Successful Large Conversion Projects...How to Guide
Implementing Project Management Requirements
Although start up activities are important in any conversion project, specifying and
implementing project management requirements is also essential in ensuring project
success. Project management requirements that must be implemented early on the
project are communication, problem resolution procedures, documentation of all project
assumptions and ground rules, and a discussion of overall project schedule milestones.
Establishing Communication Requirements
It is essential that all organizations involved in a large conversion project have specific
communication processes and procedures in place necessary for communicating general
project information, project progress, technical information, and any and all management
decisions and directives associated with the project. Because of the mere size of these
types of projects, communicating data to a large number of project team members
scattered across many cities, counties, and even states can be a daunting task. Therefore,
developing and implementing means of communicating information must be established
and maintained throughout the life of the project. In the NSP project, NSP developed and
implemented a communication program designed to keep project team members
appraised of project progress, and issues. Specifically, NSP developed a newsletter that
was published periodically with the intent of keeping all team members, and management
informed of current, and pending Geographical Information Systems (GIS) issues, and
project progress. This newsletter not only addressed the current conversion project, but
all projects associated with the entire GIS initiative.
Problem Resolution Procedures
In large conversion projects, there will always be technical issues or questions arising on
the actual conversion of source data. There needs to be a vehicle or process established
and implemented designed to handle questions of ambiguity. This process needs to be in
place and understood by virtually all stakeholders in the project and must be done at the
outset of the project. Technical issues are linked to schedule performance, thereby
making this process all the more important. In the NSP project, the Reconciliation or
RECON process was established specifically to handle this. This important process was
implemented across the project, and virtually all project members, from both NSP and
QC Data, knew the importance of the process. It is important to note that because of the
size of this project, strict control, tracking and resolution of each and every RECON was
maintained.
Documentation ofAll Project Assumptions and Ground Rules
As with all projects, there are often many ground rules and assumptions that are made
that impact the overall performance of the project. This was especially true for the NSP
conversion project. It was virtually impossible for every situation that came up during
conversion to be covered in the overall conversion or placement rules. Assumptions
and/or ground rules were made that governed certain situations. These ground rules and
assumptions were readily accessible and available to production staff during day to day
business. They were also reviewed periodically to ensure that they were current. As
things progress in the project, many assumptions and ground rules changed or no longer
become germane. Keeping assumptions and ground rules current proved to be another
key to successful conversion success.
Overall Project Schedule Milestones
Perhaps one of the most important Project Management requirements is to ensure that
key milestones are kept current and published. Particularly, major milestones of key
deliveries and major events need to be highly visible. All conversion projects are
generally schedule driven, with delivery often tied to other aspects of the GIS program.
Most of these aspects generally involve commitment of many resources and other key
activities. It is generally an integrated program. Therefore, contractors and all internal
organizations need to be cognizant of relevant delivery dates and other key milestones.
The NSP conversion project was tied to many milestones, all of which were linked in
some manner to other schedule milestones, which were part of the overall GIS program.
Any impacts to conversion dates generally impacted other downstream milestones. It
was; therefore, vitally important to maintain adherence to dates as much as possible.
Conduct Project Pilot
As in any conversion project, conducting a pilot program for a large conversion project is
essential for overall project success. The pilot program is so vital and provides
tremendous benefits for the overall project that it should not be overlooked. In the NSP
project, a pilot program was conducted and the specific benefits of conducting this pilot
are as follows:
- Processes were vertjied-, As with any conversion project, the actual conversion
process is the key to successful and quality results. In the NSP project, the actual
conversion process was developed and refined during the pilot program. This
provided the opportunity to determine which sub processes were working to
achieve maximum efficiency as well as to determine which ones needed to be
reengineered or improved upon.
- Conversion Specl~cation validation- The conversion specification needs to be
stabilized as much as possible prior to actual data conversion. In the NSP project,
careful evaluation of the specification occurred during the pilot phase and
adjustments were made. Once the pilot was concluded, the conversion
specification was frozen and changes were maintained under strict version
management control.
- Resource ver~&7cation-The project pilot should also be used to verify and
validate proper resource allocation. This is true for both human resources as well
as hardware, soflware, facilities and support equipment. Certainly, human
resources are the most critical in any conversion project and most important in
large and complex projects. The proficiency of the work force is often the key to
both schedule and quality performance. In the NSP project, the pilot program was
used to determine the proficiency of the work force, and appropriate training
programs were implemented as necessary. The pilot should was also used to
verify whether QC Data and NSP had sufficient processing capability. This was
important because at times the size of the deliveries were significantly large, and
that data processing oftentimes challenged the capacity of the processing
capability of QC Data, and the evaluation capability of NSP.
- Acceptance/Quality Assurance criteria- The pilot program provided NSP the
opportunity to review all acceptance and quality assurance criteria. Data was
submitted for review and acceptance and NSP reviewed it for completeness and
accuracy, ultimately accepting or rejecting the data. During this process, it was
often the case that NSP found that there were potentially many flaws in the actual
acceptance and/or quality assurance criteria. It was during the pilot that NSP and
QC Data reviewed these processes and procedures and made the necessary
changes. These changes were documented, reviewed with QC Data, and then
were "frozen" as part of a baseline for all data quality assurance and acceptance.
It was the ultimate criteria on whether QC Data performed to requirements.
