Situation

An area of Defence in Australia (that is responsible for the management of training areas) identified that older manual methods for running training areas had many shortcomings. In addition, the majority of target equipment and safety communications were reaching the end of their life.

A series of projects were initiated to upgrade target equipment hardware and software, and core management systems over a 3 year period. Projects were spread across Australia, and there was likely to be significant overlaps with parts of some projects contributing critical elements to other projects.

Significant R&D was needed in target system hardware and software. Plus it was decided to reengineer management processes and apply them consistently using information management systems developed from scratch.

Key Challenges

Key Challenges were:

1. The significant R&D required made scoping the projects difficult.
2. Projects evolved with later stages being dependent on the successful completion of earlier stages.
3. People involved were distributed across the country and existing practices varied widely.
4. Failure to successfully complete each project was unacceptable.
5. Funding was provided progressively, so work needed to be completed in discreet packages within funding periods and limits.

Tools to Manage Projects

The appropriateness of traditional project management tools (such as MS Project) was investigated. It was appreciated that this situation did not fit the single project with clear scope model required by traditional project management tools.

A tool was needed to:

1. Manage multiple projects, tasks and teams of widely dispersed people.
2. Have the flexibility required to accommodate changes in scope, priority and resources.
3. Keep track of small tasks (called actions or ToDos) required to complete tasks. This is a level of detail below that handled by traditional project management tools.
4. Explicitly show everyone involved what they need to do to keep the projects on schedule.
5. Provide as close to real-time feedback as possible, so quality decisions could be made in a timely manner. In particular, any slippage can be identified early.
6. Provide an audit trail, so actual work is recorded and successful processes could be templated.

Web-based TASKey TEAM software was identified as a tool that could both handle traditional project management requirements and the requirements detailed in 1. to 6. above.

Experience

TASKey TEAM has been employed for the last 3 years to manage 12 projects over the Defence Intranet. It kept all projects coordinated and provided each user with a clear list of what they needed to do to effectively contribute to projects.

Access has been easy from any Defence standard browser. Customized ToDo lists (that automatically updated as changes were made) kept participants focused on what they needed to do. Any changes that affected a user were quickly fed back, so users could adjust their personal work schedule accordingly.

The diverse range of projects was completed on-time, within cost to a high standard. Significant successful R&D was achieved in a timely cost effective manner. All users contributed by entering their relevant data in context. Feedback was provided in close to real-time, so slippages were managed at a low level and compound slippages were avoided.

The projects provided the foundation for the Defence entry into the Australian Prime Minister’s Award Competition for Excellence in Public Sector Management.

Return on Investment

The Return on Investment was that 12 complex projects (most requiring significant R&D) were completed on time, within cost and to a high quality with minimal people. Project managers agreed that traditional project management tools could not have achieved this outcome.

Savings were achieved from:

1. The number of coordination meetings required was reduced by an estimated 50% - as each user received a clear list of what actions were completed for a project, what they needed to do, and how their work interacted with other team members. Fewer meetings also saved travel costs and time, because TASKey TEAM was accessible from any Intranet browser.
2. Project managers received close to real-time updates (that directly related to the actions being done), so they were able to be proactive to eliminate potential problems when they were small.
3. Managers at all levels had more time to do their work and focus on leadership issues, because TASKey TEAM handled the critical coordination they normally have to do in their head.
4. Data entry was distributed to each team member, so critical data was entered in context and delays were eliminated. Data entry time was small compared to the time people normally spent telling supervisors and schedulers what they were doing.
5. There was no need for a scheduler to keep track of and update progress. TASKey TEAM did this work, so the scheduler’s costs were saved. Plus the costs associated with team members’ reporting to the scheduler were also eliminated.
6. Creating an audit trail was simplified, because the work performed was progressively recorded. In addition, creating templates of successful work processes reduced planning time and provided a benchmark for continuous improvement.
7. Writing project reports was simplified, because a record of key actions including the key people and relative timings were readily available. Consequently lessons learnt were based more on fact than the project team’s recollections.