($29 million) and 23 ICT projects ($6.5 million) simultaneously, with significant extent of interdependency.
The programs and projects that I work with have various costs, schedules and priorities and require me to demonstrate my extensive financial, budgeting and forecasting skills and experience. My expertise is utilised through the provision of assistance and advice to business units regarding developing business cases for all ICT related programs and projects, involving a wide range of stakeholders and scopes, to justify financial investment against desired outcomes and benefits. While undertaking this task, I consider the strategic level financial reporting for the ICT Governance Board where they require reporting against strategic initiatives rather than projects, and as such have implemented numerous techniques in adherence to this. These techniques have facilitated clear and transparent financial and budgetary forecasting that contributing to departmental cost savings. An example of this occurred subsequent to my analysing of program and project budgets and identifying that the budgetary and funding staff requirements greatly differed. This enabled me to clearly define an improved framework that includes the cost of operational staff in program and projects budget, however excludes the costs from the amount of total funding required, as in-house staff were often utilised as key resources. This in turn has reduced the need for high-level approval and has resulted in an increase in productivity and proficiency with funding approvals.
Additionally, my financial, budgeting and forecasting skills are demonstrated through the numerous dashboard reports that I provide which reflect financial performance information, as well as budget variances against projects and programs. Through analysing the results from the reports, I have implemented an ‘earned value technique’ which enables the probable budget overrun for a particular program or project to be clearly identified. This combined with my introduction of monthly reporting, enables me to flag early warnings to stakeholders regarding the probable variances, as well as to provide advice to Project Managers regarding maintaining costs within budgets. I additionally make suggestions to manage the exceptions, including re-scoping and re-estimating the budgets by taking the ‘must’ and ‘should’ scopes into account (disregarding the ‘could’ and ‘nice to have’ scopes) to reduce costs, and where funding is expected to go over budget, seeking approval to access contingency funds, as well as for new estimates. The implementation of these techniques enables me to easily track programs and projects and measure the amount of work actually completed, forecast the cost and completion date, compare the actual performance of the project versus the plan, and track the project’s budget in real time, thus ensuring the likelihood of meeting deadlines, accomplishing objectives and coming in, at or under budget.
Upon commencement of my current position as Senior Governance Analyst, I collaborated with the Director and made significant contributions towards developing the ICT Governance Framework, as well as the Program / Project Management Framework, which resulted in the establishment of the Program / Project Management Office (PMO). The frameworks ensure that the program and project management processes and methodologies are clearly defined, implemented and followed, that all programs and projects follow the same standard processes, and all benefits are managed and realised. Within my current role, I have utilised my extensive knowledge of factors that contribute to project success and as such, I have reviewed various documents, corporate strategies and directions for DTWD, including mapping the existing methods and processes regarding program and project management for the ICT branch, which is the largest branch of the Department. Subsequently, I have been successful in identifying the gaps, areas of improvement and compliance requirements and have accordingly designed program and project management methods and processes that are aligned to best practice (PRINCE2 and MSP) in the context of the Department. These have included essential program and project management product templates, strategies, procedures tools and guidelines that are in line with the strategic direction of all stakeholders, as well as the PMO. My experience and in-depth knowledge of preparing and reviewing procedures, policies and guidance tools relating to project management are demonstrated in the following documents that I have developed and implemented;
- Program / project management principles and guidelines for Project Managers and additional guidelines for the senior stakeholders report for the Governance Board, as well as the Project Dashboard Report for management committees, including the Project Board
- Templates for project mandate, project brief (includes brief business case), project plan, highlight report, exception report, and end of project report
- Varied templates and formats to incorporate different levels of reporting from minor to major initiatives
- Strategies, tools and techniques to manage communications, risks, quality control and benefits
I possess highly developed conceptual and analytical skills, and the ability to assess situations to create positive solutions. This includes the proven ability to analyse complex issues and prepare detailed reports relating to my findings, as demonstrated in 2014 when I conducted research to identify major reasons that were impacting project timelines, costs and stakeholder satisfaction. My process involved analysing reports from Project Managers for all projects over a period of time, reviewing the project Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID) register, as well as attending program and project meetings in order to identify the issues and stakeholder frustrations. Through undertaking this process, I was able to identify major issues, as well as the reasons behind the issues. In order to closely analyse the reasons, I ranked the top five issues as (1) Scopes were not fully identified and documented at the initiation stage, (2) Change of major stakeholders (such as sponsors and senior users) during project implementation, (3) Defect remediation time was not correctly estimated, (4) Dependencies were not adequately identified, and (5) Business sponsors and project product users were not sufficiently educated on project and change management. Subsequent to developing an individual solution for each of the issues, I detailed my findings and response in a report which I presented to Project Managers, Business Analysts and other major business stakeholders, as well as in a formal presentation to ensure that all relevant parties were well informed. My solutions involved updating the project brief and project plan templates by incorporating a checklist to ensure that scopes can be fully identified and signed off, while at the same time ensuring that the sponsor and senior user are adequately briefed regarding the scope and progress of the project in the case of change. Additionally, I have updated the RAID register and have added an additional row in the work breakdown structure table to demonstrate the defect remediation time prior to delivering the products, as well as made updates to the Lessons Learned Register. This register is now available to all program and project related staff to avoid future shortcomings. My skills and expertise have facilitated my ability to view the PMO and DTWD as a whole, as well as the relationships between the complexities of the programs and projects. This in turn has contributed to the overall improvement of program and project delivery within approved timeframes, while saving on overall costs and achieving consistent stakeholder s
